Native Title Working Group

Purpose and Role of the Native Title Working Group:

The working group's aim is to contribute to increased certainty with respect to native title rights and interests, by promoting the adoption of appropriate methods for defining native title interests and recording and exchanging relevant information about native title interests.  It does this through:

1. consultation with jurisdictional lead agencies and the National Native Title Tribunal
   
   
2. developing guidelines for the definition of claimed and determined native title interests
   
   
3. developing a National Data Model, associated Data Dictionary, Meta Data and guidelines for the recording and accessing of relevant information about native title interests
   
   
4. identifying issues to be addressed for the data model to be populated and maintained
   
   
5. advising ICSM of any other issues/areas where ICSM may be able to provide national leadership in the identification or presentation of the spatial component of native title interests

Achievements to Date

The jurisdictional lead agencies have been engaged through contact by the ICSM Working Group members.  The level of support by jurisdictional lead agencies is presently still variable.

The National Native Title Tribunal (NNTT) has been fully engaged with this ICSM project, through the membership of Peter Bowen from the NNTT on the Working Group.

A set of five principles for plan requirements for Native Title has been prepared.

The Working Group has categorised the range of events that have an impact on native title interests into 10 groupings:

• Native title claimant applications and what is claimed within them;
• Indigenous Land Use Agreements (ILUAs);
• Native title determinations;
• Non-claimant applications and section 24FA protection;
• Land to which the non-extinguishment principle applies;
• Compulsory acquisition of Native Title;
• Surrender of native title;
• Opinions concerning land on which Native Title has been validly extinguished;
• Right to negotiate process; and
• Compensation applications.

Work is progressing on identifying the relevant data types and attributes that are significant to each of these events. It would appear that no jurisdiction presently has a computer based system that addresses all these events, although some jurisdictions have systems that address some of them.

The Working Group is progressively identifying a range of technical, physical and political challenges that will need to be addressed in order for jurisdictions to meet the target of being able to populate a National Data Model of native title information.

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