ABSTRACT
This penultimate chapter now turns to the development of alternative approaches to land reform in communities on Indigenous land. This is not a situation where careful analysis is able to identify a single form of best practice, because views as to what constitutes best practice will vary depending on certain fundamental understandings. Part of the work of this chapter is to identify those understandings and clarify their relationship to land reform. Rather than suggesting a particular land reform model, the chapter describes a framework for deciding how an alternative model might be developed. This is presented as a two-step process, as set out in Section 8.2. The first step is to identify the main variables, or what it is that requires decision, while the second step deals with the question of how those variables should be decided upon. The main variables are the identity of the ‘underlying landuse authority’, the approach taken to the allocation of land and the form of tenure granted to occupiers. In terms of how these variables should be approached, there are three sets of issues – referred to here as the ‘three cardinal issues’ – that are most important. The three cardinal issues are an assessment of market conditions, understandings of benefit provision and models of governance. Their exact meaning is explained further below. Ideally, these three cardinal issues need to be addressed before a land reform model is developed, rather than during or after. This is a departure from existing approaches in Australia, where land reform itself has been treated as the starting point, perhaps in the hope that through the ‘resolution’ of tenure the answer to other, more difficult questions might become clearer. It is argued here that this approaches the task from the wrong direction. Land reform is not a precursor or preliminary step; it is the implementation of a development model, the key elements of which are determined by the ‘three cardinal issues’. The preferred approach to these issues needs to be made clear so that land reform can be implemented in a manner that is consistent with, and not undermining of, long-term development goals.
