ABSTRACT
The dispossession of land and destruction of the natural environment destroyed the basis of indigenous people's spiritual, cultural, and legal systems and consequently the return of land is considered key to their survival as distinct peoples. The preamble to the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation Act 1991 also grounded the need for the process on colonial dispossession and its legacy. This chapter discuses the trajectory of indigenous rights to land during the reconciliation period. It focuses on the second major land rights case of the reconciliation period, the Wik decision, and the Federal Government's response. The chapter outlines the government and commercial lobby public relations campaign of misinformation, which aided a contemporary 'land grab' of enormous proportions and further dispossessed indigenous peoples during an official reconciliation process that was supposed to address indigenous aspirations in relation to land and justice. It also discusses the human rights implications of the Howard government's response to Wik: the Native Title Amendment Act 1998.
