Thursday 12th December, 2002

(ANTaR VIC media release)

YORTA YORTA FAILURE IS OUR FAILURE

Today the High Court ruled against the Yorta Yorta People’s appeal to have their native title rights acknowledged. The Yorta Yorta were appealing the decision of the Federal Court in 2001, which denied their native title claim.

"ANTaR Vic would like to express its extreme disappointment and utter frustration with the inability of the legal system and the current native title regime to deliver any justice to traditional owners and to fairly acknowledge the reality of the Yorta Yorta people's ongoing connections to their traditional land and culture.” ANTaR Vic Spokesperson Peter Lewis said today. “This is a disastrous outcome for the Yorta Yorta and for all native title claimants and indigenous communities in Victoria. It is a failure for us all and a monumental setback for reconciliation. After years of struggle, still the Australian community and the legal system is failing the first peoples of Australia.”

“ANTaR shares the Yorta Yorta's feelings of anger, frustration and sorrow over this decision. The failure of the courts to recognise that the Yorta Yorta have survived and maintained their connections despite forced relocation and dispossession demonstrates that other solutions must be sought to dealing with indigenous land rights. ANTaR knows well that the Yorta Yorta people are resilient and that their culture is strong. But by extinguishing the native title rights of the Yorta Yorta people, the courts have denied the community generally the opportunity to give some redress for past dispossession and to continue to claim, wrongly, that land is occupied free of any Aboriginal rights or interests.”

“Whether as a community we can retrieve anything meaningful for the Yorta Yorta is now up to the Victorian Government . It's time for Steve Bracks and his colleagues to move beyond mere rhetoric over mediation and finally sit down with the Yorta Yorta to return to them recognition and rights."

FOR COMMENT Peter Lewis 0417 529 142
Chris Atmore at the High Court