Native title in Australia
law of Australia
Native title is the set of rights, recognised by Australian law, held by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups or individuals to land that derive from their maintenance of their traditional laws and customs. These Aboriginal title rights were first recognised as a part of Australian common law with the decision of Mabo v Queensland (No 2) in 1992. The Native Title Act 1993 subsequently set out the processes for determining native title.
The Court's determination of native title recognises that a continued beneficial legal interest in land held by an Indigenous claim group over identified land survived the Crown's acquisition of radical title and sovereignty. Native title can co-exist with non-Aboriginal proprietary rights and in some cases different Aboriginal groups can exercise their native title rights over the same land.
The term native title can refer to the title held under traditional law and custom, as well as the common law recognition of that right.
An Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander group ('claim group') lodges a native title claim over specified land in the Federal Court of Australia. The claim is referred to the National Native Title Tribunal (NNTT) that applies the "registration test" that determines whether a claim progresses. The relevant state or territory becomes a respondent to the claim, and any other interested parties will also join as respondents.
The Court hears applications for, and makes, native title determinations.
The public source identifies “Native title in Australia” as law of Australia. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Native, title and Australia.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1969638. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1992 and 1993.
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This entry incorporates text from “Native title in Australia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.