Milirrpum v Nabalco Pty Ltd

Milirrpum v Nabalco Pty Ltd, (1971) 17 FLR 141 (the "Gove land rights case"), was the first litigation on native title in Australia. The decision of Justice Richard Blackburn ruled against the claimants on a number of issues of law and fact, rejecting the doctrine of Aboriginal title recognizing that in the law of the time of British colonisation of Australia there was a distinction between settled colonies, where the land, being “desert and uncultivated”, was claimed by right of occupancy, and conquered or ceded colonies. The term “desert and uncultivated” included territory in which resided "uncivilized inhabitants in a primitive state of society". The decision noted that the Crown had the power to extinguish native title, if it existed. The issue of terra nullius, later raised in Mabo v Queensland (No 2)(1992), was not contemplated in this decision.

Although Milirrpum was not appealed beyond the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory, it was overruled by the High Court of Australia two decades later in Mabo v Queensland (No 2) (1992).

Blackburn, in a confidential memorandum to the government and opposition, opined that a system of Aboriginal land rights was "morally right and socially expedient". The judgement concludes: "I cannot help being specially conscious that for the plaintiffs it is a matter in which their personal feelings are involved."

In December 1968, the Yolngu people living in Yirrkala, who were the traditional owners of the Gove Peninsula in Arnhem Land, obtained writs in the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory against the Nabalco Corporation, which had secured a twelve-year bauxite mining lease from the Federal Government. Their goal was to establish in law their rightful claim to their homelands.

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