Plenty of homeland but frustration on home ownership

At the spectacular Dampier Peninsula. Picture: Bardi Jawi Niimidiman Aboriginal Corporation

The spectacular peninsula north of Broome should be the basis of economic security for the approximately 1000 Bardi and Jawi people who live there.

Sadly, this is not the case. Our victories in the courts to secure our native title rights have failed to sweep away state government control.

I am an Indigenous lawyer from Yamatji country in the midwest of Western Australia working for the Bardi and Jawi people in the state’s far north Kimberley region. The Bardi and Jawi live on what is known as the Aboriginal Lands Trust estate.

It is a relic of the missions era. It has been bipartisan policy for decades to sign over the estate to traditional owners – and with it the rights and responsibilities for managing their own communities and futures – but progress has been painfully slow. Western Australia governments on both sides of politics have handed back land one parcel at a time but 8.7 per cent of the WA landmass remains in the Aboriginal Lands Trust.

The Bardi and Jawi people live on 16,000ha of the Aboriginal Lands Trust. The state government has repeatedly committed to divest it to the traditional owners’ native title organisation, the Bardi and Jawi Niimidiman Aboriginal Corporation that I work for.

The Bardi and Jawi want that responsibility. They want that risk. They have a vision for their homelands on the Dampier Peninsula that includes individual home ownership and tourism ventures that can properly capitalise on the curiosity of grey nomads. Since 2021, when the road from Broome north to Ardyaloon was sealed, visitors come in their thousands every year to Bardi and Jawi country.

What the traditional owners can offer them is very limited because they do not have secure land tenure. They can’t put up so much as an ablution block for their cultural tourism guests. They are locked into renting their homes for life because of this absurd arrangement.

We have the capacity to engage seriously in land tenure reform. Bardi and Jawi people think seriously about this subject because it is about their futures and their children’s futures. They have started what they call the Niimidiman Shared Country – Shared Voice Project to propel their economic vision. Critical to that vision is the Bardi and Jawi people’s ability to own and manage their own land and engage in the global economy.

They are asking for funding for the Niimidiman Project through the federal government’s Regional Precincts and Partnerships Program, which aims to empower regional communities through transformative investments. The Bardi and Jawi people’s aspirations seem a perfect fit for this program but here we are, still waiting for an outcome on our application submitted back in March 2024. How much longer must we wait for our hopes to be realised?

The Niimidiman Project sets out an inclusive pathway for regional development incorporating the Bardi and Jawi native title corporation, the Ardyaloon Incorporated and Djarindjin Aboriginal Corporation, the WA government, federal government, and the Shire of Broome.

However, the Bardi and Jawi people cannot afford to finish vital elements of the plan, including due diligence, engaging its own independent specialists and town planning experts to help unlock the land and to plan how it will pay for local government services like rubbish collection.

In November 2023, we also gave the WA government a plan for the divestment of the Bardi and Jawi people’s homelands out of the Aboriginal Lands Trust and into the control of the traditional owners.

We want to collaborate with all tiers of government on our land tenure reform agenda and open investment and home ownership opportunities, and improve the cultural, social and economic outcomes for all who call our traditional lands home.

Bardi and Jawi traditional owners are frustrated by this inertia. What we are trying to do has broad support from the organisations it is likely to affect, including neighbouring tourism businesses owned by non-Indigenous interests.

There is a real sense of urgency for the government to act. Australians may think Aboriginal people have control over a lot of land but in reality large tracts of it are not fundable, tradeable, usable land title. That is the predicament the Bardi and Jawi people find themselves in.

For the Bardi and Jawi people, doing nothing means the continued deprivation of opportunities and the perpetuation of the status quo.

We think tenure reform projects should be enshrined in policy and funded to facilitate the transition of land and resources to Aboriginal control.

This issue represents a key opportunity to address a known problem with available solutions.

Gareth Ogilvie is executive officer of the Bardi and Jawi Niimidiman Aboriginal Corporation.