Native title granted to Wirangu and Nauo people

After a 25-year wait, Justice O’Bryan met the Wirangu and Nauo people at Elliston Community Hall to deliver their native title consent determination. Representatives from the State of South Australia, the Commonwealth of Australia, and the District Councils of Elliston, Streaky Bay and Wuddina also attended.

“The Wirangu and Nauo people have shown great determination and great patience in pursuing their entitlement to have their traditional ownership of this Country recognised under the Australian legal system,” Justice O’Bryan said. “[They] have also shown a great respect for each other in recognising their mutual rights and interests in this Country.”

The formerly overlapping consent determinations were consolidated by Wirangu and Nauo during a mediation with the state and federal governments in July 2021.

Wirangu applicant and Elder, Jack Johncock, said the determination was “a credit to our people, our Elders, who had to come together quite a few times to compile evidence to prove to White Australia that we were once the people who owned this Country. And it’s sad that this is a process that we have, considering our genealogies have been here for thousands of years.”

“I’m hoping that Nauo and Wirangu work together constructively and creatively, to maybe look at [setting up] businesses in the area that both parties are going to benefit by.”

Nauo applicant and Elder, Jody Miller recognised past Elders, including his Auntie Marlene Weetra-Height, who started fighting for recognition over 30 years ago.

“This [consent determination] acknowledges who we are and where we’re from: to have the Nauo name put up in places where people can understand that this is our Country and what we’ve fought for,” he said.

“It’s been a long and hard struggle. This is our first native title handover and I know it’s going to be a big buzz for us. I’m also a Wirangu man, which is my mother’s side, so it’s just one big whammy for me and I’ll just try and hold the tears back today.”

Legal Counsel for the Nauo and Wirangu people, Susan Phillips, said it was a privilege to be “part of a long list of people who’ve worked with them for so long towards this determination.”

“This is the day for which the Elders – the source of their strength – have worked on claims that commenced more than 25 years ago in August and November 1997, and have continued with adaptations ever since.”

The determination area includes land and waters from the coast just south of Ellison to the north of Venus Bay, stretching inland to the Eyre Highway from Wudinna to Kyancutta.

Justice O’Bryan said, “the history of European settlement of this Country brought great hardship for Wirangu and Nauo people.”

“The first European explorers ventured here from about 1839 and the first sheep stations were carved out in the early 1850s. Settlement of the area was a contested and often violent frontier for a long period of time, severely impacting the Wirangu and Nauo people. Despite that, the Wirangu and Nauo people have continued to acknowledge their traditional laws and continue to observe their traditional customs.

“It’s important to emphasise that the determination of native title by the court today does not create native title in the determination area. Rather, it marks the recognition by the Australian legal system of the Wirangu and Nauo people long-held native title in this land, which has existed according to their traditional laws and customs since long before this determination and before the time of the assertion of British sovereignty.”

Wirangu has settled all their native title claims and Nauo anticipate another consent determination later this year