Native title meeting invalid?

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p2144-16-MileBy ERWIN CHLANDA
 
The Bray family has not been acknowledged as a member of Ilpme, one of the three estate groups making up Lhere Artepe (LA), the native title organisation for Alice Springs, according to a source speaking on condition of not being named.
 
But Russell Bray says the meeting was “stacked” and invalid because it was called not by directors of the organisation, but by members.
 
He says some 300 people are members of the estate group and only some 40 attended.
 
A further meeting will be held at McGrath Dam, Mr Bray says.
 
The source says the decision today is subject to further evidence the Brays may be presenting to LA, and if it is found to be convincing, today’s decision will be overturned.
 
If that is not the case, the Brays will be asked to leave on outstation they have set up recently north of Alice Springs, at 16 Mile Creek, west of the Stuart Highway (a part of the land is pictured).
 
Two votes were taken today – both about 28 to six against the Brays. About six people abstained, says the source.
 
The issues affecting the Bray and Tickner families have been the subject of  substantial hostilities in the past weeks.
 
Mr Bray has also put the issues before the full meeting of the Central Land Council in Tennant Creek recently. He says his and his family’s traditional owner status was confirmed, as was their “belonging” to that land, 88 votes to nil.
 
However, at today’s LA meeting the view was taken that the Bray land is further to the north, between Burt Creek and Mount Riddock, according to the source.
 
 

3 COMMENTS

  1. Let me make a point here: CLC members (a mixture of different tribes) cannot vote Traditional Ownership on or to Arrente country.

  2. I think they are relying on one of Strehlow’s geneologies to advance their claim. Unfortunately Strehlow only recorded conception sites. Not the father’s fathers country or mother’s fathers country. These are what you pass to your children. Obviously your kids will have their own conception site.

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