Day 1: Current Directions in the Native Title System

9.00-9.15 am – Acknowledgement of Country, Welcome and Housekeeping

Session 1: 9:15-10:30 am – Academic Keynote Presentation

Indigenous Australia as an object of knowledge and government, Professor Tim Rowse (Western Sydney University)

Governments committed to social justice for Indigenous Australians must base their programs of action on researched representations of Indigenous Australians. I will begin by naming four ‘trajectories of transition from assimilation to self-determination.’ Since the 1960s, they have given rise to the four projects that rest on recognising and positively evaluating ’Indigenous’ distinction: the Indigenous Land and Sea Estate; the Indigenous Sector; the Indigenous population; and the episodic quest for Indigenous constitutional recognition. I will develop four theses about this ensemble of actions: that the relationships among them are unpredictable; that they differ in the amount of political attention they receive; that criteria for evaluating their success are contestable; that they give rise to two contrasting Indigenous imaginaries – ‘people’ and population’ – on which rest two rival notions of justice/equality. I will then turn to the 2023 referendum, arguing that one way to interpret the strong No vote is that it was a contest between different understandings of ‘equality’. The No vote reflected the political ascendancy of the simple or formal notion of ‘equality’ (which discounts the political, legal and moral significance of Indigeneity) over the more complex, historical conception of equality that seeks a political settlement between Australia and the sovereign Indigenous peoples of Australia. I will argue that rather than see ‘racism’ in Australians’ preference for ‘simple equality’, it is more productive and hopeful to see progressive potential in that ideal. In pursuing that perspective, however, we should be prepared to reconsider the weight given to racism and colonisation as causes of ‘Indigenous disadvantage’.

Tim Rowse has been studying Australia’s settler colonial history since the early 1980s, usually writing as an historian, but informed by awareness of what anthropological research offers. His books include: Indigenous and other Australians since 1901 (2017); Rethinking Social Justice: from ‘peoples’ to ‘populations’ (2012); (with Murray Goot) Divided Nation? Indigenous affairs and the imagined public (2007); Obliged to be difficult: Nugget Coombs’ legacy in Indigenous affairs (2000); Indigenous futures: choice and development for Aboriginal and Islander Australia (2002); White flour, white power: from rations to citizenship in Central Australia (1998); Traditions for Health: Studies in Aboriginal Reconstruction (1996); After Mabo: interpreting indigenous traditions (1993); and Remote possibilities: the Aboriginal domain and the administrative imagination (1992). He retired from Western Sydney University in 2016. A book on the 2023 referendum, co-authored with Murray Goot, is in press. His professional practice has never included Implementation of land rights and native title.

10.30-11.00 am – Morning tea

Session 2: 11:00-12:30 pm – The Native Title System

Native Title System Challenges, National Native Title Tribunal President Kevin Smith

Kevin Smith is the inaugural First Nations President of the National Native Title Tribunal (NNTT). Kevin has over 28 years of experience in First Nations and native title law, and has held senior positions in several organisations, including Queensland South Native Title Services.

Economic Development and the Challenge of Making Rights Work, Professor Peter Yu

Peter Yu is a Yawuru man from Broome in the Kimberley with over 40 years’ experience in Indigenous development and advocacy at the state, national and international level and is the inaugural Vice-President (First Nations) at The Australian National University. He was Executive Director of the Kimberley Land Council during the 1990s and a member of the national leadership team negotiating the Federal Government’s response to the 1992 Mabo High Court judgement on Native Title. He was a key negotiator to the Yawuru Native Title Agreement and the inaugural CEO of the Yawuru Corporate Group and has been instrumental in the development of many community-based organisations and initiatives that have had an enduring influence on the Kimberley region. He has held a number of senior Indigenous representative positions over the course of his career. He is the current Chair of the First Nations Economic Empowerment Alliance (FNEEA) negotiating the first comprehensive Economic Policy Framework with the Commonwealth Government.

Pathways to Claims Resolution, Acting National Judicial Registrar – Native Title, Laurelea McGregor

Laurelea McGregor is currently acting as the National Judicial Registrar for the Federal Court since late 2025, having worked as a Judicial Registrar since 2018. Previously, Laurelea worked as a legal representative for Applicant groups in native title proceedings in WA and NSW and has been involved in the native title sector for most of her career.

12.30-1.30 pm – Lunch

Session 3: 1:30-3:00 pm – From Country to Sites

Conscripted words that make things fit: the misrepresentation of cultural contexture, Kingsley Palmer

I’m interested to explore some mainstream representations of spiritual place in Indigenous belief and practice and how this has informed and misinformed the manner whereby the state has sought to manage Indigenous heritage in conjunction with the continuing alienation of the land. Use of the term ‘site’ has become a principal agent in this process. In the paper I examine something of the origins and applications of the word (along with related terminologies). I argue that the use of these terms acts as a lens whereby Indigenous relationships to land are easily misrepresented and are integral to the process whereby acts of alienation can be legitimated. Summary examination of Indigenous relationships to place as anthropologists have come to understand them, particularly in the native title process, leads us to ask pertinent questions as to how spiritual values are to be understood and their integrity sustained in post-colonial Australia.

Kingsley Palmer is a consultant anthropologist specialising in the field of native title in Australia. He has conducted extensive research in numerous areas of rural and remote Australia, prepared many expert reports and been called as an expert witness for cases brought before the Federal Court. He has published widely on the practice of anthropology within the native title context and on the anthropologist as expert. He is the author of Australian Native Title Anthropology: Strategic Practice, the Law and the State which is available open access from ANU Press (https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/australian-native-title-anthropology).

‘Sites’ and Heritage in Eastern Australia, Michael Westaway

This presentation examines the role of archaeological sites and heritage regimes in mediating Aboriginal connections to Country under conditions of colonial disruption. Drawing on case studies from eastern Australia, it explores how heritage legislation and site-based research have both constrained and enabled the recognition of Aboriginal relations with land. In Queensland, a legislative focus on tangible sites – exemplified by the Harris prosecution – reveals the limits of site-based protection while also creating openings to protect broader landscapes through collaboration with Indigenous people. To exemplify this point, I focus on my own collaborations with Mithaka people in southwest Queensland, where archaeological surveys have played a role in supporting contemporary reconnections to Country. I argue that where local knowledge has been fragmented or lost, site-based heritage work can function as a creative and reparative practice, and ultimately a catalyst enabling the re-establishment of connections to Country.

Michael Westaway is a Professor of Archaeology in the School of Social Science and former ARC Future Fellow. He has worked extensively across eastern Australia. He studied under Isabel McBryde at the Australian National University and in 2024 was awarded the UQ Award for Excellence in Reconciliation on the basis of his Mithaka research.

Country and Sites in the Northern Territory, Lucinda O’Connor

Lucinda O’Connor is the Heritage Advisor at the Northern Land Council (NLC) and currently acting Manager, Native Title Anthropology. Prior to Lucinda’s employment at the NLC, she worked as an archaeologist and heritage consultant in New South Wales, specialising in Aboriginal archaeology and community consultation. Since joining the NLC in 2022 as a native title anthropologist and a heritage advisor from 2024, Lucinda has contributed to multiple native title claims, including overseeing two claims that received positive determination of native title in the Federal Court of Australia. Lucinda is the first dedicated heritage advisor at the NLC and in this role is responsible for providing advice to the NLC in developing stronger heritage processes and protections through agreement making and integrating these principles into existing anthropological practice. This work has given Lucinda experience on how native title work can assist in strengthening protections of “heritage” through existing legislative frameworks and where they can be improved.

3:00 – 3.30 pm – Afternoon tea

Session 4: 3:30-5 pm – Current Jurisprudence and Approaches to Claim Resolution

Recent Jurisprudence and its Relevance for Native Title Anthropology, Vance Hughston SC and Tina Jowett SC, Francis Burt Chambers and 6 Windeyer Chambers

Within the last 3 months, the Federal Court published three significant judgments concerning the role of anthropologists in native title proceedings. Vance Hughston SC and Tina Jowett SC will present an overview of these three cases: Dimer on behalf of the Marlinyu Ghoorlie Claim Group v State of Western Australia [2025] FCA 1641 (Dimer), Smallwood on behalf of the Bindal People #2 v State of Queensland [2025] FCA 1668 (Smallwood) and Blucher on behalf of the Gaangalu Nation People v State of Queensland [2025] FCAFC 177 (Blucher).

The relevant issues to anthropologist from these cases are as follows:

Dimer: Expert evidence should be limited in use when anthropologists do not rigorously analyse the material before them, fail to support their findings confidently in court or provide conclusions that exhibit personal biases regarding certain parties involved in the proceeding. Additionally, while Dimer highlights the need for experts to avoid conflicts of interest when producing court-ordered reports, it acknowledges that such conflicts are often unavoidable and can be addressed through full and frank disclosure.

Smallwood: Similar to Dimer, expert evidence should be limited when anthropologists’ opinions lack rigorous analysis of the data or fail to present findings that are relevant to the legal issues at hand. Furthermore, when addressing issues pertinent to the law, anthropologists should refrain from drawing inferences that lead to conclusions that are unlikely to be accurate. Smallwood also deals with the issues of what constitutes a society by following on from Malone on behalf of the Western Kangoulu People v State of Queensland (No.6) [2025] FCA 363 that contains a clear and concise statement of the requirements of s 223(1)(a) and (b) of the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth).

Blucher: The Full Court emphasised that although courts are not obligated to accept anthropologists’ expert opinions, a failure to explain why such views are rejected may provide grounds for a successful appeal.

For over 20 years Tina Jowett SC has been briefed in numerous native title trials, appeals and advice work and is listed in Doyle’s Australian Guide and Chambers and Partners International barrister rankings. She appears throughout Australia for, and advises, most Native Title Representative Bodies (NTRB), a number of government parties and mining proponents. More recently, Tina appeared before Justice Burley for the Yindjibarndi People in the important compensation claim against Fortescue Metals Group and the State of Western Australia (the judgment is reserved). Tina’s expertise in native title meant that she was a strong candidate when appointed as General Editor of Australia’s only native title quarterly publication: LexisNexis’s Native Title News. She regularly presents at continuing professional development seminars and trains lawyers and anthropologists about relevant developments in the law (including at past CNTA conferences and at Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies NTRB workshops).

Vance Hughston SC was appointed Senior Counsel at the NSW Bar in 2001. Mr Hughston has extensive experience in many areas of the law but specialises in native title and native title related matters. He has advised and appeared for Indigenous and for non-Indigenous parties in native title and native title related matters in most Australian States and Territories. This has included many lengthy trials as well as numerous appeal hearings before the Full Federal Court and the High Court. In 2014/2015 Mr Hughston was a member of the Australian Law Reform Committee’s Native Title Inquiry Advisory Committee. He is also the author of a chapter on “Proving Native Title” in Perry and Lloyd’s Australian Native Title Law (2nd Ed.) The 2025 Doyle’s Guide ranks Mr Hughston as Preeminent amongst Australia’s native title Silks. The 2025 Chambers Asia-Pacific Guide also gives him its highest Silk’s ranking (Band 1).

Updates on Claim Resolution Approaches in the Northern Land Council and Yamatji Marlpa Aboriginal Corporation Areas, Wendy Asche and Amy Usher

Wendy Asche is Manager of the Anthropology Branch at the Northern Land Council (NLC). Wendy has long term experience as an applied anthropologist. She began at the Northern Land Council as a Native Title Anthropologist in 1996 and worked in various capacities on the first eight test cases that went through to Hearing in the Top End of the Northern Territory. Wendy then went to UQ as a Fellow in 2008, working with Prof David Trigger to enable capacity building of anthropologists in the native title arena. In 2013 Wendy became a consultant working in Qld, NT, SA and WA. One matter she co-authored was the successful Timber Creek compensation test case. In 2022 Wendy returned to the NLC as Manager of the Anthropology Branch, which is now the largest employer of anthropologists in Australia, having 25 anthropologists and another 25 allied staff including archaeologists, GIS specialists, archivists and administration officers.

Amy Usher is the Research, Country and Culture Services Manager at Yamatji Marlpa Aboriginal Corporation (YMAC) and has been with YMAC since 2012. Prior to her current role, Amy worked as the Research Manager, Senior Anthropologist and Anthropologist in the Pilbara, Midwest and Gascoyne-Murchison regions. She studied Anthropology and History at the University of Western Australia and Curtin University, completing her Honours in Anthropology in 2009 and Foundations of Directorship certificate through the AICD in 2023. During her time with YMAC, Amy has worked on multiple native title matters as a researcher and provided anthropological support and advice on a variety of native title claims, including litigated matters and an alternative settlement. Since 2013, Amy has been involved in the delivery of comprehensive native title training for anthropologists, offered to both in-house staff and external professionals working in the industry. Amy’s work has also involved engaging with Traditional Owners and Prescribed Bodies Corporate across all of YMAC’s represented regions on a wide range of issues including, membership, policy development, healthy country planning and heritage protection. Since 2017, Amy has been managing YMAC’s Return of Research projects, including developing internal policy and processes and liaising with PBCs around external policy and advice.

5:00-6:00 pm Networking Event, UQ Anthropology Museum, Level 1, Michie Building, St Lucia

Join us for social drinks, canapes, and a pre-launch viewing of the UQ Anthropology Museum’s new exhibition: Shields, Design and Functionality.

Day 2: Key Concepts and Practice Issues in Native Title Anthropology

Session 5: 9:00-10:30 am – Jigsaw Workshop

Foundational Anthropological Concepts and their Contemporary Application in Native Title

Prior to the workshop you will be allocated one of four readings. To participate in this activity, please complete this reading and reflect on its contemporary relevance in the native title system. Please reflect on the following questions: (1) What are the key points made by the author? (2) To what extent does the article inform an understanding of contemporary native title issues in the area(s) in which you work? (3) Do you have any points of critique about the article? (4) What other (more recent) anthropological research might be relevant to addressing the matters raised in the article?

10:30-11:00 am – Morning Tea

Session 6: 11:00-12:30 pm – Contemporary Approaches to Understanding Gender in Native Title Anthropology

Post-Classical Transformation of Social Organisation: Genealogies, Gender, and Other Implications for Claims, Professor Francesca Merlan (Australian National University)

Land and native title claims have been one major stimulus to research concerning Aboriginal social organisation, both `classical’ and `post-classical’ (Peter Sutton’s terms). However, the claims agenda of the last four to five decades has not gone on in a simply `objective’ context, but one that has encouraged careful consideration in claims processes of the extent to which certain `classical’ characteristics (such as a continentally widely found patrifiliative emphasis in small-scale local structures) may, in their relative clarity, be appropriate models for claims; versus the extent to which claims models need to shed light on and argue the relevance of contemporary social organisation and its characteristics (such as emphasis on cognatic land-holding groups, and focus in native title on apical ancestry and bloodlines). I will discuss and illustrate some of these `post-classical’ social organisational emphases, consider what may be their implications for gender relations, and hope to encourage discussion from others on these points.

Francesca Merlan was a professor of anthropology in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University, from 1995 to 2021. She has done research on culture and language, especially in the Katherine region of the Northern Territory since 1976, and research in Papua New Guinea with Alan Rumsey from the 1980s. Over many years she has been senior anthropologist, judge’s assistant, witness and commentator in land and native title claims in the Northern Territory and elsewhere in northern and southern Australia

Gendered Knowledge, Affective Inference, and Uncertainty in Central Queensland, Senior Lecturer Kim de Rijke & Associate Professor Richard Martin

Gendered knowledge in Indigenous contexts is often analysed as either (a) an expression of a stable classificatory system transmitted across time, or (b) as eroded under conditions of disruption and transformation. Drawing on ethnographic data about Central Queensland, this presentation identifies affective inference as a third mode through which gendered places, restrictions, and knowledges are constituted from feelings of embodied ease and unease. We argue that attention to affective inference helps explain the continuing – indeed, often striking – relevance of gender in settings where direct knowledge of the classical past is partial, contested, or absent, yet the landscape continues to be seen as potentially dangerous and probably replete with gendered restrictions. Rather than treating uncertainty as a deficiency of contemporary knowledge, we consider how it continues to generate gendered connections to places in settings like Central Queensland. We conclude by posing questions about the analysis of such uncertainty in contemporary native title practice.

Kim de Rijke and Richard Martin worked on neighbouring claims for the Gaangalu Nation People around Woorabinda and Western Kangoulu people around Emerald in Central Queensland. They teach anthropology at the University of Queensland and are co-Directors (with Wendy Asche) of the Centre for Native Title Anthropology.

Reflections on Gender in the Central Australian Indigenous context, Rebecca Koser

Based on 23 years at the Central Land Council in Alice Springs I will reflect on gender in the Central Australian Indigenous context. These reflections from within the Central Land Council that holds the knowledge of those it aims to represent will touch on how the Land Council has navigated gendered knowledge during the organisation’s 50 year history, how Land Council constituents speak in the more public sphere and in the not so public sphere about gender roles, land ownership, who has the authority to make decisions, and the gendered landscape and what this may mean in for the organisation’s anthropologists in the future.

Rebecca Koser started on a Science degree (Majoring in Marine Biology) at James Cook University in Townsville in 1995, but after taking an elective in Anthropology switched over to Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Anthropology. The final year of undergraduate study and postgraduate Honours were completed at the University of Queensland. Her thesis analysed the use of the “Sacred” in Australian anthropological texts, which included the gendered use of the term in early texts. Rebecca moved to Alice Springs in 2002 and started working as a genealogist at the Central Land Council (CLC) that same year. Rebecca is still at the CLC, after working in the Native Title Researcher role, as the Plenty Regional Anthropologist with the Eastern Arrernte, as a senior Anthropologist and now as the manager of the Anthropology section.

12:30-1:30 pm – Lunch

Session 7: 1:30-3:00 pm – Changing Land Tenure Systems

Land Claim Legacies, Native Title, and Changing Traditional Land Tenure Systems in the Gulf Country, Professor David Trigger

Drawing on long-term research in the Gulf Country across the Northern Territory-Queensland border, this paper examines how Indigenous connections to Country have changed in the context of land claims, native title, and resource development. While contemporary Waanyi and Garawa people stress continuity of law and custom, disputes about ownership and benefit distribution reveal more flexible and dynamic forms of connection than those documented in earlier decades. This presentation argues that expert practice must engage frankly with cultural change and knowledge loss and avoid rigidifying customary law through the uncritical reuse of earlier anthropological research if it is to remain analytically sound.

Professor David Trigger has conducted long-term fieldwork in the Gulf Country, with particular attention to how Indigenous connections to Country are negotiated in the context of land claims, mining, and native title recognition. His recent memoir Shared Country, Different Stories: An anthropologist’s journey is available open access from Berghahn (https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/TriggerShared).

Dealing with Changing Land Tenure Systems, Cultural Change, and Loss of Knowledge and Connection in Victoria, Dr Michael O’Kane

Aboriginal land tenure systems in Victoria have, of necessity, undergone significant change since colonisation and under the influence of British/Australian law. While an important body of knowledge concerning cultural practice has been retained, this change has been accompanied by a significant loss of cultural knowledge as it pertains to religious/spiritual knowledge of ‘country’. Cultural loss of this kind is particularly apparent with regard to the large ceremonial sites along the Murray River which have, in the native title era, become sites of conflict over identity and ‘ownership’ between related families claiming primary rights and interests on a similar, or identical, basis. This presentation will signpost the fundamental changes in land tenure that have occurred along the central Murray riverine since colonisation and identify some of the repercussions of the loss of cultural knowledge regarding contemporary understandings of land tenure in Victoria.

Dr Michael O’Kane is a consulting anthropologist with Anthropos Consulting Services in the field of native title. Until recently, he led the research team at First Nations Legal & Research Services from 2019 – 2026, as Research Manager and Research Director. Prior to this, he was a Senior Anthropologist between 2011-2017 at NTSV/FNLRS. In 2018, he was appointed Director of Research and Business Development/Senior Anthropologist at the NNTT before re-joining FNLRS in 2019. He is an experienced field anthropologist who has worked and consulted extensively throughout Victoria and southern New South Wales, Central Australia, Northern Australia, the Pilbara region of Western Australia and the Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands in South Australia. He has also conducted field research with environmentalists in the Republic of Ireland and with Dairy Farmers throughout Victoria. Michael is a published author and has held lecturing, tutoring and research positions variously at Monash University, Latrobe University, the University of Melbourne and Victoria University. He also currently holds the position of Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at Latrobe University.

Local and Social Organisation and their Relevance in Overlapping Claims, Louise Allwood

Many of the remaining native title claims fall in the ‘too hard basket’, as competing assertions of land ownership have resulted in overlapping claims of native title. This presentation argues these situations are not necessarily contemporary manifestations of loss of connection or continuity but may also be seen in some cases as the result of an ongoing interplay of traditional laws and customs surrounding local and social organisation, albeit in a slightly adapted form.

Louise Allwood has recently taken up the position as Manager of the Centre for Native Title Anthropology (CNTA). She completed her Bachelor of Social Science with a double major in Anthropology and Archaeology and Honours in Anthropology at James Cook University (JCU). Louise has over sixteen years’ experience working as an applied anthropologist in the native title sector. During her fourteen-year tenure at the North Queensland Land Council (NQLC), Louise held the position of Research Unit Manager for seven years. More recently she has worked at the Northern Land Council (NLC) for two years. During this time, she held the position of Senior Native Title Anthropologist and Acting Manager, Native Title Anthropology. She has contributed on many native title claims across Central and Far North Queensland and in the Northern Territory, which have received successful determinations of native title. She has also contributed on the McArthur River Project Compensation Claim and on major projects including the SunCable Australia-Asia Power Link Renewable Energy Project in the Northern Territory and the Department of Defence Australia-Singapore Military (Greenvale) Training Area Project in Central Queensland. Louise has recently published a reflection on her lived experience working in the applied field of native title anthropology. The article can be viewed at https://drr.scholasticahq.com/section/1920-professional-reflections

3:00-3:30 pm – Afternoon Tea

Session 8: 3:30-4:30 pm – Summary and Evaluation, followed by a social dinner (location to be confirmed)