The Wire

Attorney general Philip Ruddock has today added to the scaremongering surrounding this week’s successful native title claim by the Nyoongar people over metropolitan Perth. He says it could mean non indigenous people will be denied access to national parks and open urban spaces. Indigenous academic, author and Professor of Law at the University of Technology in Sydney, Larissa Berendt says far from being a threat to land owners, the claim should be seen as an opportunity to involve indigenous people in community decisions, and that as the decision was made on fact not on law a successful appeal is unlikely.