Land Rights
The federal and state governments have taken the opposite approach in indigenous land rights by passing legislation that changes the effects of court decisions and limits aborigines' ability to pursue land claims. aboriginal claims to traditionally inhabited land, which consist of demands that the majority of the white culture recognize aborigines' rights as the original inhabitants, have emerged at the top of a national debate. The hope was that a larger recognition of these traditional rights, also known as "native title rights," would begin a process of reconciliation between aborigines and white Australians. The aborigines' land claims, however, present complex legal questions, such as whether native title can be recognized without threatening private interests in the land that have evolved in Australia over the past 200 years.