New South Wales woke up this month to find that the NSW Aboriginal Land Council (NSWALC), a peak body said to represent an estimated 23,000 members, had applied for three Petroleum Special Prospecting Authority licences covering roughly more than half the New South Wales land mass.
The Council’s chief executive, Geoff Scott, is reported in The Sydney Morning Herald as saying; None of the titles fell on land owned by Aboriginal people.
Although it quickly became apparent that many local aboriginal land councils and native title claimants on the NSW North Coast and elsewhere had been unaware of the Council’s plans, it is still puzzling to find the bizarre claim that no land owned by indigenous individuals or communities fall within these applications.
This map showing the application areas in shades of red-pink tells another story. On the New England-Clarence Valley-Mid North Coast application alone over twenty local aboriginal land councils are potentially affected by any prospecting licence granted to NSWALC (and its future joint venture partner) by the O'Farrell Government.
Click on image to enlarge.
Click on image to enlarge.
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