Brennan, Sean --- "Compulsory acquisition of native title land for private use by third parties" [2011] UNSWLRS 16

Last Updated: 11 March 2011

Compulsory acquisition of native title land for private use by third parties

Sean Brennan, University of New South Wales

This paper is available for download at http://law.bepress.com/unswwps/flrps11/art16/

Citation

This article was published in the Public Law Review (2008) 19 pp. 179-185.

Abstract

The High Court decision in Griffiths v Minister for Lands, Planning and Environment [2008] HCA 20; (2008) 235 CLR 232 concerned a challenge to compulsory acquisition notices issued over native title land in the Northern Territory. The legal significance of the case is that a High Court majority expressed no particular anxiety over the use of compulsory acquisition powers to deliver the property of one private owner into the hands of another. It suggests an even more permissive attitude to “private-to-private transfers” than Kelo v City of New London 545 US 469 (2005), one of the most controversial decisions of the United States Supreme Court in recent years. The practical significance of Griffiths is that it confirms the special vulnerability of native title land in towns and cities in the Northern Territory and potentially other jurisdictions as well.