Community living areas
A community living area (CLA) is a small Aboriginal living area carved out from a pastoral lease. There are approximately 100 in the Northern Territory.
The Land Rights Act 1976
When the Australian Government passed the Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act 1976 it gave many Aboriginal Territorians a way to reclaim their traditional lands, or lands to which they have a historical connection.
But land that had been leased for a pastoral property, or for a mine or similar purpose, it was impossible to claim it back.
Small parts of pastoral leases are ‘crown land’ – stock routes and reserves. So in the 1980s, many Aboriginal people lodged a claim on one of those areas. Station lease-holders protested.
Governments compromise, CLAs emerge
Without consulting Aboriginal people, in 1989 the Australian and Territory governments agreed to:
- return some areas to traditional custodians
- amend the Land Rights Act so that it would no longer be possible to claim land used for stock routes or reserves
- make laws (in the Territory parliament) to enable Aboriginal people to apply for small CLAs to be carved out of pastoral leases
CLA’s are a good deal for Aboriginal people
For people who have been dispossessed of their traditional lands, CLAs are a small concession that they might be able to win (through a long and difficult process). For some communities, a CLA meant stronger tenure, because by the late 1980s they had no formal lease.
Many CLAs evolved from Aboriginal pastoral communities that formed in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when they negotiated a sub-lease or special-purpose lease from the main lease-holder. In order to transform that arrangement into a CLA, the residents were often forced to move further away from the station homestead so the CLA is not a silver bullet.
Each CLA title is held by a community corporation or association. It cannot be resumed by the government, or sold, and it enables Aboriginal people to prevent some mining and exploration.
The image on this page is an aerial photo of Alpurrurulam CLA, via its Bushtel profile and Google maps. Text on this page draws heavily on the Central Land Council page about CLAs.