Talk:Yorta Yorta people

YORTA YORTA NATIVE TITLE LAND CLAIM

The Yorta Yorta mob were the first to log a Native Title Claim in the Federal Court of Australia, the claim was logged under the Native Title Act 1993 and was accepted by the Native Title Regsiter and sent to the Federal Court in May 1995 and the hearing started on the 8th October 1996,

By the 18 December 1998 , Justice Olney in the Federal Court gave his decision. He rejected the claim because he said, the Mod had lost their traditional connection to land around the 19th Century and in his judgment, he had relied largely on written evidence than any oral evidence that was given at the hearing.

Justice Olney's decided that written history held more value over oral history. He said that the traditional laws and customs was lost and the Mod of today had lost their traditional ties to the land.

Yorta Yorta Mod appealed this decision and it went before the Full Bench of the Federal Court, in the appeal the Yorta Yorta Mod argued that Justice Olney had looked for evidence of traditional laws and customs that have been frozen in time.

The appeal decision was 2 to 1, Justices Branson and Katz said that even if Justice Olney had 'mistakenly' looked for traditional laws and customs that were frozen in time, it was still open to him, on the facts, to conclude that native title was lost.

Chief Justice Black would have upheld the appeal,accepting the argument that the Judge had used an incorrect approach to assessing the evidence.

The case was appealed to the High Court and was heard in May 2002