Court Ruling Proves Land Grants Covering Wiradjuri Are Illegal: Interview With Uncle Paul Towney

Proud Wiradjuri descendant Paul Towney will be appearing in Orange Local Court on 9 September, as he faces a charge of trespass, due to his having occupied land that is said to be owned by Charles Sturt University. The 2,000-odd acres of land he was arrested upon in early February are located on Wiradjuri Country in the NSW regional town of Orange.

Towney continued to occupy the land in February, despite being requested to leave, as he planned on getting arrested. The reason for his occupation and purposeful arrest were that he’d become aware that the land he was occupying and a whole lot of other parcels that had been distributed, via land grants issued by then NSW Governor Thomas Brisbane between 1821 and 1825, are illegal.

This assertion is supported by the authority of a 2024 Federal Court ruling that found Paterson Sportsground does not belong to Dungog Shire Council, as, the local government had claimed that an 1823 land grant extinguished native title over the sportsgrounds and therefore, left the land in the possession of the council, following the recent death of the then owner, who had no inheritors.

The NSW government challenged the Dungog Shire claim, because, as it turns out, the initial 1823 land grant issued by Governor Brisbane, that included what is now Paterson Sportsground, covered 2,090 acres, while at that time, King George IV had only empowered NSW governors to issue land grants of up to 200 acres. So, native title was not extinguished, and the sportsgrounds is Crown land.

As it turns out, Governor Brisbane had gone to town giving out land grants over the legal authorised size limit during his tenure. This included the parcel of land that Towney was occupying in Orange, and the Wiradjuri man has since discovered it covers a whole lot of land grants going back to the 1820s, covering various First Nations regions in what is now referred to as New South Wales.

Sydney Criminal Lawyers spoke to proud Wiradjuri descendant Paul Towney about the fact that the prosecution will need to prove the original land grant was legal in order to convict him of trespass, the significance of his being in possession of the 1820s land grants covering Wiradjuri Country and elsewhere, and how he is following in the footsteps of his ancestor Windradyne in carrying this out.

Last time I spoke to you, Uncle Paul, you had just been in court and were about to appear in court again on 23 April. You were facing a charge of trespass and another of property damage over having occupied a 2,000 acre parcel of land said to belong to Charles Sturt University.

You claim that Wiradjuri rights over the land have not been extinguished because it is covered by a land grant issued by then NSW Governor Thomas Brisbane in 1823, which is shown to be illegal when considering the ruling of the 2024 Federal Court case Dungog Shire Council versus Attorney General of New South Wales.

This was the argument the NSW government ran against Dungog Shire Council, as the local government was attempting to claim it was the rightful possessor of Paterson Sportsground located in the town of Paterson in the Hunter Region, after its owner had died.

However, the sportsground is located on Wonnarua Country and is part of the Wonnarua people’s native title claim.

The NSW government argued against Dungog Shire’s claim that native title rights over the land had been extinguished due to an 1823 land grant made out to a James Phillips, which covered 2,000 acres.

Yes, the Federal Court found in favour of the NSW government. If you look at the court document, the Dungog Shire wanted possession of the land, but they had to fight the NSW government’s claim that it was Crown land. This was after the owner died, who had no inheritors or family.

Dungog Shire wanted it. But NSW said it was Crown land, so they possessed it. The NSW government won.

The Federal Court decision in 2024 was based on the simple finding that back in 1823, the original land grant was given out by Governor Brisbane without the authority of the Crown, the sovereign King of England, or his administration in England.

The Federal Court had no choice but to find in favour of the NSW government over the Dungog Shire.

So, who did the digging to find this information regarding the original land grants to prove this? 

Wonnarua man Scott Franks and lawyer Tony McAvoy. They had to go all the way over to England to look for the written permission to give out these land grants, but there was none given.

This means there was all this corrupt conduct from the local colonial administration. The governors were corrupt, and they were giving out free land parcels.

Governor Brisbane’s reign was from 1821 to 1825. He gave out the original land grant to a convict family for free, 2,000 acres in Dungog.

Brisbane not only gave the lands out in the Hunter region, the Wonnarua and Worimi lands, but there were major land parcels and grants given out on Wiradjuri lands: our lands were taken after those of the Sydney mob.

Our nation, the Wiradjuri nation, was the second nation in Australia to be invaded. I have got all the land grants given out over the lands of the Wiradjuri nation, which is the biggest land-owning nation in Australia.

So, I have got some really big illegal land grants that were given out all on the Wiradjuri nation. That’s what I am claiming, all the illegal land grants given out over the Wiradjuri nation.

So, as you told me last time we spoke, King George IV had only given permission to NSW governors to give out land grants of up to 200 acres.

The Federal Court of Australia ruled in 2024 that anything over this was illegal. That is why Wonnarua native title was not extinguished on Paterson Sportsground because it was part of a land grant of 2,000 acres.

Brisbane was giving out 300 acres, 500, 700, 1,000, 1,500 acre land grants – sometimes they’re over 5,000 acres on Wiradjuri lands. I have got all the land grants.

How were you able to get all these land grants from the 1820s? And what is the significance these documents? 

I got them from Gosford Library. They were all there. The significance is not only the 2,000 acre property in Dungog, as these illegal land grants happened in the Sydney area. There might be more up on Worimi, but they didn’t get up there before they invaded Sydney and Wiradjuri.

The British didn’t come over the mountains and west onto Wiradjuri lands until 1813. Then straight away they started invasion.

They started occupying and putting up fences, killing our natural food and livestock and replacing it with sheep and cattle. They started cutting down trees and getting rid of all our grounds and culturally significance sites.

In 1821, Brisbane’s governorship started. But the two NSW governors before him, Bligh and Macquarie, had stuck to only giving out land grants of 200 acres, across Sydney and the Blue Mountains.

But when Brisbane came on board it all changed. They’re all crooks. He just started giving it all out without approval.

He got all his mates from the colony out here and gave them the land, and he would have been receiving cutbacks too, under the table. He just started giving out 500, 1,000, 1,500, 5,000 acres.

It wasn’t hard to find them. I just went to the local library at Gosford, and they’ve got the first land grants going all the way back until 1800 in the Sydney region. All the original land grants are there.

Your next appearance in Orange Local Court is on 9 September. This means you’ll again be appearing in Orange Local Court facing charges of trespass and property damage. So, where is your case up to at the moment? 

So, Charles Sturt University wanted to remove me from the land I was occupying. They said I could go to a hotel, and they’d pay for it all. They just wanted to get me off the land, so they didn’t have to arrest me.

But my strategy was to get arrested. It always was. The strategy sees that with them charging me with trespassing on university lands, 2,000 acres of it, they have now got to show the evidence that the original land grant that was handed out over that land was legal.

This is just like the land grant in Dungog, which the Federal Court found was illegal. The land grant for the land I occupied in Orange, for the 2,000 acres, is from 1823. I have the land grant. I have the original land grant. His name is William Lane.

So, you have the land grant for the Charles Sturt University land you were occupying in Orange? 

Yeah. I’ve got the original land grant signed by Governor Brisbane. I got this all at a public library.

What will you be arguing when you appear back in court in September? 

That I wasn’t trespassing. We had war and martial law declared on us in 1824, by the same governor, Governor Brisbane. This was because of the Wiradjuri resistance fighting led by Windradyne. It is all documented.

What did martial law mean when it was declared on the Wiradjuri people? 

Martial law is shoot on sight, ask questions later. It was just so they could murder – so they could clear the land. It is all documented that the governor declared war and martial law on the Wiradjuri nation. It is in his journals. It is in the colonial policy of 1824 under Governor Brisbane.

We are the only nation in Australia that had martial law and war declared upon us as a nation. Wiradjuri was the only nation in Australia and that makes me proud that is where I come from. That is who I am following, my ancestors.

The 2024 ruling on the Paterson Sportsground happened last year. You occupied the land at Charles Sturt University in February this year. Was the university aware of the implications of the 2024 court case at the time you were occupying the land?

No. I don’t think they were. They didn’t know about the Federal Court ruling.

About the ruling, you have to remember there were no states and territories then. There was just a little colony of convicts.

It doesn’t matter if it is Sydney, Muswellbrook, the Hunter, Worimi land, Wiradjuri lands, or even Yuin land, because there are a few big grants down on the south coast. I’ve got copies of all of them, including the one the court found illegal.

I am planning to give these out to all those sovereign nations too. I will not be giving it to the Land Councils.

Have you presented these land grant documents in the Local Court yet, or are you planning to in September? 

No. I’ll be showing them in September. I’ll be sitting down with my lawyers, and they’ll be presenting the illegal land grants.

So, you’ll be turning up in September. The court will be ready to consider the trespass charge, but you’ll have these land grants that state otherwise, and this will be the first time the court has seen them? 

Yes. I am going to make a statement, as you are allowed. My statement will include that I have the land grant. I won’t be admitting I was trespassing, because I wasn’t. I have sovereignty, which has never been ceded by Wiradjuri.

The big point is that Wiradjuri lore was never corrupt or illegal. The introduced colonial legal system that’s the problem.

And Wiradjuri lore still stands. 

Yes, and our sovereignty. Our lands were never ceded. They were never given over to the control of any Crown. What the King of England said shows this, and that was shown in the Federal Court. Anything over 200 acres is illegal to this day.

The NSW government had to show that native title rights were not extinguished due to the illegal land grant. But native title rights came in in the 1990s. These are considered a watered-down form of land rights, of which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples had been campaigning for.

So, do you think as those land grants are illegal and there are no colonial rights established over the land, then the Wiradjuri are left with the more robust land rights, rather than native title?

No. I’m going for land rights. I am relying on the Federal Court finding that from 1821 all land grants over 200 acres, given out by the corrupt Governor Brisbane up until 1825 were illegal. That is the simple precedent the Federal Court has set.

I will be relying on that precedent, and it is sovereignty that has never been ceded.

What the courts did to Uncle Mabo, Eddie Mabo, and Yunupingu, who just had his sovereignty recognised in the High Court, isn’t what I will be doing.

The difference between these cases is I don’t have to show a thing, because it was all shown in the 2024 Federal Court case. The original land grants on Wiradjuri, anything over 200 acres, is illegal to this day.

I don’t have to show anything. They have got to produce proof. They arrested me for trespass on their lands, but the Crown needs to produce the original land grant to show this, and it is illegal.

I will walk into court again, wearing traditional Wiradjuri gear, which has never been done before in an Australian court. So, on 9 September, that is what I will be doing.

I do have lawyers, but really it is on the Crown to justify why they arrested me on Crown land, 2,000 acres of it.

When I raised land rights, you said that you aren’t talking about them but you’re talking about sovereignty. So, how would you say they are different? 

Land rights: have a look at Uncle Mabo and Yunupingu. It was their land. It had been their land for 60,000 years, same as ours as Wiradjuri.

We don’t come from England. We don’t come from anywhere else. So, why should we have to scrounge around with white legal representatives and try to prove this. They have no ties to this land. They have no land rights.

It was so racist making Eddie Mabo and Yunupingu go around and have to show their sacred sites. How racist is that of a system? But I don’t have to do that.

When I explained this to everyone. The solicitors and Scott Frank. They thought it was brilliant. That is why the solicitors want to represent me. Ghillar Michael Anderson is also behind me.

My last question, Uncle Paul, is, what are you expecting to happen when you turn up to Orange Local Court in September? And what sort of broader implications could your case lead to? 

There are only two outcomes, either I win, or they find me guilty of trespassing.

If I win, my compensation claim will include rental arrears charged to the three tiers of government: local, state and federal.

I am Wiradjuri, so I can’t claim outside of Wiradjuri nation boundaries, but I am talking about land tax, the same land tax that the systems that are already in place charge every person living on Wiradjuri lands today, and going right back to 1821, when Governor Brisbane started giving out illegal land grants.

Yunupingu just got awarded up to $700 million for one mine at Gove. The Wiradjuri nation being the biggest land area nation in Australia, and I am going for rental arrears back to 1821. So, I’ll leave it to you to figure out the maths.

Then from that day on, we will be charging the three tiers of government land tax going into the future. That goes for the next 60,000 years.

That is for the future generations of Wiradjuri, and it is to our own governance. We will go back to 1788 and then return to governing ourselves as we did for the last 60,000 years.

That is if I win. If I lose, I will stand up in court and I will state, “I am now a prisoner of war. Lock me up. I am a prisoner of war. I am not and I have never been a citizen or a subject of the Crown.”

That is simply going off Windradyne in 1824. The declaration of war was on Wiradjuri. There has never been a treaty. There has never been a signed document declaring the end of the war. There is nothing still to this day.

So, that’s all I can state and that’s all they can do. They would have to lock me up as a prisoner of war.

Main image: Proud Wiradjuri descendant Paul Towney. Photo supplied by Radio Rata