NSW Government Attempts “Stealth Attack” to “Hollow Out” Aboriginal Land Rights

The New South Wales government has put its attempt to silently pass legislation which would have eroded land rights on hold after being called out by the Aboriginal Land Council.

The New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council confirmed on 20 March 2026, that Aboriginal land rights are under “an attack by stealth” from the NSW Minns government, as it quietly introduced amendments that would “hollow out” the rights of First Peoples to land. But broad outcry from members of the state’s 121 land councils has resulted in the laws being temporarily shelved.

Introduced on 17 March 2026, the Crown Lands Management Amendment (Statutory Review) Bill 2026 would amend the Crown Land Management Act 2016 (NSW) and its accompanying 2018 regulation, which would impact the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983 (NSW), so that “claimable” “unused and unneeded Crown land” won’t be so obtainable for Aboriginal peoples in this state.

The NSWALC only raised the alarm after it had consulted with NSW Labor ministers the day prior to confirm that this was an actual attack on the most robust land restitution framework ever enacted in this country.

So, this is likely why no one informed interested parties about the changes, which had been hidden away under the label of ‘minor administrative amendments’, when there is nothing minor about them.

The Minns government had attempted to introduce these changes under the radar to benefit “private commercial interests” over Crown land, or land managed by the state on behalf of the public, which can be claimed by traditional custodians when not in use. And these changes are being attempted due to recent successful Aboriginal land claims made over prime inner city real estate.

After NSW land and property minister Steve Kamper confirmed to The Australian last Saturday that the reforms would impact land rights, the NSW Aboriginal Land Rights Network convened an emergency meeting on Dharug land in Parramatta on Monday. And after network members protested outside NSW parliament on Tuesday, it came to light that the bill has been paused.

Lawfully coveting prime land

The NSW Wran Labor government passed the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983 (NSW) (the Act), which provides that an Aboriginal land council can progress an Aboriginal Land Agreement with the minister if a parcel of Crown land within its region is not being used, and if the minister agrees the land is lying dormant, and it is not for an essential public purpose, then it should be handed over.

The Aboriginal Land Rights Act has long been respected nationwide as it maintains such a robust framework. However, The Australian revealed last Saturday that the NSW Labor government had been attempting to erode these rights by stealth because the laws had allowed land councils to secure “coveted Crown land” in “valuable Sydney sites”.

This has included the sites of Paddington Bowls Club, the 1.5 hectare Talus Street Reserve, the home of the Northern Suburbs Tennis Club, along with the Cronulla Marina and the Matraville Fire Station.

Minister Kamper told the Murdoch press that such sites were never meant to be captured by the Act, as they were “vital and frequently used infrastructure”, and he put the successful claims down to “bureaucratic or clerical error”.

However, the High Court of Australia ruled on 3 September 2025, that the then minister had been right when determining in late 2021 that the La Perouse Local Aboriginal Land Council did have the right to claim the site of the Paddington Bowls Club, as despite CSKS Holdings having been granted a lease over the land in 2010, by 2016, when the claim was raised, it had never used the land.

“The High Court held, by majority, that lands vested in the Crown in right of NSW are not ‘lawfully used’ within the meaning of subsection 36(1)(b) of the Act merely by reason of those lands being the subject of an existing lease from the Crown,” the High Court’s summary of its ruling sets out.

“Properly construed, land is only ‘used’ within the meaning of subsection 36(1)(b) of the Act if, when the claim is made, the land is physically deployed for a purpose.”

Kamper has further posited that the Act needs an overhaul because there are around 43,000 outstanding claims in the system some dating back to the 1980s. He then added that “the proposed changes we have put forward are there to address a minute number of edge cases that were never intended to be claimable in the spirit of the Act”. But that claim is merely the minister’s opinion.

Hidden amongst technical amendments

Section 36 of the Act provides that “claimable Crown lands” “are not lawfully used or occupied”, are not considered by the minister to be needed “as residential lands”, “are not needed, nor likely to be needed, for an essential public purpose”, and are not lands subject to a native title claim and nor are they the subject of “an approved determination of native title”.

Labor MP Mark Buttigieg explained during the second reading speech of the bill that the legislation seeks to achieve three goals: “maximising public value from Crown land”, “building stronger, more capable Crown land managers” and “embracing modern ways of working”.

Buttigieg then suggests that an overhaul of the Crown Land Management Act 2016 (NSW) serves to achieve better outcomes for matters relating to the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983 (NSW) and the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth).

The 56 page amendment bill makes major and multiple amendments to the Crown Land Management Act, along with a few changes to the Crown Land Management Regulation 2018 (NSW) and the Commons Management Act 1989 (NSW).

Without any notification to interested parties in these matters, it is easy to see how with the technical nature of the amendment bill that NSW ministers were hopeful that nobody was going to notice that they were about to significantly undermine the most robust system of Aboriginal land rights in the country, so as to ensure that unused prime NSW real estate can continue to lie dormant.

The NSW Aboriginal Land Council explains that these reforms result in the mere holding of a lease over a land resulting in it being considered “lawfully used”. Therefore, Crown land that is lying dormant or unused for long periods that would now be open to claim, would be blocked from any such claims even though it is not genuinely being put to use.

The other key change, according to the NSWALC, that will result in stolen land remaining in the hands of the usurpers, is that the NSW government is attempting to give itself the ability to validate unlawful leases and licences, which would then result in the extinguishment of existing land claims.

The fight set to continue

“Today, leaders representing all 121 Aboriginal Land Councils and their 30,000 members will come together to develop a coordinated strategy to oppose this legislation,” said NSWALC chair Dr Raymond Kelly ahead of the Parramatta meeting on Monday.

“This is about standing united and taking decisive action against the hollowing out of land rights. When Premier Neville Wran introduced the only land restitution framework in Australia in 1983, I am sure he didn’t think that a Labor government would be killing it in 2026,” he added. “This impacts more than just our people. It impacts the entire NSW public.”

Kelly also called out Kamper’s assertions in The Australian, as the minister had posited that the changes would affect only a small number of claims, as the land council chair insists that just one of the amendments alone would serve to impact around 3,000 parcels of land currently under claim with the NSW government.

But while the Minns government has now stated that it has shelved its slated changes ahead of consultations about the reform that it is now set to undertake with interested parties, this only due to the great outcry that came from the members of the NSW Aboriginal Land Rights Network, after it was caught out in its deception.

So, it is more than likely that the NSW government has not given up on its main aim of ensuring these laws prioritise the needs of private commercial interests over the land claims of First Peoples.

“This is not just an attack on Aboriginal land rights – it is a threat to the public interest,” Kelly further added after the meeting had taken place on Monday.

“These changes would prioritise private commercial interests over community use of Crown land. The Aboriginal Land Rights Act is the result of decades of advocacy by our people. To so fundamentally alter its intent sets a dangerous precedent,” the chair of the NSW Aboriginal Land Council said in ending.