Less than a week after the publication of this book, the federal government gave notice that it intended to give legislative recognition to its major thrust – that is, the government said it would acknowledge that Australia’s aborigines once owned Australia.

The Government’s announce­ment created something of a furore. The Opposition complained that if implemented the decision could have vast legal ramifications and could undermine the constitutional framework. Without canvassing the merits of that claim, it should be noted that what the government appeared to give in the way of recognition of prior aboriginal title to Australian land, it also seemed to remove. What the Government had proposed was that legislation which would create a new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission would include in its preamble the acknowledgment that ‘the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of Australia were the prior occupiers and original owners of this land.’ But the same preamble would declare that these- peoples ‘were dispossessed of their land by subsequent European occupation and have no recognised rights over it other than those granted by the Crown.