While there have been positive economic outcomes for the Larrakia Nation from this process, the future is by no means clear. Chief Minister Martin has indicated that a dialogue between the government and Larrakia is ongoing, but that the government ‘is unlikely to consider handing over land outside the court process’.[11] Using representations of Larrakia as ‘traditional owners’ and custodians of the Darwin area, the government through the Harmony project has made Larrakia complicit in the demonising of the fringe dwelling population of Darwin, while giving Larrakia no formal recognition of their rights within their country.
In the 2005 election campaign, in a move clearly aimed at the conservative voters of Darwin’s northern suburbs, the Martin government retreated from the initiatives of the Harmony Project and campaigned on the basis of increased law and order. Election advertising material indicated that existing community night patrols would be replaced by police patrols to combat the issue of anti social behaviour and ‘itinerants’. A key element of the campaign was the pronouncement that habitual drunks would face jail if they refused rehabilitation. The ALP election campaign was widely reported as being focused on race (Eastley 2005; Murdoch 2005),[12] and even attracted the critique of the CLP opposition that the campaign was ‘chasing the redneck vote’. The Alcohol Court Act 2005 (NT) and the Antisocial Behaviour (Miscellaneous Amendments) Act 2005 (NT) passed subsequent to the election establishes a mechanism for the placing of prohibition orders on habitual alcohol abusers. However, rather than making habitual alcohol use the offence, the legislation allows for such orders to be made when an offence is committed.
Justice Mansfield’s decision recognises that a Larrakia polity exists and that the process of ‘re-establishing traditional laws and customs adapted to the modern context … is enriching the lives of Larrakia people, and of the Darwin community (Mansfield J 2006: [836]), a sentiment also conveyed by Norman Fry, CEO of the NLC:
Everybody in the Northern Territory … all know who the Larrakia are. They are not invisible people, they are here … To expect that people would remain stagnant, in some sort of time capsule, is quite silly. The Larrakia people are the heart and soul of this place.[13]
Justice Mansfield’s decision was unsuccessfully appealed before the Full Bench of the Federal Court in 2006. The negative decision of the Full Bench is an emphatic blow to the assertions of Larrakia rights to their traditional estate within the city of Darwin. Negative depictions of Larrakia generated by successive governments in their opposition to the claims process and the pursuit of political gain have served to position Larrakia somewhere between the dominant white society of Darwin, and idealised notions of ‘traditional Aborigines’, a place that for many Larrakia is all too familiar.