The evidence was that the rights and interests in land and waters distributed throughout the community of Yugunga-Nya native title holders are derived from this body of traditional laws and customs, the court heard.Īccording to Gaffney, the outcome was a “huge success” after years of difficult litigation against many opposition parties, including farmers, mining companies and the government. Before that, a system of law and custom at regional societal level was maintained and transmitted from generation to generation, probably before the declaration of sovereignty in western Australia in 1829.įrank Gaffney believes the reconciliation model in Australia can learn a lot from Irish experiences The court noted anthropological evidence supporting the native rights claim, including it could be inferred there was a “catastrophic” decline in the Aboriginal population in the western desert area as a result of the substantial non-Aboriginal population influx during the gold rush and mining boom in the late 19th century. The dogs then vomited up the emu fat and, when they did, they created gold.” The elders outlined: “Dingoes attacked the emu while on her nest and, when the emu died, the dingoes pulled the fat off it. In granting the highest form of native title rights, the judge noted that elders of the Yugunga-Nya had explained the mountain is “part of us” and looks, from the air, “like an emu lying on its nest”. The claim area included two historic mining towns and Mount Yugaghong, a significant spiritual site for the Yugunga-Nya people. The Yugunga-Nya claim concerned about 380 people, many scattered across Australia, but with about 120 still living on the land, many of whom are very disadvantaged and living in poor circumstances. Much of its work deals with land law and native title rights. His firm, PBC Legal & Consultancy Services, operates in western Australia, East Timor and British Columbia. His parents and siblings also live in Perth.
Gaffney went to university there and in London, where he lived for five years, before returning and settling in Freemantle, Perth. In the late 1980s, primarily for economic reasons, his parents left Dublin with their three children and emigrated to Australia.
Emigration was common in his extended family and he has relatives around the world. Gaffney grew up in Cabinteely, Dublin, and went to school in Coláiste Eoin in Booterstown. Along the way, Gaffney has learned a lot about reconciliation processes and he sees many similarities with the Irish reconciliation process. A 25-year court saga culminated earlier this month in a landmark ruling by the Federal Court of Australia granting native title rights to the Yugunga-Nya people over lands about a quarter the size of Ireland, including a mountain of spiritual significance and gold and copper mines. That may be why Aboriginal people looked to a Dublin-born lawyer to spearhead their legal battle to get native title rights over their lands, once the centre of a 19th-century gold rush, in midwest Australia.įranklin Gaffney, long settled in Perth, is a lawyer specialising in cross-cultural negotiations and land settlements. A people’s deep-seated connection to their native land and the impact of colonisation is something Irish people readily understand.