The Land Returns · Episode 13 of 14 · 21 min
The Global Mirror: Australia, Aotearoa, and Sápmi
The episode steps outside the hemisphere to compare how other settler-colonial countries return land. It covers Australia's Mabo decision, native title, and the Uluru handback; New Zealand's Treaty of Waitangi settlements, the Whanganui River's legal personhood, and the 2025 defeat of the Treaty Principles Bill; and the Sami parliaments and Norway's Fosen wind-farm ruling. Every mechanism has a matching weakness.
Who's who
- Eddie Koiki MaboMeriam man whose case overturned terra nullius
- David SeymourACT Party leader behind the Treaty Principles Bill
Where it happens
- Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, Australiahanded back to the Anangu in 1985 and leased back
- Whanganui River, New Zealandrecognized as a legal person in 2017
- Fosen, Norwaywind farm complex that disrupted South Sami reindeer grazing
- Murray Islands, Torres Straithome of Eddie Mabo
Timeline
- 1985Uluru-Kata Tjuta handed back to the Anangu
- June 3, 1992Mabo v Queensland (No 2) rejects terra nullius
- March 20, 2017Whanganui River becomes a legal person
- October 11, 2021Norway's Supreme Court rules the Fosen licences invalid
- November 2024about 42,000 march on Parliament against the Treaty Principles Bill
- April 10, 2025New Zealand Parliament defeats the bill 112-11
Still debated
Native title often delivers a right to negotiate rather than a veto, and Australia's burden of proof disadvantages the most-displaced peoples. Backlash such as the Treaty Principles Bill shows settlements can be legislatively rewound, and whether co-governance is durable is open.