Wik Peoples V Queensland - The Wik 10 Point Plan

The Wik 10 Point Plan

The Howard Government promised a response to the decision and came up with the “Wik 10 Point Plan”. Howard argued the decision "pushed the pendulum back too far in the Aboriginal direction (and) the 10 Point Plan will return the pendulum to the centre". The Native Title Amendment Bill 1997 (Cth) was drawn up to implement the plan. It was introduced into the Commonwealth Parliament on 4 September 1997. It was passed by the House of Representatives, however, the Senate made 217 amendments to the bill and returned it to the lower house for reconsideration. The House of Representatives agreed to half of the changes but returned the bill to the Senate again. It was eventually passed two years later on 8 July 1998 by the Senate after the longest debate in the history of the Senate. One commentator described the amendments to native title law as using a "legal sledge hammer to crack a political nut".