Consequences
The case upheld the validity of the Racial Discrimination Act, and endorsed the Australian Government's use of the "external affairs" power to implement treaties not directly relating to other countries, an interpretation that would later become important in cases such as the Tasmanian Dam case, where a majority of four judges would adopt the reasoning favoured by Mason, Murphy and Brennan in this case. In another later case, the Industrial Relations Act case, a majority of five judges endorsed the same reasoning, thus cementing its place in Australian law.
The main part of the case, relating to the Queensland Government's action in blocking Koowarta's purchase of the lease, was remitted to the Supreme Court of Queensland. The decision there was eventually made in 1988, in favour of Koowarta. The sale was to proceed, but at the last minute, Bjelke-Petersen, in an act described by Australian Conservation Foundation councillor Kevin Guy as one of "spite and prejudice," declared the Archer River property a national park, the Archer Bend National Park (now known as the Mungkan Kandju National Park), to ensure that no one could ever own it. However, on 6 October 2010 Premier Anna Bligh announced that a 75,000 hectares (750 km2) portion of the park would be given over to the Wik-Mungkana peoples as freehold land.
Read more about this topic: Koowarta V Bjelke-Petersen
Famous quotes containing the word consequences:
“There are more consequences to a shipwreck than the underwriters notice.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The middle years are ones in which children increasingly face conflicts on their own,... One of the truths to be faced by parents during this period is that they cannot do the work of living and relating for their children. They can be sounding boards and they can probe with the children the consequences of alternative actions.”
—Dorothy H. Cohen (20th century)
“Cultivate the habit of thinking ahead, and of anticipating the necessary and immediate consequences of all your actions.... Likewise in your pleasures, ask yourself what such and such an amusement leads to, as it is essential to have an objective in everything you do. Any pastime that contributes nothing to bodily strength or to mental alertness is a totally ridiculous, not to say, idiotic, pleasure.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)