Northern Land Council

The Northern Land Council (NLC) is in the Top End of the Northern Territory of Australia. It has its origins in the struggle of Australian Aboriginal people for rights to fair wages and land. This included the strike and walk off by the Gurindji people at Wave Hill, cattle station in 1966. The head office is located in Darwin. It was established in 1973.

The NLC Chairman is Wali Wunungmurra.

It is one of four in the Northern Territory, the others are:

• the Central Land Council covering the southern half
• the Tiwi Land Council covering the Tiwi Islands north of Darwin
• the Anindilyakawa Land Council covering Groote Eylandt in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

The most important responsibility of the councils is to consult traditional landowners and other Aborigines who have an interest in Aboriginal land about land use, land management and access by external tourism, mining and other businesses. This sometimes involves facilitating group negotiation and consensus-building among scores of traditional Aboriginal landowner groups, and many other affected Aboriginal people. There are 30,000 Aboriginal people from 200 communities.

Many Aboriginal people in the Northern Land Council's area live in the major towns. There are about 200 communities scattered over Aboriginal land in the NLC's area, ranging in size from small family groups on outstations to settlements of up to 3,000 people.

The Northern Land Council is a representative body with statutory authority under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976. It also has responsibilities under the Native Title Act 1993 (so the Native Title Tribunal) and the Pastoral Land Act 1992. The NLC's Top End zone is divided into seven regions with regional offices.

Today Aboriginal people make up 32.5% of the Northern Territory's population and own some 49% of the land in the Northern Territory.