(Transcript from World News Radio)
The West Australian government has proposed a settlement with Noongar traditional owners over native title claims in the state's south-west, including over Perth.
The Draft Noongar Recognition Bill recognises the Noongar people as traditional owners of parts of the south-west and offers a funding package worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
This report by Laura Murphy-Oates and Murray Silby
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It's taken 200 years of struggle for recognition, but the the Premier of Western Australia says the state's Noongar finally have it.
He says it's part of what's called the Noongar Koorah Nitjah Boordahwan - meaning past, present and future- recognition Bill.
"This is very important to the Noongar people. It more than symbolic. It is giving them proper and overdue recognition. I think it also is an important step along the road to reconciliation. It will give Aboriginal people a greater ability in terms of self-determination and indeed, a greater pride in their history and their future and of course, it is one part of an overall package of $1.3 billion."
When passed - the bill will mark the first time the West Australian government has recognised the Noongar people as traditional owners of the south-west.
It's the pivotal piece of a $1.3 billion dollar settlement between the state government and the Noongar and includes a $600-million payment to the Noongar Trust over 12 years and the transfer of 320,000 hectares of Crown land to the traditional owners.
But Mr Barnett says the deal will not progress without the approval by the Noongar and under the deal, all future Noongar native title claims will be renounced.
The South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council has been negotiating the deal on behalf of six principal Native Title claim groups.
The council's CEO Glen Kelly says it's been deemed the best approach to secure a stronger future for the 40,000 Noongar people.
"If we secure native title rights through the court, we get no land and everyones dispossesion is entrenched forever in law, if we do an alternative settlement outside of court we actually get land and we get rights to that land in terms of access."
There has been opposition to the deal though.
Some Noongar claim they've been left out of the negotiating process, including elder Richard Wilkes.
"To tell the truth I have gone to some of the meetings with SWALK (South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council) but I don't like their attitude and I don't like what they represent and I don't agree with it. I'm a great grand nephew of Yagan (West Australian Indigenous resistance hero) and that is my concern, that we represent that line and the Premier is going to take the land of Perth away from us. "
For others such as Arthur Slater, though, the agreement is a significant milestone in relations between traditional owners and the state government.
"We were feeling that we were strangers in this country. The only places we had were the little reserves on the outskirts of town. That was the only ground that we felt we had ownership of."
The settlement is expected to be finalised in July this year.
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