Cultural care and Aboriginal land rights in New South Wales

An appreciation of Aboriginal land rights in New South Wales (NSW) is characterised by two dominant narratives. One is that land rights are central to achieving and advancing recognition of and support for the existence and survival of Aboriginal peoples in the settled spaces of south-eastern Australia. In this view, Aboriginal land rights realise intrinsic political power. The second dominant narrative is that the land estate restituted to Aboriginal people's Local Aboriginal Land Councils (LALCs) is to be "activated" and "leveraged" for economic prosperity of collectively defined groups and shared to support and sustain individuals and families. The language "leveraging" and "activating" and broader aspiration to build prosperity from the NSW Aboriginal land estate are referenced multiple times over many years in NSWALC public documents including the most recent NSWALC Strategic Plan (2022), Annual Reports (2007, 2020) and media releases. This perspective holds that land rights underpin economic power. Although these narratives are based on truth, they have served to make some important work and values held by Aboriginal people visible in any evaluation of the benefits of land rights. It is this less visible work that I bring out in this paper-the work of care that is unique to Aboriginal worlds and made possible by the resources and structures of LALCs created with the passage of the Aboriginal land rights laws in 1983.