Recent High Court judgment calls into question mining, pastoral or term leases granted before 1975

If your mining, pastoral or term lease from the Crown was granted before 1975, you may be interested to understand the implications for you of a very recent High Court judgment.

These types of leases will not extinguish native title unless they allow you to exercise rights of exclusive possession.

They may also have been dealt with in the last few years under another less recent judgment of the Full Federal Court, De Rose v South Australia [No 2] (2005) 145 FCR 290, a decision which the High Court has recently found to have been wrongly decided. These dealings may have resulted in an assessment that native title has been extinguished in places where it was not in fact extinguished.

In this Alert, Partner Jonathan Fulcher and Solicitor Kylie Panckhurst explain the potential implications of the High Court's decision for lease holders, and outline what action they should take going...