Indigenous land use agreements

The Native Title Act 1993 enables mining or exploration authority applicants and registered and determined native title parties to make Indigenous land use agreements about how land and waters in the agreement area will be used and managed in the future.

Agreements can incorporate many future acts and larger scale operations, rather than just single tenements.

We strongly support agreements as they enable parties to resolve native title requirements through negotiation rather than costly and time-consuming litigation.

Indigenous land use agreements are very flexible and can cover a broad range of considerations. While there are no restrictions, agreements may include:

monetary compensation (lump sum, distributed or royalties)
employment and training provisions
cultural heritage components
contracting opportunities
environmental preservation and rehabilitation.

The important clauses are those that provide the native title party's consent to possible future acts. These clauses need to be worded carefully to ensure they capture the native title party's consent.

We recommend that all parties seek legal advice regarding proposed agreement terms and conditions.

A registered agreement has the same status as a legal contract. It binds all parties to the agreement terms, including native title parties who may not have been identified when the agreement was made. This provision gives all parties certainty and security.

This guide covers the different types of agreements that might be relevant for your application.

Private Indigenous land use agreements

There are 3 types of agreements:

body corporate agreements (where there is a registered native title holder for the area)
area agreements (where there is no determined holder, but there are claimants)
alternative procedure agreement (for large-scale areas).

Agreement negotiations

Before starting negotiations, parties should:

check whether they've identified everyone who must be a party to the agreement
understand the requirements for registering an agreement
check whether parties have realistic expectations of what they can achieve through the agreement
determine a realistic time frame for negotiating the agreement.

As the applicant, you're responsible for addressing the advertising requirements and organising negotiation meetings for an agreement process.

You can commence negotiations at any time; you don't need to initiate the process through us.

The Queensland Government is not a party to the agreement and has no involvement with the negotiation process. However, you must update us on the progress of your agreement negotiations every month.

There is no time limit on agreement negotiations and no process available to finalise the agreement. Therefore, there is no guaranteed outcome. If parties cannot reach an agreement, they may undertake further negotiations, use the right-to-negotiate process or abandon the authority application altogether.

You may seek assistance from the National Native Title Tribunal (NNTT) to reach an agreement, but its role in the agreement process is discretionary rather than mandatory.

View the process flow chart for private Indigenous land use agreements (PDF, 54KB).

Time frame

The time frame for creating an agreement depends on how engaged and committed all parties are. For most private agreements, it takes 12–18 months to lodge an agreement with the NNTT and a further 6 months to register it.

As there is no opportunity to refer the matter to the NNTT, some agreement applicants initiate a right-to-negotiate process while aiming to achieve an agreement as the final outcome for negotiations. Read about the right-to-negotiate process.

Registering an agreement

Once native title parties authorise an agreement and all parties sign it, you can lodge it with the NNTT for registration.

Registration may take up to 6 months, including a 3-month notification period. After you register the agreement, you may proceed with the agreed future acts.

A registered agreement has the same status as a legal contract. It binds all native title parties to the agreement terms, including those who may not have been identified when the agreement was made.

Also consider...

Read the Native Title Act 1993.
Read our native title guidelines for help with native title compliance.
Contact us for help with your native title requirements.
Contact Northern Region for information about expired Mareeba district agreements.

State Indigenous land use agreements

There are no current State Indigenous Land Use Agreements (ILUA) to which a new resource authority can opt into. The information below is for those authorised holders with resource authorities that are still subject to a State ILUA.

About state agreements

A state Indigenous land use agreement (agreement) is an agreement that has been negotiated between the State, mining representative bodies, land councils and traditional land owners. It contains previously negotiated conditions that address native title requirements.

These agreements were made for small-scale mining ventures, such as alluvial gold and tin miners, opal and gemstone miners. Only applications made under the Mineral Resource Act 1989 were eligible, and only to those targeting minerals, not coal.

A state agreement is registered with the National Native Title Tribunal (NNTT), and binds the resource authority holder, the native title party and the Queensland Government to the conditions within the agreement.

Expired state agreements

Registered state agreements which only allow the renewal of resources authorities which were opted into at grant prior to expiry of the agreement:

NQMA small scale mining agreement – Ewamian People – Part A (PDF, 1.5MB) Part B (PDF, 1.4MB)
NQMA small scale mining agreement – Western Yalanji People – Part A (PDF, 1.3MB) Part B (PDF, 1.3MB)
NQMA small scale mining agreement - Djungan People - Part A (PDF, 1.9MB) Part B (PDF, 1.3MB)
Wakaman People small scale mining and Exploration ILUA (PDF, 30.3MB)
Djungan small scale mining and Exploration ILUA (PDF, 31MB)
Bar Barrum small scale mining and Exploration ILUA (PDF, 28.9MB)
Western Yalanji small scale mining and Exploration ILUA (PDF, 3.8MB)

Also consider...

Read the Native Title Act 1993.
Read our native title guidelines for help with native title compliance.
Contact us for help with your native title requirements.
Contact Northern Region for information about expired Mareeba district agreement.