Promoting people's rights and civil liberties. It is non-party political and independent of other organisations.
Yachties may be banned from sailing on Australia’s lake below the sea

Yachties may be banned from sailing
on Australia’s lake below the sea

Club Commodore Bob Backway at the clubhouse in the dry centreResolving the latest native title claim has delighted the Arabana people…but the decision may have taken the wind out of the sails of Australia’s strangest yacht club, and its Commodore, Bob Backway (pictured at Lake Eyre). Will the dispute end up using maritime law to resolve an issue bang in the middle of the driest continent?

Yachties may be banned from sailing
on Australia’s lake below the sea

The Arabana people are rejoicing after their native title rights to the Lake Eyre area in central Australia were acknowledged recently by the Federal Court…but members of one local club fear the decision could lead to their traditional, common law rights being drained from under them.

Lake Eyre Yacht Club members try to sail on the lake on the rare occasions when it fills (once every few years on average…but every year recently).

One arm of the SA Government, the national park bureaucrats, are trying to ban the yachties, while other state authorities – maritime and transport – provide formal boating rules under the SA Harbors and Navigation Regulations 2009…which include coverage of Lake Eyre!

Club commodore Bob Backway, who is a retired technical officer with homes in both ‘nearby’ (about 100km away) Maree and Melbourne, claims the trailer-sailer and small catamaran yachties have a common law right to sail on the transient Lake Eyre, which is 15m below sea level.

Despite his claim, SA’s Environment Department last year hit him with a $345 fine for sailing without a permit, but he has refused to pay. The matter of prosecution is still up in the air.

“I told them I was prepared to go to jail over it,” Bob said. “Lake Eyre is a national park: national parks, and the waterways in them, are for all Australians to enjoy equally. We are a multicultural society, and no one culture can own the public estate.”

The Federal Court confirmed the Arabana native title over the Lake Eyre area – or Kati Thanda, as Arabana people call the lake – and surrounding desert country, a total of more than 70,000 sq km. In return, the Arabana agreed to give up their claim over the township of Marree, which has a population of 70.

Club Commodore Bob Backway at Lake Eyre

Aaron Stuart, chairman of the Arabana Aboriginal Corporation, has been quoted as saying Lake Eyre is “like Uluru” (Ayers Rock) to his people who believe that their ancestral spirit, Warrina, lives in the lake and is disturbed by boats.

Mr Backway says there are other Arabana people who are happy for yachties and others to enjoy the lake…whenever Aquarius deigns to pour down the waters.  Bob says the rights of all Australians also reside in the lake, and that it is no-one’s right to exclude yachties, swimmers, kids who wade in the shallows, or bird lovers – provided they’ve paid their Lake Eyre park permits.

Who would have thought that the High Court may eventually have to rule on maritime law as it applies to the dead centre of Australia!

2 Comments

  1. John T asked a lot of questions suggesting that Australian and international law isn’t based on the premise that those who transgress the laws are ultimately answerable to a spiritual entity. The penalties that we westerners impose upon each other were conceived as methods for appeasing the relevant Deity and punishing those who offended or endangered the community by insulting the relevant Deity.

    In response to John question “Does a fatuous claim of “belief” in a patently ridiculous notion constitute a valid argument?”
    Australia and many other nations believe that the argument is so valid that they defend it militarily. As a nation we defend the right of the Jewish religion to lay to claim Israel purely because they claim that their spiritual Deity gave the land to them.

    It would be utterly racist to deny the Arabana the same rights and respect, especially when you consider that they’ve been living there since 40,000 years before the Jewish/Christian/Islamic Deities created the Universe.

    David J
  2. Quote – “Aaron Stuart, chairman of the Arabana Aboriginal Corporation, has been quoted as saying Lake Eyre is “like Uluru” (Ayers Rock) to his people who believe that their ancestral spirit, Warrina, lives in the lake and is disturbed by boats”. Was this the basis of their argument in court? Does a fatuous claim of “belief” in a patently ridiculous notion constitute a valid argument? If so, this is appalling.

    When our legal obligation to show respect to a people is taken by them as licence to make a mockery of the very system that is trying to help them, and that system is so intimidated as to accept it, well so much for equality… Do the sensibilities of spiritual ancestors apply to white people? Are our “beliefs” considered legitimate legal arguments? Or are we required to make claims based in fact?

    John T

Leave a Reply

Translate »