The conference brought together a wide range of persons both from within Australia and overseas, to discuss various aspects of land rights. In order to provide background data, it was thought useful to prepare and pre-circulate papers which explained the current situation in each state and territory in Australia. With the addition of Rowley’s paper on the Land Fund Commission, an introduction and bibliography by Peterson, the handbook is that collection of papers. Written from different perspectives and describing widely different situations, each writer set out to provide an analysis of the legal relation of Aborigines to land. On the one hand Egloof (ACT) writes of the plight of the Wreck Bay community and their protracted negotiations for a lease in perpetuity, while on the other Peterson (SA) looks at the Pitjantjatjara Land Rights Act, hailed as the first negotiated land right settlement in Australia. The mode of presentation ranges from the impassioned account of the inter­twining of policy, philosophy, history and law by Anderson (Queensland), to the measured yet optimistic note of Howie (NT). In each paper, something of the tragedy of dispossession and the long struggle for the recognition of rights emerges. In Peterson’s brief account (NSW) one must read between the lines whereas Mansell (Tasmania) and Moore (Victoria) are explicit.

Anyone who has worked in Aboriginal affairs knows of the gulf that exists between the expectation of protection of rights enshrined in legislation and the application one can expect when powerful interests groups are involved. MacDonald (WA) comments that the Aboriginal Heritage Act was found to be ‘appallingly defective’ in protecting an area subject to an exploration permit. For reasons such as these, Aboriginal protests like the walk out from the con­ference should be noted. How delivery of land rights is perceived by those who supposedly benefit is surely an important element in evaluating legislation.

The volume as it stands is very much the work of white specialists: it is thus a handbook in a limited sense only. Within those limits it is essential reading but it could have been balanced by comments from Aboriginal people with long experience in the field of land rights. Why not Barrister Pat O’Shane, on the NSW case? She was the co-ordinator of the NSW Select Committee into land rights mid 1979–81. What happened to Marcia Langton, co-convenor of the conference, research officer to the NSW Committee 1979 and well known for her work in her home state Queensland and in the Kimberleys WA? Why not position papers from the unofficial land councils in Queensland and WA?

With papers as diverse as those in this handbook some contradictions between articles are bound to occur and indeed they could form the stuff of an introductory comment. Instead, we are left to piece together various snippets. The Land Councils of the NT we read are independently and substantially funded. Then we find they are in difficulties. Later we learn that mining royalties are financing the Land Councils. The Aboriginal Land Fund Commission is described as innovative but later as restricted by lack of funds and frustrated by bureaucracy. The Yirrkala access to courts is cited but the judgement which found against the Aboriginal plaintiffs is not explained until 24 pages later.

Perhaps these are minor teething problems, the land rights scene changes daily, it is an emotive issue, there is no single analysis. Anyone who wishes to have ready access to data concerning the range of state legislation, the areas of land held and the nature of title will find in Aboriginal Land Rights, a handbook, a wealth of information which prior to the publication of this work was scattered through numerous obscure and difficult to acquire sources.

Diane Bell, formerly of the Aboriginal Sacred Sites Authority, Darwin, was a consulting anthropologist and had undertaken extensive fieldwork in the Northern Territory, with particular attention to changes in the role and status of women, land rights and law reform.