precondition for a successful land rights case, and he also acknowledged the claimants' ritual and economic use of the land. Blackburn acknowledged the claimants' ritual and economic use of the land and that they had an established system of law "a subtle and highly elaborate" system of laws (Madayin). The judgement concludes: "I cannot help being specially conscious that for the plaintiffs it is a matter in which their personal feelings are involved". In a confidential memorandum to the Government and Opposition, he opined that a system of Aboriginal land rights was "morally right and socially expedient". Consequences There was a deliberate decision to pursue a political course rather than legal challenge to the High Court of Australia, which at the time because of the membership of the Court was likely to reject Blackburn’s finding that there was a coherent system of Aboriginal law relating to land. By not having the appeal rejected by the High Court, the findings of Justice Blackburn that were favourable to the plaintiffs (and by extension to other Aboriginal Australian peoples), and thus the concept of land rights, was maintained as a possibility, at least until the membership of the High Court had changed. Milirrpum led to the establishment of the Woodward Royal Commission by the Whitlam Government in 1973–4, and the eventual recognition of Aboriginal Land rights in the Northern Territory. In 1975, shortly before he was dismissed, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam drew up the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976 which was later passed (in a slightly diluted form) by the conservative Fraser Government on 9 December 1976. The court interpreter for the case was Galarrwuy Yunupingu, the son of a Gumatj clan leader, Munggurrawuy, who was one of the Yirrkala plaintiffs. Galarrwuy had earlier helped his father draft the Yirrkala bark petitions. He later became chairman of the Northern Land Council and in 1978 became Australian of the Year for his work on Indigenous rights. The issue of terra nullius, which was not contemplated in this decision, was later raised and recognised in Mabo v Queensland (No 2) (1992), which overturned the Blackburn ruling. See also List of Australian Native Title court cases Where the Green Ants Dream References Further reading Native title case law in Australia Aboriginal land rights in Australia Northern Territory case law 1971 in case law 1971 in Australian law Yolngu Australian Indigenous law