Empire and the making of native title: Sovereignty, property and indigenous people by Bain Attwood

Abstract

New Zealand has often been portrayed as better than Australia because of the Treaty of Waitangi. The argument goes that the British government negotiated with Māori over sovereignty and land, whereas the Aboriginal people had their land taken because it was deemed ‘terra nullius’ – the legal term for land being empty. This difference in both outcome and perspective underlies much of the research in this book.