Big news in native title, with a landmark decision on compensation for future acts.
On 12 March 2026, the Yindjibarndi Ngurra Aboriginal Corporation (YNAC) were awarded around $100,000 for economic loss and $150 million for cultural loss for the effect on their native title from the grant of various mining tenements to FMG for the Solomon Hub Project in WA.
Key points from the Federal Court’s summary (with the full judgment yet to be published):
📌This is the first time the Court has decided compensation for the effect on native title of a future act, i.e. the grant of the mining tenements.
📌 Burley J followed the High Court’s Timber Creek authority (Northern Territory v Griffiths) in assessing the loss had both an economic and a cultural component.
📌 YNAC argued that economic loss should be calculated based on a percentage royalty on the value of the mine’s profit. YNAC argued this should be 0.5% (amounting to $800m), based on the amount that mining companies typically pay Traditional Owners in the Pilbara when agreement is reached.
📌 Burley J disagreed and applied the freehold value test from Griffiths. The amount ‘in the vicinity’ of $100,000 for economic loss is based on the tenements’ cumulative area of 563 km2 within the Determination Area, of which 135.48 km2 forms the Solomon Hub Project.
📌 Unusually, WA’s Mining Act passes the requirement to compensate native title holders from the State to the mining company. FMG said this was unconstitutional, but Burley J rejected this argument. FMG is liable to pay the compensation to YNAC. In Queensland, the compensation liability rests with the State.
📌 In Griffiths, simple interest was payable on the compensation amount, but the Court left open the possibility that compound interest could apply in a future case. In this case, Burley J found that compound interest is available, which will significantly increase the quantum of compensation.
📌 The connection of the Yindjibarndi People to the land is deep and visceral and witnesses’ evidence that their spirit, or wirrard, is destroyed when they see the harm done to their country as a result of the mining were ‘plentiful and uncontradicted’.
The Federal Court’s summary can be found here: Yindjibarndi Ngurra Aboriginal Corporation RNTBC v State of Western Australia [2026] FCA 585