When and how was English Law received in Aus?

Question 1

What day and where did James Cook claim New South Wales as possession of the queen?

Answer 1

Possession Island, wed 22nd August 1770

Question 2

Misconception of british settlers towards Indigenous Australian land ownership?

Answer 2

They were brought up on the footing that the Aborigines were people roaming the continent who never remained in one particular area without any relationship with the land

Question 3

Three ways to acquire territory under british law

Answer 3

• conquered (won under war or dispute)*
• settled (implies no preexisting indigenous legal system)
• ceded (through treaty or agreement)*

*preexisting law of existing people to be continued or slightly modified

Question 4

Ownership (in british terms)

Answer 4

Exploitation of land by cultivation

Question 5

What is terra nullius?

Answer 5

It is the alleged moral and legal basis upon which the first governor, Governor Phillip could declare English law to be the law of the land i.e the basis that Australia was ‘empty land’ before English settlement