Presenters

Vance Hughston SC, Sixth Floor Windeyer Chambers
Vance Hughston SC came to the NSW Bar in 1982 and was appointed Senior Counsel in 2001. His areas of practice include appellate, commercial, equity, native title, property and public law. Mr Hughston has practised extensively as a trial lawyer in native title and in non-native title matters. He also has an appellate practice that has seen him argue many cases before the Full Federal Court, the NSW Court of Appeal, the Full Court of the Supreme Court of South Australia and the High Court. In more recent years, his trial work and most of his appellate work, has focused predominantly on the area of native title law. It is a national practice that has seen him appear both for Aboriginal claimants and for Government parties, in every State and Territory other than Tasmania and the ACT. Mr Hughston has argued the following native title cases before the High Court: Members of the Yorta Yorta Aboriginal Community v Victoria (2002) 214 CLR 422; Karpany v Dietman [2013] HCA 47; Wilson v Anderson (2002) 213 CLR 401; and has appeared in other cases in the High Court as junior counsel. In Yorta Yorta, Mr Hughston appeared at the trial (which went for more than 100 days) and on the appeals to the Full Federal Court and the High Court. Other native title cases in which Mr Hughston has appeared at both the trial and the subsequent appeal, include: Fortescue Metals Group v Warrie on behalf of the Yindjibarndi People (2019) 374 ALR 448; [2019] FCAFC 177 (leave to appeal to the High Court refused); Starkey on behalf of the Kokatha People v South Australia (2018) 261 FCR 183; (leave to appeal to the High Court refused); Banjima People v Western Australia (2015) 231 FCR 456; (leave to appeal to the High Court refused); Bodney v Bennell (2008) 167 FCR 84; CG (Deceased)on behalf of the Badimia People v Western Australia (No.2) (2016) FCAFC 67; Gumana v Northern Territory (2005) 141 FCR 471; Jango v Northern Territory (2007) 159 FCR 531; Risk v Northern Territory (2007) 240 ALR 75; Straits Exploration (Australia) Pty Ltd v Kokatha Uwankara Native Title Claimants [2012] SASCFC 121; Western Australia v Graham on behalf of the Ngadju People (2013) 305 ALR 452; Western Australia v Graham on behalf of the Ngadju People (2016) FCAFC 47; and Wyman v Queensland (2015) 235 FCR 464. Mr Hughston was a member of the Australian Law Reform Committee’s Native Title Inquiry Advisory Committee in 2014 / 2015. Chambers and Partners 2021 Rankings rank Mr Hughston in Band 1 of Australia’s native title Silks whilst the Doyle’s Guide ranks him as the Market Leader. Mr Hughston is the author of the chapter on proving native title in Perry and Lloyd’s Australian Native Title Law (2nd Ed.).


David Saylor, Principal, Saylor Legal
David Saylor is an experienced native title lawyer and he is the Principal of Saylor Legal. David was admitted as a legal practitioner of the Supreme Court of Western Australia in February 1996 and he has over 20 years of experience working in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal issues. An Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person himself, David is passionate and committed to assisting clients with resolving native title claims, making and prosecuting native title compensation claims and negotiating Indigenous Land Use Agreements (ILUAs) which provide substantial economic benefits, provide for protection of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural heritage beyond what is required by law, and facilitating Indigenous participation in environmental management of mining and other projects. David’s experience and expertise is different because he has worked at the “coal face” of native title and has achieved significant results for his clients. David has been employed as a lawyer by several Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services, Aboriginal Land Councils and Native Title Representative Bodies in Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australia. He has worked with and has been instructed directly by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities.


Jonathan Fulcher, Partner, HopgoodGanim
Jonathan Fulcher has a PhD in history from Cambridge University. In that thesis, he examined the meanings of key words in a political language, and how those meanings were applied in political discourses to fight over the political reform movement in England in the period 1816 to 1824. Ever since he has had a deep interest in the meanings of words, and this has extended to a great interest and expertise in statutory interpretation. The Native Title Act 1993 is the place where Jonathan's interest in the meaning and context of words used in a statute was first piqued. The rules for interpreting statutes attempt to fix the meanings of statutory words and phrases, such that the laws are made certain and capable of prediction for those wanting to apply the law as it is promulgated. What he has found, though, is that it is the lack of certainty created by contests over meanings of words in a political discourse and meanings of words in a statute that his PhD and his law studies have in common. In politics, the contest over the meanings of key words in English political discourse were determined by the meanings being fixed in statute, only to be rendered useless as social and political change made those attempts to fix the meanings moribund. In law, the fixing of the meaning of words in a statute is only resolved ultimately by the High Court. Even then, social and political change can render previous decisions fixing the meanings of statutory words moribund. So this seminar will be about the process of fixing the meanings of statutory words, by applying rules of statutory interpretation: not only to show how those rules work, but how fixing the meanings of words, even in a statute can be very difficult indeed. Words in context can have unstable and contestable meanings, and any workshop of statutory interpretation must start with that premise. The context provided by native title in Australia is merely one example of that process in action.