The notion of 'differend' provides us with a useful means of looking at some of these questions using the difference between the original 1982 and the subsequent 1985 Warumungu land claim as a means of establishing some comparative lighting.

The original Warumungu land claim book (Hagen, Lloyd and Reyburn - CLC 1982) included a request for the Aboriginal Land Commissioner to exercise his power under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act to investigate the extent of any likely land claim to other areas in addition to unalienated Crown land.

In keeping with the messages originating from (at least) the senior men this included all the adjoining land within their countries which was under Crown pastoral lease. They did not concede this land to the Crown and did not accept the claims which the Crown made regarding it.

A lot of evidence would have been available during the original hearing which would directly relate to this official function of the Aboriginal Land Commissioner.

Significantly, when the subsequent Warumungu land claim happened in 1985 under the management of non-indigenous people from the Central Land Council, this very important part of the original Warumungu claim simply dropped completely from sight.

I had been accused, by one of the major derailers of the original claim, of being on the wrong side of the fence (where the fence is between unaliented Crown land and country under pastoral lease). Hey, i was merely following by instructions from senior men, who were happy to have a reasonably receptive worker.

My critic, however, had access to a higher source of instruction from notions of order which originate from cultural masters approved by the modern state. These include a deep rooted complex of metaphors provided by an unconscious-in-culture appropriate for farmers, not First Peoples. He had a ready made audience of like-minded people in powerful places. The senior men and their cultural master narratives, by comparison, were at a distinct disadvantage since they were remote from places were important decisions (about their lives) were being made.

He was, we could say, working with farmers notions of 'fences' while the senior men were working with indigenous notions of 'songlines'. A songline is the inverse of barbed wire.

It is completely unlikely that, between 1982 and 1985, the senior men had changed their stance in relation to the existence of their rights in important parts of their countries which were also under Crown issued pastoral leases. Sites of major sacredness were on parts of their land which the Crown, without their consent, had leased to hostile cattlemen.

Vocal opponents the original claim remained completely silent when the High Court subsequently found in the Wik decision that, in general terms, native title does co-exist with pastoral leases. This would not have been news to the senior men in the original Warumungu land claim. Of course it did. And more.

The Order of Australia which was subsequently bestowed on the key derailier of the original Warumungu claim was well earned. He had served his cultural masters well and defended parts of the systems of order which the Anglo-Australian state requires to maintain an elaborate and one-sided fantasy structure - in which the complexes of behaviour we call "Aboriginal land claims" can become foreign rituals of dominance and control over original Australian life.