I have a test on in a little while. It's for Foundations of Law. I know that sounds like a hilarious cavalcade of ponies and ice-cream covered jumping castles, but in fact (and brace yourselves for the end of this sentence; it may shock and disturb you) it is not.
UNSW is allegedly (in a related note, you're stuck with that word "allegedly" until the end of law school. Just try to strap yourself in and roll with the incredible G-forces) the premier social justice law school of Australia. As a result, a course like Foundations of Law explains a bit about the common law, a bit about equity and a great deal about how we've screwed over indigenous people so expertly and comprehensively that they're now at the wrong end of every last social indicator we have. Not a little bit. A lot. Infant mortality, for instance, or getting arrested for being drunk. Which is useful, because now that they're destitute, alcoholic house-breakers (allegedly) we can use them as a convenient folk devil.
Today's case is just a subtle indicator of exactly how they are regarded. In 1991, a site near the Swan River in Western Australia was up for redevelopment. It was accepted that it had religious, ethnological and anthropological significance, and a committee delegated to make recommendations on whether to proceed made a fairly unambiguous recommendation of "No". Overruled by the Minister, off to the courts, injunctions and appeals follow, finally ends up in the Full Court of The Supreme Court of WA.
Where the judge rigorously disproves that the relevant statute, the Aboriginal Heritage Act, gives any private rights to Aboriginals. That is, in discussing the Aboriginal heritage in the state, Aboriginals must be regarded as having no more rights than, say, a Kalgoorlie miner. Indigenous people therefore, as indigenous people, have ceased to exist. They are just part of the general community, with no more attachment to a religious, sacred location than people who hold no beliefs in that line whatsoever.
It's not really a question of ignoring the religion; perhaps as far as the judges are concerned, a giant snake sleeping in the river is no more silly than a giant old man wearing a bathrobe looking at each and every one of us as we put our hands near our genitals. It's more the idea that the religion, and by extension the culture and people, has been made extinct.

Anyway. That's what I've got to go off and argue about. It's a bit worrying. Years of English teaching has me feeling almost too stupid to breathe while sleeping, and now I have to take an exam? That might actually matter? I can barely string together a sentence. Me concerned. Big much.