E/CN.4/1998/6/Add.1 page 19 89. “Indigenous peoples are keen to find ways of facilitating land use agreements.” Mick Dodson put forward positive suggestions for enhancing the role of representative bodies and encouraging mediation and the development of indigenous land use agreements. “It is critical that the Government recognizes that encouragement of negotiation and agreement is the way to achieve genuine 'workability' and 'certainty' while respecting the rights of all Australians. The real challenge is to get away from litigation and to get agreement on practical proposals for development.” 90. Some concern may also be felt at the opposition of many politicians to the High Court decision of 23 December 1996 (“Wik decision”), which held that a grant of a pastoral lease did not necessarily have the effect of extinguishing native title of the type earlier recognized by the Court in the Mabo v. Queensland case. (b) Other protections 91. Many different kinds of protection, both specific and general, direct and indirect, are given to the land and to sacred sites, including sacred objects, and therefore to their religious dimension. They take the form either of regional agreements and legislation ensuring the protection and management of Aboriginal lands or Commonwealth and State and Territory laws on property and the cultural heritage. These forms of protection are the expression of an official policy in favour of Aboriginals, based on well-developed legislation. There are still a number of difficulties, however, related to loopholes and shortcomings in the laws and to interference with their objective, mainly owing to conflicts of interest. 92. Regarding the loopholes and shortcomings in the law, in the first place and in general, there is the problem of its complexity, particularly with respect to relations between Federal and State systems, that is, between federal Laws, which are few and protective, and State and Territory laws, which are many, uneven in the degree of protection they afford and sometimes inadequate in relation to Commonwealth standards. 93. One criticism which is often put forward is the inability of these laws derived from a Western legal system to take account of Aboriginal values. A basic difficulty arises from the fact that, under some laws, Aboriginals have to prove the religious significance of sites and their importance; partly this is difficult owing to different approaches by different Aboriginal groups to sacred sites and to the fact that knowledge of the sites is restricted to a few gender-specific individuals and partly it conflicts with some Aboriginal values and customs, including the importance given to secrecy. 94. An example which illustrates these difficulties is the Hindmarsh Island case. This case concerned the opposition of a group of Ngarrindjeri women to the construction of a bridge across Hindmarsh Island, on the grounds that sacred sites would be affected. Attempts by the authorities to check the existence of these sacred sites have so far proved ineffective as a result of the shortcomings and loopholes in the laws governing the case, because some of the information held by a restricted number of women is secret and also because the information which is available can only be given to other women,