Uluru, a massive sandstone monolith in central Australia sacred to the Anangu people as a site embodying multiple Dreaming narratives and ceremonial obligations, was formally returned to Anangu traditional ownership in 1985 under a lease-back arrangement with the Australian government, though the site remained open to recreational tourist climbing, a practice many Anangu found deeply disrespectful to its sacred status, until a long-sought permanent climbing ban finally took effect in October 2019 following sustained Anangu advocacy.
Australia's 1967 referendum, which amended the constitution to count Aboriginal people in the census and allow federal legislation for their welfare, and the 1992 Mabo High Court decision, which overturned the legal fiction that the land had been unoccupied before European settlement, both reshaped the legal and religious recognition of Aboriginal connection to land, since Dreaming-based spiritual relationships to country are central to subsequent native title claims.
Australia's 2023 referendum on constitutionally enshrining an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, which would have given Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples a formal advisory body, failed at the national vote, a result many Indigenous leaders and religious commentators described as a setback for reconciliation efforts tied closely to recognition of Aboriginal spiritual and cultural authority over traditional lands.