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While this article makes many claims to being an exhaustive coverage of the topic, it fails utterly to mention anything about Aboriginal land ownership and territories.

Canberra is Ngunnawal Country, and for this quite entertaining and thorough article to be not a total white-wash, he should talk to Ngunnawal people and find out from them what their kin and therefore territory relationships are with the coastal Yuin people.

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Other incidental matters.

What was the Federal Capital Territory (FCT)? It is unclear from the Acts discussed within this blog; however, it is referred to in a number of websites as mentioned seemingly as early as 1911.

A 1934 map at https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/203091 clearly shows FCT as the current ACT, and Jervis Bay Territory is separate (and is without the Beecroft Peninsula land).

Interestingly, the Seat of Government (Administration) Act 1924 provides for a Commission. Its remit explicitly names and includes both the seat of government territory (the current ACT) and Jervis Bay Territory. Although not stated in the Act, it was called the Federal Capital Commission (Chairman of Commissioners was John Butters). The extent of its powers, its name and its remit to include operating in Jervis Bay may have lead people to think the FCT included Jervis Bay. Of course, this cannot be the case, as Jervis Bay Territory had already existed since 1915. Therefore FCT=ACT, and Jervis Bay Territory was never part of either.

So it is also difficult to see that the Beecroft land was ever part of either FCT or ACT.

There was other discussion around the words grant and surrender. In the 1909 Act, it says the future ACT was to be surrendered by NSW to be a Commonwealth Territory and the wider Jervis Bay area land granted by NSW (but still part of NSW). Later, most of the Jervis Bay land was surrendered by NSW to be a Commonwealth Territory. The remaining Beecroft peninsula land would then seem to still be within NSW, and thus not the equivalent of an "unincorporated Commonwealth area". I think most contributors have also got to this conclusion, by various means.

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I will add a thought or two.

My reading of the Seat of Government Acceptance Act 1909 is: Schedule 1 and Sections 4 and 5 and Schedule 2 define land to be surrendered which is for the seat of government (and in 1938 adds a name to the Territory - the Australian Capital Territory, the ACT). The land becomes a Commonwealth Territory, thus no longer part of NSW. (This seems to acquire the name Federal Capital Territory [see later, not through these Acts] and is the same land as the ACT.)

Schedule 1 also describes Jervis Bay area land to be granted by NSW and accepted by the Commonwealth. (This land would remain part of NSW at this stage.)

Both of the above commenced on 1 January 2011 - see commencement dates at the end of the Act, and see Seat of Government (Administration) Act 1910.

The Jervis Bay Territory is then created in 1915. So, if I am correct, it moves from being Commonwealth land within NSW to being a Commonwealth Territory.

This leaves the 1909 Beecroft Peninsula land. Based on the above, it would seem to be land within NSW owned by the Commonwealth to this day.

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From the maps, it appears that the Point Perpendicular lighthouse at the southern tip of the Beecroft Peninsula remains an exclave of New South Wales surrounded by the unincorporated federal land. Yes?

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Shouldn't ignore Christmas Island and the other Australian islands, although a side note.

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Great post, and I am pleased to be the first to be able to nerdpick :-) while JBT is administered according to the laws of the ACT, it is not administered by the ACT but by the federal Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/territories-regions-cities/territories/jervis-bay-territory

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