Harvey writes from West Australia about the Native Title Act and asks for the meaning of this word ‘native’. Well, Harvey, the word came into English from a Latin source in the 1400s. The Latin word is nātīvus – meaning having your birth or origin in a particular place. Our word ‘natal’ comes from the same Latin word group. So ‘native’ just means ‘birth’. Everyone born here is a ‘native’ of Australia. In the 1830s the children of convicts, and other early settlers, formed a ‘Natives Association’ as a lobby group.  So, linguistically, the Native Title Act is mislabelled – since it is restricted to people of Aboriginal heritage, to some Australian natives, but not to all Australian natives.