As prime minister, the pastoral lease question was a very vexing and torrid one for me. And for this reason: notwithstanding that the Commonwealth government's legal advice was that the Mabo (No. 2) judgment had the effect of extinguishing native title on lands subject to pastoral leases - I did not agree with that advice. That is, I did not personally agree with the logic behind the advice.

I had lots of supposedly good people urging it upon me; such as former National Party leader Tim Fischer, who was doing his level best to turn pastoral leases into quasi-freehold titles at the expense of Aboriginal people.

The pastoral lease question was a vexing one for former Prime Minister Paul Keating. Credit:Greg Newington

I knew there was a massive potential loss here for Aboriginal people - because in 1993, a very large proportion of the land mass of Australia was subject to pastoral leases. In Western Australia it was 38 per cent of the state; in Queensland 54 per cent, South Australia 42 per cent, New South Wales 41 per cent and the Northern Territory 51 per cent.

Given its scale and importance, I was determined not to deny Aboriginal people the chance to test the question before the High Court. So to keep the naysayers at bay and to fend off the opportunists, I decided to record in the preamble of the bill that on the government's view, past leasehold grants extinguished native title.