Since outstation groups become incorporated under the ACAA, applications for incorporation go to the Registrar of Aboriginal Corporations and must include a copy of the proposed rules of the corporation. Sullivan says that ‘while the rules may be based on Aboriginal custom (s. 43(4)), they need to address a number of matters … many of which have no counterpart in Aboriginal custom or may be contrary to it’. These include the requirement for the corporation to make rules regarding meetings (there is a requirement for Annual General Meetings), and to keep a register of members, of which there must be at least twenty-five (Sullivan 1996b: 16–17).

After addressing a number of requisite criteria, including that of incorporation, applications for land to form an outstation are submitted to the Aboriginal Affairs Planning Authority which administers the Aboriginal Affairs Planning Authority Act that established the Aboriginal Lands Trust. One criterion was to demonstrate that the applicants had traditional attachment to the area in question, although the corroborating documentation required was not substantial.^[20] Such documentation could include genealogies prepared by anthropologists, by resource agency workers (who generally assisted with all facets of the incorporation process), or by the applicants themselves. Assertions regarding traditional attachment to the area could be augmented by supplying the local language name of the area as well as brief comments about the connections of the applicants to the area. Such requirements have been neither extensive nor prescriptive, and they have not been tested nor made subject to the kinds of proof of connection to country that is ultimately required by the NTA. So, while some parallel could be drawn between these two processes on the basis that both involve traditional affiliation with country, the very real differences between the two mean that the parallel cannot be sustained to any great extent.

Local shire councils also scrutinise applications for outstations, because of the implications of service delivery to remote communities.^[21] Local community councils also have a role in the approval of outstation areas, where proposed outstation areas fall within their lease jurisdictions. The process of groups seeking community council approval to form an outstation on an area of land seems to occur prior to the more formalised processes associated with incorporation and the Aboriginal Lands Trust application. Even this is likely to be preceded by informal consultations with other Aboriginal people with attachment to the area in question.^[22] Once a group has been incorporated and its outstation area has been approved by the Trust (and subject to these other processes), applications for funding the outstation group are submitted to the relevant funding body.^[23]

In the absence of land rights legislation in Western Australia prior to the NTA, most Bardi family groups have sought to secure an outstation on their country. As a result, numerous outstations now exist within a very small region. Figure 10-1 represents the general locations of outstations within the Bardi and Jawi claim area.^[24] These outstations are all located quite close to the major communities, and to each other, and are typically situated within a small walking distance from the coast. This spatial distribution is reflective of Bardi and Jawi local organisation, which itself also reflects upon the environment — the availability of fresh water sources along the coast, as opposed to the hinterland — and the narrowness of the Dampierland Peninsula at its northernmost end.