When Parliament enacted the Native Title Act 1993 it left fundamental questions to be resolved by the judiciary. High Court decisions in three test cases in 2002 substantially defined the potential of native title. Proceeding on a mistaken view of Parliament's intention, the court confirmed a doctrine of extinguishment highly destructive of the original rights enjoyed by Indigenous Australians. The court treated native title as an accumulation of rights, in which the unifying notion of a title plays a weak and uncertain role. It defined tradition, continuity and connection in ways that make native title extremely difficult to establish and which artificially limit the kind of rights that may be recognised. Several intersections with constitutional law require further exploration, including the possible application of s 116 of the Constitution and when the just terms guarantee applies to the extinguishment of native title. Native title holders, already denied basic common law presumptions due to the belated recognition of their rights, now confront further inequality in the way the law protects their property rights. Sean Brennan reviews the cases and their implications.