Perfecting Trickery: Referendum Council #noconsent to Recognitionhttp://www.sovereignunion.mobi/content/perfecting-trickery-referendum-council“On his return from Uluru, Ghillar, Michael Anderson, Convenor of the Sovereign Union, last surviving member of the founding four of the Aboriginal Embassy and Head of State of the Euahlayi Peoples Republic, details the rigged processes of the Referendum Council’s National Convention and the subsequent media:
““I was absolutely shocked and horrified at the disjointed discussion that occurred on ABC TV Q&A last night ( 29 May 2017) from Parliament House, Canberra.
“In my opinion the conclusions that occurred at the Referendum Council’s National convention at Uluru were totally betrayed by the Q&A panel.
“Having been permitted to sit as an observer in the main National Convention of the Referendum Council at Yulara near Uluru, I was privy to observe the proceedings and I sat through the ‘Synthesis’ of the Regional Dialogues and what they called the breakout workshops as well, where the key topics were ‘The Voice’, ‘Treaty’, ‘Strategy’.
“In respect of the Synthesis (summary) of the Dialogues it was very clear that nationally the specially selected people by the Land Councils (invitation-only delegates) independently concluded that is must be made clear that First Nations sovereignty was never ceded.
“The next key point was the fact the people, from around this island continent, who attended these Regional Dialogues, were emphatic that they did not want a minimalist approach to constitutional reform and they did not want it to be symbolic. They wanted something substantive that would effect real and positive change. It was very clear that they did not just want to remove Section 51(26) the Race Power, because they did not want anything in the constitution that could be used in a manner that
would be detrimental to First Nations Peoples exercising their rights and their right to be self-determining.
“More importantly, the presentation in the Synthesis/Summary does suggest that an overwhelming majority of people, who attended these Regional Dialogues, were determined that, because sovereignty was never ceded, that Treaties should be made with Sovereign First Nations throughout the continent and they determined that our ancient tapestry of languages and cultures cannot be destroyed and lost forever to our future generations. …
“Despite all the rigging and wrongdoings, the consensus that was finalised was:
1) Sovereignty was never ceded;
2) Rejection of being ‘recognised’ in the constitution;
3) No support a minimalist approach to constitutional reform;
4) Agreement that a Treaty/Makaratta Commission be established to develop a national framework going forward
that would permit each Sovereign Nation State to negotiate their own respective Treaty;
5) Removal of section 51 (26) from the constitution;
6) Establishment of Truth and Justice Commission;
7) Resolved also that the constitution of Australia should have a Bill of Rights; and
8) Establishment of an elected Voice to the parliament and to ensure that this Voice has constitutional backing. …
Many ranger groups welcomed the $15 million towards new IPAs, but it left a question in the air about the funding for existing IPAs.
Patrick O’Leary, from the Pew Charitable Trust, one of the key supporting organisations for the Country Needs People campaign, told local radio that he still had no information about potential funding for existing IPAs.
“What is going to happen to the existing Indigenous Protected Area network of 67 million hectares, 75 of them across the country, and about 20 or 30 million hectares worth in the NT?” he said.
“Because in June next year those contracts for IPAs reach the end of their five-year term.”
Detail about where these new IPAs might be has also not been given.
I do believe that Treaty is the mechanism in which we can hold the government to account for past and present atrocities; it is our means of asserting our sovereignty and ensuring the structures that will see our communities flourish are funded.
The Treaty model I support is one where parallel to the existing Australian framework is an Indigenous organisational framework brought about by the signing of a treaty. In the same way, mainstream Australia has local government councils, Indigenous nations can have their own nation councils to deal with local issues.
The Uluru walkout: Constitutional recognition, Treaty and structural change, Independent Australia Natalie Cromb26 May 2017, Yesterday, several Indigenous delegates walked out of a Constitutional recognition summit. Indigenous affairs editor Natalie Cromb explains why, before proposing a better way.
Indigenous Australians have for some time been discussing Constitutional recognition via the well-known Recognise campaign, as well as some smaller conservative offshoots, which have alternative Constitutional recognition models.
This week, a national First People’s summit has been holding a Constitutional convention to discuss constitutional recognition at Uluru in the Northern Territory. Yesterday, seven delegates and a large number of their supporters walked out of this Convention.
Video ft. Fred Hooper, Dubbo delegate
“But seven delegates & about a dozen of their supporters from NSW & Vic derailed the meeting on its second day by staging a walkout and stating ‘we won’t sell out our mob’.
Traditional Owners fighting Adani appalled at improper political interferencehttp://wanganjagalingou.com.au/brandis-intervenes-in-indigenous-court-action-against-adani/ “The Attorney General, George Brandis, has intervened in a Federal Court hearing in which the Traditional Owners fighting Adani’s proposed coal mine are seeking to strike out a fake agreement Adani claims to have for the mine to proceed.
“Senator Brandis’ intervention follows his second failure to rush through changes to the Native Title Act….
“Senior spokesperson for the Wangan and Jagalingou (W&J)Traditional Owners Council, Adrian Burragubba, said,
““The Attorney General has made an extraordinary and political intervention in matters before the court. Intervening in our case shows Brandis is working in billionaire Adani’s interests, not ensuring the proper administration of justice. Again, Brandis is making Native Title all about Adani’s mine instead of good law reform. …
“Youth spokesperson for the W&J Traditional Owners Council, MsMurrawah Johnson, said,
““Adani didn’t negotiate and achieve the free prior informed consent of the W&J people. The meeting, which Adani and its barrackers claim achieved consent, with a 294 to 1 vote, is as fake as its ILUA.
It is not a true expression of the W&J Traditional Owners.
““Over 220 of the attendees at Adani’s meeting are people who have never been involved in the W&J claim or decision making, and who are identified with other nations and claims, or didn’t identify an apical descent line. …
“Lawyer for the W&J Traditional Owners Council, Mr Colin Hardie, said,
“My clients have four strong grounds against Adani’s purported ILUA. …
Native Title Act changes stuck amid stand-off between major parties, ABC News By political reporter Dan Conifer, 11 May 17, Native Title Act changes the Government declared urgent in February will not pass Parliament until at least mid-June, amid a stand-off between the major parties.
Key points:
Coalition moved to amend native title laws after major deal with WA Government and traditional owners scuttled in court
Federal Court ruling threw hundreds of agreements around the country into doubt
Coalition proposed legislation that would allow ILUAs to be registered with consent from most claimants
The Federal Court ruling overturned years of established law, throwing doubt over more than 100 agreements nationwide, including one covering Adani’s proposed multi-billion-dollar Queensland coal mine. The decision meant Indigenous land use agreements (ILUAs) needed to be signed by all native title claimants before coming into force. The Coalition proposed legislation that would allow ILUAs to be registered with consent from most claimants.
“Despite the Prime Minister recently reassuring billionaire Gautam Adani that he will ‘fix’ native title laws to enable Adani’s controversial mine to go ahead, the Turnbull Government failed in the Senate again today, with its Native Title Amendment Bill being pushed off to June.
“Senior spokesperson for the Wangan and Jagalingou (W&J)Traditional Owners Council, Burragubba, said “The Senate blew the Government’s cover on the false urgency it has been relying on to push the Bill through. It is clear that there is no immediate threat to Indigenous Land Use Agreements (ILUAs) from the recent Federal Court McGlade decision.
““The Wangan and Jagalingou Council are heartened that our right to object to a land use agreement over our lands, because our common law native title is threatened with extinguishment, has gained recognition in the Federal Parliament.
““Opposition and Greens Senators spoke clearly and strongly about the need to put the native title rights of Traditional Owners ahead of all other interests, including mining, when making changes to the Native Title Act. …
“Youth spokesperson for the W&J Traditional Owners Council, MsMurrawah Johnson, said, “The Government has again failed to pass the changes to the Native Title Act
it has been seeking in its clamour to back the Adani mine.” “The Coalition has worked furiously to fast-track these amendments to overturn the recent McGlade decision in the Federal Court, which render Adani’s purported land use agreement incapable of registration.
““The Turnbull government has treated our native title as worthless and ignored the wishes of the Australian people in trying to push through this bill. We have had immense support from thousands of Australians who have implored the Parliament not to mess with our rights and those of Traditional Owners around the country.
““This reflects a recent national poll which showed that nearly two-thirds of Australians
believe that where Traditional Owners are opposed to Adani’s mine being being built on their lands,
State and Federal governments should wait for consent rather than push ahead with the mine. … “
It’s budget night, and while the government was tight-lipped about measures affecting Indigenous Australians, there were a number of leaks ahead of the treasurer’s announcments.
On Monday afternoon, it transpired that the Veteran’s Affairs Minister, Dan Tehan, was preparing to announce that Aboriginal people who were near British nuclear testing in the in 1950s and 1960s would finally receive a gold health card, which would mean access to improved health care, and most costs covered.
“The measure will provide Gold Cards to Indigenous people present at or near Maralinga, Emu Fields or the Monte Bello Islands at the time of the British Nuclear Tests in the 1950s or 1960s,” Mr Tehan told the ABC’s Q&A program.
The Government will also provide a gold card to cover the health care costs of the surviving participants of the British Nuclear Test program and veterans who served as part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF).The Government has allocated $133.1 million for this initiative to cover eligible veterans.
The announcement has been a long time coming for many Indigenous people and veterans alike, who have campaigned for decades to receive compensation.
Yankunytjatjara man Yami Lester, who was blinded by atomic fallout says the support comes “60 years too late”.
“Most of our people have passed away. They were young ones then, now they’re older ones now, a few of them still living now today.”
Proper consultation with Indigenous Leaders needed
Adani shouldn’t determine Native Title reform agenda
“The Attorney General George Brandis has cut corners and conducted a shabby consultation process on the Native Title Bill to be debated in the Senate this Wednesday, failing to include Traditional Owners across Australia, say Wangan and Jagalingou Traditional Owners fighting Adani’s coal mine in Central Queensland.
“Senior spokesperson for the Wangan and Jagalingou (W&J)Traditional Owners Council, Mr Adrian Burragubba said, “The Attorney General has whipped up a false sense of urgency so he can push through this Bill, which is designed for everyone but the Traditional Owners whose rights it is meant to uphold.
““Brandis has engineered a cursory and limited consultation process which is grossly inadequate for amendments which will have such a significant and long term impact on our rights. …
“The Labor Party, who were the original architects of native title laws under Prime Minister Paul Keating, understood that good native title laws are built on direct consultation with a broad group of Aboriginal leaders, and are meant to right an historic wrong.
““We are encouraged by reports that the Opposition, in this 25th anniversary year of the Mabo decision,
is troubled by the Government’s handling of this Bill,
and is seeking to ensure proper consultations with Traditional Owners.
We have urged all Labor, Green and Xenophon Senators not to pass this bill. …
“Youth spokesperson for the W&J Traditional Owners Council, MsMurrawah Johnson, said, “As Traditional Owners we have a right to determine our own future and make our own decisions about our lands and waters. It is not up to unelected CEOs and lawyers who are talking to the Government.
““The Government has failed to make a case for why this Bill is urgent, or make a convincing argument why it needs to overturn the Federal Court’s decision in McGlade. …
The Global Uranium Industry & Cameco’s Troubled History May 2017 Jim Green − Friends of the Earth, Australia http://tinyurl.com/cameco-may-2017
“…….. Kintyre (70% Cameco / 30% Mitsubishi) The Martu Aboriginal people have fought against this proposed uranium mine since the 1980s. The deposit sits between two branches of a creek called Yantikutji which is connected to a complex network of surface and groundwater systems. It is also in an area that was cut out of the Karlamilyi National Park, WA’s biggest National Park. Kintyre is home to 28 rare, endangered and threatened species. The project would include an open pit 1.5 km long, 1.5 km wide, it would use 3.5 million litres of water a day and leave behind 7.2 million tonnes of radioactive mine waste over the life of the project.
In June 2016, Martu Traditional Owners led a 140 km, week-long walk to protest against Cameco’s proposed uranium mine at Kintyre. Aboriginal Traditional Owners are concerned the project will affect their water supplies as well as 28 threatened species in the Karlamilyi National Park.
Joining the protest walk was Anohni, the Academy Award-nominated musician from Antony and the Johnsons. She said: “It’s a huge landscape – it’s a really majestic place. It’s really hard to put a finger on it but there’s a sense of presence and integrity and patience, dignity and perseverance and intense intuitive wisdom that this particular community of people have. There is almost an unbroken connection to the land – they haven’t been radically disrupted. They are very impressive people – it’s humbling to be around these women. In many regards, I think the guys who run Cameco are desolate souls, desolate souls with no home, with no connection to land, with no connection to country.” www.ccwa.org.au/kintyre
Yeelirrie (100% Cameco) Yeelirrie in the local Wongutha Aboriginal language means ‘place of death’. The local community has fought against mining at Yeelirrie for over 40 years. There was a trial mine in the 1970s which was poorly managed: the site was abandoned, unfenced and unsigned with a shallow open pit and tailings left behind. The project would include a 9 km long, 1 km wide open pit, it would use 8.7 million litres of water a day and leave behind 36 million tonnes of radioactive mine waste over the life of the mine. There are many cultural heritage sites under threat from this proposal. The project was rejected by the Western Australian Environmental Protection Agency in 2016 because of the threat that 11 species of underground microfauna would become extinct. The WA Environment Minister ignored the EPA advice and approved the project anyway. www.ccwa.org.au/yeelirrie
“Federal Resources Minister, Senator Matt Canavan, is misrepresenting Wangan and Jagalingou people again, as he and his National Party leader and Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, come down hard on Westpac.
The big four bank announced a new policy which cuts Adani out of any future lending.
“It would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious, the National Party talking climate action and Aboriginal rights, and giving economic advice to a commercial bank.
Here is the great ‘pork barreling’, coal burning and anti-land rights party of Australian history
arguing for Aboriginal advancement, and lecturing banks on climate policy and how to do business.
“All part of doing Adani’s bidding of course… Chairman Gautam Adani, made an unannounced visit to Queensland this weekend to reassure politicians “the decision would have no impact on plans for the multibillion-dollar mine.“ He met with Canavan.
“Quid pro quo, no doubt, for the Federal Government bending over backwards to change the Native Title Act to suit Adani’s interests.
“Canavan of course, like Mundine the week before, trotted out the convenient fiction as cover for trashing Aboriginal rights. Canavan claims Westpac “have also turned their back on the indigenous peoples of Queensland by this decision, because this mine in the Galilee Basin is supported by the Wangan and Jagalingou peoples. They met last year and voted on the mine, they voted on the mine 294 to one in support of it, yet that’s not good enough for Westpac”, he claimed in The Australian.
“Westpac didn’t make a decision based on Aboriginal rights one way or the other. W&J was the last thing on its business mind, sadly.
“But one more time for the record…
“Adani didn’t ‘negotiate’ and achieve the free prior informed consent of the W&J people. … “
“In his opinion piece [1], “Activists undermine principles of self-determination”, 20 April 2017,
Warren Mundine makes exaggerated, false and misleading comments.
As his views still gain considerable national attention as the former head of the Prime Minister’s Indigenous Advisory Council [2], it is necessary for us to respond.
“While we agree that “making your own decisions and controlling your own destiny… is something for which Indigenous people long campaigned” – he does much to undermine this premise in his article.
His uninformed characterisations of the Wangan and Jagalingou situation regarding the proposed Adani Carmichael mine do us and our campaign for self-determination a great disservice.
“Our forebears, like many others, pursued “sources of self-determination, like land rights”. We too celebrate Koiki Eddie Mabo’s achievement to gain “recognition of his people’s fundamental and original right to the land and seas on which they’d lived and subsisted since time immemorial”.
“But to then build an argument on Mabo’s legacy, as Mundine does, and say that the Native Title Act in its present form is fostering “Indigenous economic participation by allowing traditional owners to use land as an economic asset”, is ludicrous. He fails to position the importance of traditional lands in the full spectrum of Indigenous values and uses (not just economic and extractive relations to resources), alongside the manifest failures of the Native Title Act to deliver anything remotely like land rights for most Aboriginal people.
“His elevation of the role of businesses in empowering Traditional Owners through Indigenous Land Use Agreements (ILUAs) compounds the folly. And to go further and state that there’s “little difference in substance between a treaty and an ILUA entered into with a government” reaches the height of absurdity. …
“As Deakin University’s Emeritus Professor Dr Jon Altman states [4], “Warren Mundine is poorly informed about the workings of the Native Title Act. His views run contrary to three Federal Court Judges. He confuses correlation with causation. In other words, just because key Traditional Owners and some ‘greenies’ agree, doesn’t mean one caused the other. It just means they share a similar view on Adani’s Carmichael mine proposal.” …
“We will argue our case to the Australian public. These are the people who support us, morally and financially. We welcome the many thousands of contributions that assist with our legal and other actions.
“We make no apologies for taking a stand, like so many Aboriginal rights campaigners,
against a dubious company intent on overriding our decisions, destroying our heritage, dividing our people and offering an insulting pittance in return.
“Mundine can characterise it however he likes, but we have no doubt that our stand is exactly an assertion of Indigenous self-determination. We don’t need his approval, or care about his disapproval.
“Though we’re sure his mates in the mining sector [5] and the halls of Government will welcome his opinions.”
“We’ve been dying on this soil for many hundreds of years now, since the whiteman came and we’ve been doing that in defense of our land. They’ve had the superior force and mightier weapons, but they’ve never been able to conquer us. They’ve been able to imprison us, jail us and all that sort of stuff but we’ve never acquiesced, never ceded our sovereignty and we are in defense of our land every day of the week.
This is a hidden war. It’s a war of stealth and, unfortunately, when we want to remind people of this, then people take offence and call it a protest.
This is just being totally respectful of the fact that we, our people, have got a message to relay and Australia cannot keep hiding it – like at Hospital Creek nine kilometres north of Brewarrina. We want to excise that land there because the human bones are still visible and that’s my ancestry. They were shot at this place. We had here people who survived this massacre, but that was a private army. They were made up of all the cockies and pastoralists.
It’s reality.
We need to remind people of this – and you go to Germany where mass murders occurred in Germany. You go to Serbia now, where they buried people in mass graves, where they massacred them. They’ve now created a situation there where these things are memorial parks now to the dead who were killed there.
Here in Australia we don’t have that and I think it’s time we did that for every nation. We have to include the elements of Australia’s forgotten wars.”
“A treaty is a formal settlement or agreement made between independent states. Treaties establish binding obligations and formal relations between two parties.
“Mr Terry Mason explained that treaties between the government and each of the land’s Indigenous nations would deal with matters of self-determination, land rights and custodianship.
And he believes they would guard against “discriminating legislation,” such as the Turnbull government’s recent attempts to amend native title laws.
““Aboriginal peoples must be able to take control of their own lives and resources in a progressive manner at both political and economic levels,” Mason added. … “
Antinuclear 