Organising a forum or workshop for your community is a simple way to help publicise the issue of the Intervention, hear stories from those affected and their supporters, and build support for an end to racist laws in the Northern Territory and beyond. If you haven’t organised a forum before, it’s fairly simple. The main elements are:
1) A venue: preferably, one that’s free to hire.
Neighborhood community centers are often set up for exactly this purpose, and can be used for events at little or no cost. Students, particularly student representatives at universities usually have free access to certain rooms, including large meeting spaces. Or you could approach a school or university with your idea, and ask for a cheap or free room hire. When you are choosing a venue, keep in mind;
* How many people are you planning for? Don’t get room that fits 500 if you only expect 80.
* What will the speakers need to be heard properly? Check if your venue comes with microphones and a P.A.
* Whether you will have access to stuff like toilets, a kitchen for water, tea and coffee, etc, etc...
2) Allies and partners:
Other groups who might want to help build the event, co-organise and/or promote, suggest speakers etc. For example, get in touch with:
* Student Union and University Indigenous Officers and Indigenous collectives on campus
* Supportive University staff and academics
* Indigenous Students Network
* Indigenous Learning Center
* Arts Faculty
3) Speakers and presenters
Check out the contact list in this Students for Sovereignty pack for some ideas of potential speakers in your area.
4) A format for the forum
There are lots of styles and formats for forums - and definitely scope to be creative.
Some key roles:
* Facilitator / MC / Compere
* Space / audiovisual person - making sure there are chairs, the projector is working, the room isn’t freezing
* Meet ‘n’ greet person for those who arrive early... and late! They could set up a table at the entrance with a sign up sheet (so you can contact people after the forum), some materials, leaflets, stickers and posters.
Key elements might be:
* Acknowledgement of country - invite Traditional Owners to speak at the start of the forum. If you don’t know who they are - do some research, ask people in your community, call around.
* Facilitator: introduce the forum and speakers
* Speakers (ten minutes each)
* Questions and discussion
* Brainstorm possible collaboration / next steps, break off into small groups to work on, reportback)
5) Promotion
You can students, staff, other ngos to send via e-lists, put in their newsletters etc, article in student rags, do interviews on community radio with one organiser and one or two of the speakers, posters and fliers, etc.
Example: Public Forum: After Sorry - Where to for Aboriginal Rights?
Monday 25th Feb, Redfern Community Centre, 6pm.
Speakers:
* Bev Manton, Chairperson, NSW Aboriginal Land Council
* Phil Bradley, NSW Teachers Federation and Reconciliation for Western Sydney
* Shane Phillips, Aboriginal Rights Coalition
* Nicole Watson, UTS
Following Kevin Rudd’s apology there has been a marked wave of progressive sentiment on issues of Indigenous justice throughout the country. After 11 long years of setbacks and blatant racism under Howard, there has finally been an important step in the right direction.
Yet there is still much to be done. Up to two thousand people rallied the day before the apology against the ongoing injustice of the NT intervention, with the support of a broad range of Aboriginal organisations, unions, human rights and social justice groups. A meeting of the National Aboriginal Alliance took forward the project of building a strong political voice for Aboriginal people. People from affected communities gave moving testimony:
The cry for immediate review of the intervention has gone unanswered, the Racial Discrimination act is still suspended, Aboriginal land has been compulsorily acquired and Non-aboriginal business managers continue to have extraordinary powers, referred to as “analogous to a police state” by many from communities.
There has been a call for broad, diverse rallies on the first anniversary of the intervention in July. There are actions being organised at Centrelinks throughout the country on March 13th, highlighting the issue of welfare quarantines.
Come along to this forum to help build our power & to discuss the way forward for the movement for Aboriginal rights.
For more info contact: _____
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Aboriginal Voices on the NT Intervention
Collected from recordings from public meetings and demonstrations in Alice Springs, Darwin and Canberra. Transcribed by Holly, Scott and Anita. For copies of the recordings please contact studentsforsovereignty@gmail.com
Greg Eatock, Aboriginal Rights Coalition, Redfern
“We must end this racist legacy of the Howard government, and we must end it immediately. People are dying from it. It’s an apartheid system. We all know what apartheid is, and that’s what people are living under in the N.T. This is just the beginning of the campaign, and we will be organising on the 13th of each month around the country. What we’ve gotta do is get people mobilised again, we’ve gotta stand up and be counted. This is happening because of a lack of respect and recognition of Aboriginal sovereignty in this country.”
Walter Shaw, Mount Nancy Town Camp, Alice Springs
“We want this intervention squashed and we want the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his Minister for Indigenous Affairs to come down to all Aboriginal communities and do it properly. There’s a right way of doing business and there’s a wrong way. And this is wrong.
“When you look at a systematic approach, a paternalistic approach, it will not work with Aboriginal people. They’ve tried it! This is another government policy, it’s an ideology from people living 3000 kilometres away that aren’t in touch with the people who are affected by the consequences of their advice.
“We’ve always worked with police. We’ve worked with problems to do with our own communities, but because these police have got so much powers, they can go into your house, they can look under your pillow, they can go in your fridge, they can go anywhere on your town camp and look for anything.“
“This intervention was done from a child sexual abuse report by the Northern Territory. Once the Federal Parliament got hold of this sexual abuse report, a lot of sexual abuse reports were done on a national scale. There are small pockets in any community in suburbia or metropolitan areas that have people who are offenders in terms of sexual abuse. This intervention is racially vilifying all Aboriginal men as paedophiles.
“Once this Bill was passed, we had a rally in Alice Springs. A whole group of Aboriginal communities and town campers rallied on the front steps of the Northern Territory’s Chief Minister’s office. A symbolic gesture was made where all of the Aboriginal women shredded the 500 page bill and burnt it, simply because our women raise our children. Last year was supposed to be a commemorative year for all of us Aboriginal people in this country, our country, we celebrated the 1967 referendum and we celebrated NAIDOC, and yet last year and this year we are still fighting for our future existence.”
Stan Strantham, Papunya
“In Papunya there’s a policeman there who waits at the hospital. People coming in from miles away with an unregistered car are booked straight away. They charge you for driving in town, and that’s not a town area. No way. All the policeman just get in the motor car, all of a sudden just grab the driver and lock them up. That’s what they do, everybody, everywhere. Alice Springs, there’s a policewoman, pulled out a gun to shoot people in the creek: ‘Get out you black bastards!’ That’s how the policeman act in treating black people today. So please, we need help. And there’s a lot of people today in Alice Springs. People are treating people like dogs. So come on, lets chuck them dregs to one side, it’s an invasion! Not anything else.”
Christopher Poulson, Yuendumu
“We know Australia because all these countries have an Aboriginal name. You know, hills they got an Aboriginal name, our language name. Trees, the river, they got a name all around, Aboriginal name, and we come from this place. We know this country belongs to us and we will stand strong, we’ll fight together with words. It is important that sometimes we must stand together.”
Pat Turner, Arrente and Gurdanji woman, Head of National Indigenous Television and former administrator of ATSIC
“We have known about the issues in our communities for several generations and governments have done nothing... We know what the situation is like, we live it every day... We have to stand up to this Government and we have to say “if you want to do anything to us, you negotiate. We’re not interested in consultation, you negotiate. We have rights and we are not about to sacrifice them for anybody… We have, on Aboriginal land, inalienable freehold title. And we will keep it.”
Aunty Kathy Mills, Senior Traditional Owner of Larrakia Nation, Darwin
“Our status of traditional ownership is under attack, like never before. The Wild / Anderson report was intended to improve living conditions for Aboriginal people. Aboriginal people continue to suffer under starving wages, crowded living conditions, high cost of living, isolation from major health and services supply outlets, and inadequate travel service provisions.”
Leslie
“My name is Leslie and I actually work for an Indigenous job network. And June 2007, the government actually slashed our town services which actually operate or help the Indigenous people with employment. And when they did that, they basically kicked us in the guts for the town services. And what I am seeing out in the remote areas, it’s really, really heartbreaking. Because what I see is a lot of confusion with people out in the communities. Once they’ve cut out the CDEP, a lot of people are just sort of walking around in a daze. They don’t know what’s happening. If these people don’t work they get cut. Eight weeks of no money whatsoever. So these people on quarantine, their money get cut because they’ve been forced to do some sort of training or look for some bloody job out on these communities that have barely got jackshit. And that’s unfair.
Eileen Hoosan
“Under the Act the Commonwealth Minister now has the same powers as the N.T. Minister to administer, forfeit, breach or resume a town camp lease. He can cut our leases off us. And the Commonwealth Minister has additional powers to compulsorily acquire town camps without additional notice or process and vet the freehold title in itself. So the leases we fought for thirty years ago, that we fought the government for, we got those leases in our community name, they can come and falsely take that lease off us! We live in fear of government coming in and taking our lease. Cos we’ve been there, you know.“
Barbara Shaw, Tangentyere Council, community and health worker, and resident at Mt Nancy Town Camp in Alice Springs:
In Alice Springs, July 2007:
“I’m proud to be a town camper. All my great grandfathers and grandmothers they fought for these town camps for years and years and years. And we’re gonna hold onto them, no matter what. No matter what colour you are, where you come from, and where you live; today all Aboriginal people are being painted by the same brush, with one colour. Aboriginal people are being jammed between a solid wall and a hard rock....
“In regards to welfare reform, Aboriginal women have had these programs already running out of their resource centres, for their children and their families. These programs worked for our communities. It made women stronger and gave them control in their communities... So let’s put the lid back on the paint tin and toss it. This big fight and struggle is not going to stop here, because it’s going to carry on in the generations to come. Let’s take a stand in solidarity today.”
In Canberra, February 2008:
“You see those men, those men over there, they are ‘prescribed area’ men. They look after their children and they look after their women. They’re not paedophiles. They are men of the communities, leaders. Everybody looks up to them. When there’s a problem in our communities, we deal with it.
“As soon as CDEP got scrapped, the enterprise went down and our men were unemployed. Now our men gotta line up at Centrelink and wait for their wages, and they’re getting wages out of our cards. We’ve got ration cards, and they are gift cards. All of our people are lining up at Centrelink. And Centrelink is not sending information out on time so our people can be fed on our communities.
“In Katherine during Christmas time people travelled all over 300 kilometres to go and get there store cards from Katherine centrelink, their ration cards. In the end there was 500 people there and they ran out of store cards. So people with kids, old people they went without. They went without whole Christmas, without anything because of Centrelink, because Centrelink ran out of ration cards. We don’t want to be paid in vouchers or rations anymore! This takes us back to 1890 when they started the ration days. We scrap this intervention. We focus on the real things: that’s the health, housing and education.
“We sit in front of Parliamentarians all the time when they come out to Alice Springs, but it goes in one ear and out the other, from one community, to the other, to the other. Round in circles. They’re not listening to us. We get up and say as much as we can in Alice Springs, that is why we travelled over 3000 km to get here to ask you mob for help.”
Mitch, Eastern Arrernte/Luritja woman from Alice Springs
“My family are coming to me because I live in the suburbs. I’m under the welfare quarantine stuff. I’m not under the other stuff. I don’t have to put a card in at the moment, so every fortnight when i go to put my form in I beg them to put me under, because I’m feeding thirty extended family members on my pension with two kids.
“So this intervention stuff has already divided us in our communities. I live in Alice Springs after coming in from bush because we had no high schools. We’ve heard this word sovereignty. I learnt about sovereignty in school. We’ve come here to gather that strength under that sovereignty word so we can take that back to our elders and discuss that.
“We’ve stood up and we explained exactly what we’ve implemented in Alice Springs. Our own grog and rehabilitation centre. Our own children’s centre, where they can go and play safely. All those things we’ve fought long and hard for, people have chucked their pension money in to keep these things going. We’ve had cake stalls. Now the government is withdrawing all of that funding. So i don’t know how in all of this our children are supposed to be safe.”
Greg Eatock, Aboriginal Rights Coalition, Redfern
“We must end this racist legacy of the Howard government, and we must end it immediately. People are dying from it. It’s an apartheid system. We all know what apartheid is, and that’s what people are living under in the N.T. This is just the beginning of the campaign, and we will be organising on the 13th of each month around the country. What we’ve gotta do is get people mobilised again, we’ve gotta stand up and be counted. This is happening because of a lack of respect and recognition of Aboriginal sovereignty in this country.”
Walter Shaw, Mount Nancy Town Camp, Alice Springs
“We want this intervention squashed and we want the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his Minister for Indigenous Affairs to come down to all Aboriginal communities and do it properly. There’s a right way of doing business and there’s a wrong way. And this is wrong.
“When you look at a systematic approach, a paternalistic approach, it will not work with Aboriginal people. They’ve tried it! This is another government policy, it’s an ideology from people living 3000 kilometres away that aren’t in touch with the people who are affected by the consequences of their advice.
“We’ve always worked with police. We’ve worked with problems to do with our own communities, but because these police have got so much powers, they can go into your house, they can look under your pillow, they can go in your fridge, they can go anywhere on your town camp and look for anything.“
“This intervention was done from a child sexual abuse report by the Northern Territory. Once the Federal Parliament got hold of this sexual abuse report, a lot of sexual abuse reports were done on a national scale. There are small pockets in any community in suburbia or metropolitan areas that have people who are offenders in terms of sexual abuse. This intervention is racially vilifying all Aboriginal men as paedophiles.
“Once this Bill was passed, we had a rally in Alice Springs. A whole group of Aboriginal communities and town campers rallied on the front steps of the Northern Territory’s Chief Minister’s office. A symbolic gesture was made where all of the Aboriginal women shredded the 500 page bill and burnt it, simply because our women raise our children. Last year was supposed to be a commemorative year for all of us Aboriginal people in this country, our country, we celebrated the 1967 referendum and we celebrated NAIDOC, and yet last year and this year we are still fighting for our future existence.”
Stan Strantham, Papunya
“In Papunya there’s a policeman there who waits at the hospital. People coming in from miles away with an unregistered car are booked straight away. They charge you for driving in town, and that’s not a town area. No way. All the policeman just get in the motor car, all of a sudden just grab the driver and lock them up. That’s what they do, everybody, everywhere. Alice Springs, there’s a policewoman, pulled out a gun to shoot people in the creek: ‘Get out you black bastards!’ That’s how the policeman act in treating black people today. So please, we need help. And there’s a lot of people today in Alice Springs. People are treating people like dogs. So come on, lets chuck them dregs to one side, it’s an invasion! Not anything else.”
Christopher Poulson, Yuendumu
“We know Australia because all these countries have an Aboriginal name. You know, hills they got an Aboriginal name, our language name. Trees, the river, they got a name all around, Aboriginal name, and we come from this place. We know this country belongs to us and we will stand strong, we’ll fight together with words. It is important that sometimes we must stand together.”
Pat Turner, Arrente and Gurdanji woman, Head of National Indigenous Television and former administrator of ATSIC
“We have known about the issues in our communities for several generations and governments have done nothing... We know what the situation is like, we live it every day... We have to stand up to this Government and we have to say “if you want to do anything to us, you negotiate. We’re not interested in consultation, you negotiate. We have rights and we are not about to sacrifice them for anybody… We have, on Aboriginal land, inalienable freehold title. And we will keep it.”
Aunty Kathy Mills, Senior Traditional Owner of Larrakia Nation, Darwin
“Our status of traditional ownership is under attack, like never before. The Wild / Anderson report was intended to improve living conditions for Aboriginal people. Aboriginal people continue to suffer under starving wages, crowded living conditions, high cost of living, isolation from major health and services supply outlets, and inadequate travel service provisions.”
Leslie
“My name is Leslie and I actually work for an Indigenous job network. And June 2007, the government actually slashed our town services which actually operate or help the Indigenous people with employment. And when they did that, they basically kicked us in the guts for the town services. And what I am seeing out in the remote areas, it’s really, really heartbreaking. Because what I see is a lot of confusion with people out in the communities. Once they’ve cut out the CDEP, a lot of people are just sort of walking around in a daze. They don’t know what’s happening. If these people don’t work they get cut. Eight weeks of no money whatsoever. So these people on quarantine, their money get cut because they’ve been forced to do some sort of training or look for some bloody job out on these communities that have barely got jackshit. And that’s unfair.
Eileen Hoosan
“Under the Act the Commonwealth Minister now has the same powers as the N.T. Minister to administer, forfeit, breach or resume a town camp lease. He can cut our leases off us. And the Commonwealth Minister has additional powers to compulsorily acquire town camps without additional notice or process and vet the freehold title in itself. So the leases we fought for thirty years ago, that we fought the government for, we got those leases in our community name, they can come and falsely take that lease off us! We live in fear of government coming in and taking our lease. Cos we’ve been there, you know.“
Barbara Shaw, Tangentyere Council, community and health worker, and resident at Mt Nancy Town Camp in Alice Springs:
In Alice Springs, July 2007:
“I’m proud to be a town camper. All my great grandfathers and grandmothers they fought for these town camps for years and years and years. And we’re gonna hold onto them, no matter what. No matter what colour you are, where you come from, and where you live; today all Aboriginal people are being painted by the same brush, with one colour. Aboriginal people are being jammed between a solid wall and a hard rock....
“In regards to welfare reform, Aboriginal women have had these programs already running out of their resource centres, for their children and their families. These programs worked for our communities. It made women stronger and gave them control in their communities... So let’s put the lid back on the paint tin and toss it. This big fight and struggle is not going to stop here, because it’s going to carry on in the generations to come. Let’s take a stand in solidarity today.”
In Canberra, February 2008:
“You see those men, those men over there, they are ‘prescribed area’ men. They look after their children and they look after their women. They’re not paedophiles. They are men of the communities, leaders. Everybody looks up to them. When there’s a problem in our communities, we deal with it.
“As soon as CDEP got scrapped, the enterprise went down and our men were unemployed. Now our men gotta line up at Centrelink and wait for their wages, and they’re getting wages out of our cards. We’ve got ration cards, and they are gift cards. All of our people are lining up at Centrelink. And Centrelink is not sending information out on time so our people can be fed on our communities.
“In Katherine during Christmas time people travelled all over 300 kilometres to go and get there store cards from Katherine centrelink, their ration cards. In the end there was 500 people there and they ran out of store cards. So people with kids, old people they went without. They went without whole Christmas, without anything because of Centrelink, because Centrelink ran out of ration cards. We don’t want to be paid in vouchers or rations anymore! This takes us back to 1890 when they started the ration days. We scrap this intervention. We focus on the real things: that’s the health, housing and education.
“We sit in front of Parliamentarians all the time when they come out to Alice Springs, but it goes in one ear and out the other, from one community, to the other, to the other. Round in circles. They’re not listening to us. We get up and say as much as we can in Alice Springs, that is why we travelled over 3000 km to get here to ask you mob for help.”
Mitch, Eastern Arrernte/Luritja woman from Alice Springs
“My family are coming to me because I live in the suburbs. I’m under the welfare quarantine stuff. I’m not under the other stuff. I don’t have to put a card in at the moment, so every fortnight when i go to put my form in I beg them to put me under, because I’m feeding thirty extended family members on my pension with two kids.
“So this intervention stuff has already divided us in our communities. I live in Alice Springs after coming in from bush because we had no high schools. We’ve heard this word sovereignty. I learnt about sovereignty in school. We’ve come here to gather that strength under that sovereignty word so we can take that back to our elders and discuss that.
“We’ve stood up and we explained exactly what we’ve implemented in Alice Springs. Our own grog and rehabilitation centre. Our own children’s centre, where they can go and play safely. All those things we’ve fought long and hard for, people have chucked their pension money in to keep these things going. We’ve had cake stalls. Now the government is withdrawing all of that funding. So i don’t know how in all of this our children are supposed to be safe.”
The LITTLE white lie … Bluffing Sovereigns out of their rights….
By Peta Ridgeway, Member of the Kattung Nation
Imagine there is a game that 2 people sit down to play, one player knowing all the rules & the other player not knowing one. Who do you suppose would win the game if the one who knows the rules is a cheat by nature?
The game is called stealing sovereignty. The board is our Lands.
The Rules are Sovereign Rights. Winner takes all.
The one who knows the rules has been playing this game for a few thousand years…
After years of them making moves for us, Mob are getting to know the rules.
We the Original People of this continent have continuing sovereignty, though the Crown & purported governments (PG) upon our continent have bluffed us into believing that it is non existent. They have worked hard to invalidate our belief in sovereignty via the genetic memory of fear of violence enforced upon us throughout the generations. To this day it uses tools such as racist policy & police forces to bully us into believing there is no other option to be free so we fall into quiet desperation, destitution, complacency & submission to their jurisdiction.
Within our own collective paradigm many of us who are aware of sovereignty think that we should either leave it alone because we will suffer as our Ancestors did or that we will have to fight to achieve it because the PG won’t give sovereignty to us.
A few home truths….
For us Mob upon this continent as we have not ceded our sovereignty through treaty, no entity can give us Sovereignty beside our parents!!! It is our BIRTHRIGHT…
Nor can anyone steal our sovereignty; they can only bluff us into believing it doesn’t exist as they have done since 1770.
What we DO have to do is assert our continuing sovereignty. This action results in stepping out of their jurisdiction. The work then is learning about our sovereign rights and then using, walking & planting them in our daily lives. This means being free from the governance of a foreign power that continually seeks to rob us of our freedom. Sovereignty is about protecting our FREEDOM …
Once suvereigns (a sovereign individual) have the awareness of these truths then the hard work, if chosen can expand onto the rebuilding of nationhood.
We as Mobs have mostly forgotten what true freedom is, we have been trained to forget. I guess the hardest work of a suvereign is to believe in, accept & own freedom for ourselves, for our children & for our linage to come.
THE REALITY OF OUR FREEDOM
If the knowledge of our “sovereign rights” was as common as the propaganda that is taught in education institutions about us & upheld in society then the PG would not be in power. The common person would even know about the illegal status it has here, this would create a scrutiny by the people that it definitely couldn’t handle. Perhaps British subjects would want to be part of our jurisdiction instead of the PG’s. This would challenge their very existence. The PG has a staunch commitment to bluff all of us for as long as they can to retain (in our minds) total power of this continent.
In their illegal jurisdiction the instrument & self appointed relationship they formed over us was & still is the PG as the “Protector/Trustee” & us as the state ward/POW*/beneficiary. This means that they are responsible for all decision making & management of our communities, affairs, finances, lands & resources.
No matter what political party (sales team) is in power it has the Protector/Trustee instrument over us en masse unless we choose to free ourselves. The Labour party of the 80’s wasn’t so publicly heavy handed in its use of the instrument though we can see that the Labour party of 2008 is using the instrument for all its worth as we look at the whole intervention issue. It has used this instrument to further steal land, resources, withhold wealth from the Mob & of course to assimilate us further so who we are as can be forgotten in a generation or 2. The instrument is executed under “the knowing what’s best for us guise”. At the time of writing I was informed about failed attempt at the quarantining of payments in Yuendumu, Walpiri Nation. The whole of the community including community stores had told it a loud & proud “no” to quarantining. Yuendumu is the only Mob as a prescribed community to have no quarantining of payments. In this situation the Walpiri used their sovereign right to govern in rejecting the jurisdiction of a foreign power. Any move by the PG asserting its policy on a sovereign without their permission is an “ACT OF WAR”.
Their jurisdiction over us is a bluff in itself. It has no sovereignty here itself. Only we do. This not only stems from our lawful authority but its own legal point of view for example, in 1872 “The Pacific Islander Protection Act” came into being .An amendment to “The Pacific Islander Protection Act 1875”states that the queen of the parliament of the UK could only exercise its’ laws (not sovereignty) over British subjects, and that the UK parliament had, by this amendment, clarified that:
Nothing herein or in any such Order in Council shall extend or be construed to extend to invest Her Majesty with any claim or title whatsoever to dominion or sovereignty over any such islands (ie: the Pacific Islands) or places as aforesaid (ie: the Australasian Colonies including Australia and NZ), or to derogate from the rights of the tribes or people inhabiting such islands or places, or of the Chiefs or rulers thereof, to such sovereignty or dominion……….”
THIS ACT HAS NEVER BEEN REPEALED…
LIFE WITHIN THE WINNERS CIRCLE ….
There is only one way out…using our sovereign right to be free. There has been a very deliberate campaign to bluff us out of our “sovereign jurisdiction” & into the PG’s illegal jurisdiction .The campaign has been faithfully upheld since 1770 & driven through;
➢ Terrorism:
• by instilling fear into Mobs through a long running history of outright violence through war, permitted genocide & police brutality,
• murders & mistreatment in police & other institutions “protective” custody ie: Deaths in Custody
• the kidnapping of children & destruction of the natural family/community unit,
• forced immigration en masse from Homelands,
• the forced institutionalization or imprisonment of whole communities through the mission system,
• slave labour of our communities en masse including children,
• martial law in communities,
• being under perpetual surveillance & social scrutiny,
• capital & corporal punishment suffered by families & individuals for; - speaking our own languages,
- believing in our own spiritual systems,
- & the practice of our own divine Law,
➢ Denial:
• of rent,
• of management of our own finances ie: Stolen Wages
• of justice on all levels & in all aspects,
• of compensation or reparation of any crime,
• of presence & voice within the their jurisdiction,
• of the status of being “human” in legal terms ,
• of our nationalities;
• of our international identity,
• of our authority over our cultural lore & knowledge,
• of our creation or origins,
• of our own education, spiritual systems and our divine Law,
• of our own sustainable lifestyle or culture,
• of our vision for a quality of life,
• of access to our Homelands & places of sacred significance,
• of authority of our Homelands & places of sacred significance,
➢ Propaganda:
• by intergenerational brainwashing through the education & mission system of whole communities to enforce western values & lifestyle, ie: assimilation,
• by editing, censoring or even deleting accounts of history ,ie: the “British Invasion”.
• through appointment of scientists & anthropologists as authorities of our culture & creation (origins),
• teaching legal fiction that uphold their jurisdiction throughout institutions both here & globally, ie: “The aborigines come from Africa”
• by poisoning the faith of our spiritual systems in order to enable the en masse conversion of our people to Christianity,
• by deviating cultural knowledge such as tribal & national boundaries to further deny our nations & nationalities,
• by leading the world astray until 1972 that the indigenous people of the continent were “White Australians”
• to enable division in the wider community by creating & upholding racist social stereotypes such as,
ie “aboriginals get everything for free.
These points are only a broad few, as you know so many more can be added. The examples of the 29 points above are 29 ways they have forced us to divert our attention from our truth, being sovereigns with rights & a jurisdiction. Once their diversion is believed in then we submit to their illegal jurisdiction. In their jurisdiction the only place promised to us is enslavement.
On the other hand the 29 points above are 29 reasons to set yourself & your Mob free.
A LOOK @ OURSTORY
In order for us to forget & not get educated about our true rights they have diverted our movements onto the “civil rights” path.
Our fight against the illegal occupation upon our lands from another nation & their sovereignty or rule started in the 1770’s with the “British Invasion Wars” (hundreds of National Wars) fought against Britain & later her newborn colony “Australia” across our continent from 1770 – 1930’s.These were our first feudal campaigns on such a scale.
Our Earliest political campaigns were born out of our sovereignty being honoured like the campaign of the Pallawa petitioning the British monarchy in the late 1800’s about honouring the verbal treaty made with them in the 1820’s as Sovereigns.
In 1967 after a long hard fight the Mob was given the “civil right” to vote. Our civil rights movement was finally acknowledged after 30 yrs as well as supposedly dropping our “fauna & flora” status in Australian society.
Our Sovereignty movement continentally hit its peak during the late 60’s –late 70’s with many events such as the strike led by Vincent Lingiari in the NT, the birth of the Tent Embassy in the ACT & international interest in our state of affairs from China & then globally for the first time.
With this state of affairs attention had to diverted. This is when our people were first given government jobs, federal & state budgets allocated for health, housing & education thus funding for organizations. This diverted attention from our sovereign rule & their illegal status here. They did anything to shut us up & to plant the seeds of forgetfulness about our sovereignty. As trustee the PG had to give a little back then to protect itself, funnily enough just about everything that it gave back then has been & is in the process of being taken from us today.
A LOOK @ THEIRSTORY
In 1494 the Papal Bull of Oceania came into existence. The Bull is a declaration given by the Vatican a nation unto itself. This came about by the colonizing nations of the world bickering about their booty being raided by each other so they went to the Pope to sort this problem out. As the purported ruler of the world & looking to expand his dominion or sovereignty, he then divided the globe up like a mandarine & assigned zones to each at the table, our Nations sit within the zone assigned to Britain.
They called our continent “Terra Australis”, Land of Spirit or Light.
So the big picture is …Britain was given the Vatican’s Papal Bull jurisdiction over our part of the globe since 1494.
It is well known that the Dutch, French & Portuguese visited before 1770, they had a job to do….they mapped our land, chartered our waters, studied our peoples & resources. Throughout the coasts of our continent we have many accounts of these liaisons; in fact there are Mobs that carry these bloodlines as a result of these visits well before the Invasion of Britain.
In 1770 our continent was given another name but only in legal terminology, Terra Nullius (Empty Land), this is when in regards to their laws our peoples became “flora & fauna”. When land is deemed Terra Nullius it paves the way to “settlement” (legal term for squatting) & then opens the door to plant “Common Law”…This is how their law came to be upon our continent illegally.
Right now we are hearing about “Australia becoming a republic” .A referendum asking the same “republic question” to the Australian people can not be asked again ,it is illegal within their jurisdiction to do so. Though the PG has a couple of options up its sleeve;
➢ It can secede from the Crown…..meaning it can break away from the Crown, British Parliament (BP) & Commonwealth just as the 40 or so micro-nations called “principalities” have done upon this continent (a bit of history that the above mentioned didn’t want you to know about, the Principality of Hutt River being the 1st) It is a movement that has been happening over the past 36 years. These principalities as its name suggests are ruled by “princes”. These people realized that for themselves to step out of the jurisdiction they needed “sovereignty” so they declared themselves “princes” .In reality they have a very flimsy type of sovereignty in fact these principalities need to have the legitimate sovereignty of the people of the land to be totally empowered. Even if it means having Originies* within the citizenship base, then our sovereignty is used to justify their own (the vampirism of our sovereignty!). At this point of time with the PG changing laws about land tenure in regards to fee simple (a clause on deed & title meaning no one can enter the property uninvited including police or crown) now more than ever these principalities are & will be seeking the Originies of the land having had a taste of freedom from the purported government’s jurisdiction.
➢ The British Parliament can repeal the Australian Constitution Act 1901...
This means that since the Australian Constitution is just an act of the British Parliament it can erase the entity called “Australia” at the stroke of a pen.
The British parliament could offer “Independence”. Though ,it is not true severance as the name would suggest.
The problem with independence given from the crown is that it will still have ties to the British Parliament .Here is how….
It is the expected that the signatories of any official document/instrument such as a declaration of independence or treaty are either opposing or independent bodies.
If one of the signatories is in service or employ of the other signatory then it makes the agreement, be it a declaration or treaty null & void.
Kevin Rudd has sworn allegiance to the Queen of the British Parliament as a Prime Minister which means he is in service to the British Parliament & the Queen. An official document produced between them is null & void.
ILLEGAL AGAIN
SO WHAT WILL THEY DO KNOWING THEY HAVE NO SOVEREIGNTY OF THEIR OWN?
In any case the new republic will need sovereignty to become a legal entity…
They will have to get it from somewhere…
Here is a look at what could happen….
➢ Soon enough the begging of a treaty will begin again through the reconciliation movement. For example; It was in their best interest to have had us to beg for a “Sorry”. Why? Because the people demanded an apology for years with nothing else prominently attached such as compensation & reparation thus the apology alone became a “legal remedy” to the whole Stolen Generation/Stolen Wages issue, in which we were paid in full. The people need to be clear & strong about the direction of their campaigns & not be contaminated by purported government’s guided versions of them.
➢ It will ratify the UN Declaration of Indigenous Rights. All in the name of “good will”. The UN is an image laundering machine. It protects, primps & polishes the purported government’s & other the member states’ image within the international community .The PG ratifies treaties to benefit its image & has used the UN in its former glory as the League of Nations to justify itself as an international entity by signing onto international treaties. It only has domestic sovereignty under the British Parliament since it is still legally a colony of Britain. We all know it doesn’t heed the UN charters. Their law is not enforceable upon any nation .They are at best guidelines. Under the UN charters, indigenous populations (of the nations that have been colonized) come under the status of peoples. Peoples are not seen as nations thus their sovereignty or nationhood is not acknowledged by that body. The “4th World” is made up of such peoples. The PG has always shared this view in regards to Originies upon this continent. We are put under the banner of “peoples”. This means in their jurisdiction we are seen as one body, one people. This is akin to seeing Africa as one country & all its Mobs as one nationality.
➢ They will manufacture the “Treaty of all treaties”. The treaty will be a style that cedes our sovereignty & looks upon us as a people. It will offer the approval of the creation of defacto governments in remote communities especially to those Mobs that are using or threatening to use their sovereign rights. A defacto style government is one that rules within a jurisdiction though is funded by and ultimately adheres to the jurisdiction of a mother government; in autonomy, defacto governments are just one step above a shire council in reality. For the rest of the continent it will initiate a treaty with its handpicked indigenous leaders to represent all Mob & they will sign off on for the continental ceding of sovereignty. The purported government will use our sovereignty to build the future republic. The vampirism of sovereignty at its peak.
Only Nations that have proclaimed their continuing sovereignty will be free from such actions.
If we think that the policy within their jurisdiction is inhumane now than how it will be when Kevin Rudd has the free reign to make any Law unhindered….in the name of building a “republic”….????
Glossary
ORIGINE
Latin: meaning the original people. The term is starting to be used internationally through the opposition of using the term “aborigine” because of its meaning in Latin.
Ab= not
Origine=original people
POW
Prisoner Of War. A Nation that has had a declaration of war made against them without a treaty of peace negotiated with them at any time afterwards is deemed to be still at war. Kattung had war declared upon them on 30th March 1804.The Kattung Nation members within the PG jurisdiction are POW’s.
BIRTHRIGHTS
Birthrights can never be given by a foreign power be it government, monarchy or corporation. They are born with oneself just as we were given a body at birth. We carry birthrights within us. Our hands & feet were given at birth to be used for this lifetime so are our birthrights.
SOVEREIGN RIGHTS
Sovereign rights are our birthright to govern upon & protect our homelands, to uphold our Law, to determine our own destinies whether that be spiritually, culturally or economically, to be apart of the international community & to be free from the jurisdiction of foreign powers.
CIVIL RIGHTS
Civil rights are rights that can only be given to the people by a state/government or monarchy.
For more details and to contact:
kanuguba1@gmail.com
Imagine there is a game that 2 people sit down to play, one player knowing all the rules & the other player not knowing one. Who do you suppose would win the game if the one who knows the rules is a cheat by nature?
The game is called stealing sovereignty. The board is our Lands.
The Rules are Sovereign Rights. Winner takes all.
The one who knows the rules has been playing this game for a few thousand years…
After years of them making moves for us, Mob are getting to know the rules.
We the Original People of this continent have continuing sovereignty, though the Crown & purported governments (PG) upon our continent have bluffed us into believing that it is non existent. They have worked hard to invalidate our belief in sovereignty via the genetic memory of fear of violence enforced upon us throughout the generations. To this day it uses tools such as racist policy & police forces to bully us into believing there is no other option to be free so we fall into quiet desperation, destitution, complacency & submission to their jurisdiction.
Within our own collective paradigm many of us who are aware of sovereignty think that we should either leave it alone because we will suffer as our Ancestors did or that we will have to fight to achieve it because the PG won’t give sovereignty to us.
A few home truths….
For us Mob upon this continent as we have not ceded our sovereignty through treaty, no entity can give us Sovereignty beside our parents!!! It is our BIRTHRIGHT…
Nor can anyone steal our sovereignty; they can only bluff us into believing it doesn’t exist as they have done since 1770.
What we DO have to do is assert our continuing sovereignty. This action results in stepping out of their jurisdiction. The work then is learning about our sovereign rights and then using, walking & planting them in our daily lives. This means being free from the governance of a foreign power that continually seeks to rob us of our freedom. Sovereignty is about protecting our FREEDOM …
Once suvereigns (a sovereign individual) have the awareness of these truths then the hard work, if chosen can expand onto the rebuilding of nationhood.
We as Mobs have mostly forgotten what true freedom is, we have been trained to forget. I guess the hardest work of a suvereign is to believe in, accept & own freedom for ourselves, for our children & for our linage to come.
THE REALITY OF OUR FREEDOM
If the knowledge of our “sovereign rights” was as common as the propaganda that is taught in education institutions about us & upheld in society then the PG would not be in power. The common person would even know about the illegal status it has here, this would create a scrutiny by the people that it definitely couldn’t handle. Perhaps British subjects would want to be part of our jurisdiction instead of the PG’s. This would challenge their very existence. The PG has a staunch commitment to bluff all of us for as long as they can to retain (in our minds) total power of this continent.
In their illegal jurisdiction the instrument & self appointed relationship they formed over us was & still is the PG as the “Protector/Trustee” & us as the state ward/POW*/beneficiary. This means that they are responsible for all decision making & management of our communities, affairs, finances, lands & resources.
No matter what political party (sales team) is in power it has the Protector/Trustee instrument over us en masse unless we choose to free ourselves. The Labour party of the 80’s wasn’t so publicly heavy handed in its use of the instrument though we can see that the Labour party of 2008 is using the instrument for all its worth as we look at the whole intervention issue. It has used this instrument to further steal land, resources, withhold wealth from the Mob & of course to assimilate us further so who we are as can be forgotten in a generation or 2. The instrument is executed under “the knowing what’s best for us guise”. At the time of writing I was informed about failed attempt at the quarantining of payments in Yuendumu, Walpiri Nation. The whole of the community including community stores had told it a loud & proud “no” to quarantining. Yuendumu is the only Mob as a prescribed community to have no quarantining of payments. In this situation the Walpiri used their sovereign right to govern in rejecting the jurisdiction of a foreign power. Any move by the PG asserting its policy on a sovereign without their permission is an “ACT OF WAR”.
Their jurisdiction over us is a bluff in itself. It has no sovereignty here itself. Only we do. This not only stems from our lawful authority but its own legal point of view for example, in 1872 “The Pacific Islander Protection Act” came into being .An amendment to “The Pacific Islander Protection Act 1875”states that the queen of the parliament of the UK could only exercise its’ laws (not sovereignty) over British subjects, and that the UK parliament had, by this amendment, clarified that:
Nothing herein or in any such Order in Council shall extend or be construed to extend to invest Her Majesty with any claim or title whatsoever to dominion or sovereignty over any such islands (ie: the Pacific Islands) or places as aforesaid (ie: the Australasian Colonies including Australia and NZ), or to derogate from the rights of the tribes or people inhabiting such islands or places, or of the Chiefs or rulers thereof, to such sovereignty or dominion……….”
THIS ACT HAS NEVER BEEN REPEALED…
LIFE WITHIN THE WINNERS CIRCLE ….
There is only one way out…using our sovereign right to be free. There has been a very deliberate campaign to bluff us out of our “sovereign jurisdiction” & into the PG’s illegal jurisdiction .The campaign has been faithfully upheld since 1770 & driven through;
➢ Terrorism:
• by instilling fear into Mobs through a long running history of outright violence through war, permitted genocide & police brutality,
• murders & mistreatment in police & other institutions “protective” custody ie: Deaths in Custody
• the kidnapping of children & destruction of the natural family/community unit,
• forced immigration en masse from Homelands,
• the forced institutionalization or imprisonment of whole communities through the mission system,
• slave labour of our communities en masse including children,
• martial law in communities,
• being under perpetual surveillance & social scrutiny,
• capital & corporal punishment suffered by families & individuals for; - speaking our own languages,
- believing in our own spiritual systems,
- & the practice of our own divine Law,
➢ Denial:
• of rent,
• of management of our own finances ie: Stolen Wages
• of justice on all levels & in all aspects,
• of compensation or reparation of any crime,
• of presence & voice within the their jurisdiction,
• of the status of being “human” in legal terms ,
• of our nationalities;
• of our international identity,
• of our authority over our cultural lore & knowledge,
• of our creation or origins,
• of our own education, spiritual systems and our divine Law,
• of our own sustainable lifestyle or culture,
• of our vision for a quality of life,
• of access to our Homelands & places of sacred significance,
• of authority of our Homelands & places of sacred significance,
➢ Propaganda:
• by intergenerational brainwashing through the education & mission system of whole communities to enforce western values & lifestyle, ie: assimilation,
• by editing, censoring or even deleting accounts of history ,ie: the “British Invasion”.
• through appointment of scientists & anthropologists as authorities of our culture & creation (origins),
• teaching legal fiction that uphold their jurisdiction throughout institutions both here & globally, ie: “The aborigines come from Africa”
• by poisoning the faith of our spiritual systems in order to enable the en masse conversion of our people to Christianity,
• by deviating cultural knowledge such as tribal & national boundaries to further deny our nations & nationalities,
• by leading the world astray until 1972 that the indigenous people of the continent were “White Australians”
• to enable division in the wider community by creating & upholding racist social stereotypes such as,
ie “aboriginals get everything for free.
These points are only a broad few, as you know so many more can be added. The examples of the 29 points above are 29 ways they have forced us to divert our attention from our truth, being sovereigns with rights & a jurisdiction. Once their diversion is believed in then we submit to their illegal jurisdiction. In their jurisdiction the only place promised to us is enslavement.
On the other hand the 29 points above are 29 reasons to set yourself & your Mob free.
A LOOK @ OURSTORY
In order for us to forget & not get educated about our true rights they have diverted our movements onto the “civil rights” path.
Our fight against the illegal occupation upon our lands from another nation & their sovereignty or rule started in the 1770’s with the “British Invasion Wars” (hundreds of National Wars) fought against Britain & later her newborn colony “Australia” across our continent from 1770 – 1930’s.These were our first feudal campaigns on such a scale.
Our Earliest political campaigns were born out of our sovereignty being honoured like the campaign of the Pallawa petitioning the British monarchy in the late 1800’s about honouring the verbal treaty made with them in the 1820’s as Sovereigns.
In 1967 after a long hard fight the Mob was given the “civil right” to vote. Our civil rights movement was finally acknowledged after 30 yrs as well as supposedly dropping our “fauna & flora” status in Australian society.
Our Sovereignty movement continentally hit its peak during the late 60’s –late 70’s with many events such as the strike led by Vincent Lingiari in the NT, the birth of the Tent Embassy in the ACT & international interest in our state of affairs from China & then globally for the first time.
With this state of affairs attention had to diverted. This is when our people were first given government jobs, federal & state budgets allocated for health, housing & education thus funding for organizations. This diverted attention from our sovereign rule & their illegal status here. They did anything to shut us up & to plant the seeds of forgetfulness about our sovereignty. As trustee the PG had to give a little back then to protect itself, funnily enough just about everything that it gave back then has been & is in the process of being taken from us today.
A LOOK @ THEIRSTORY
In 1494 the Papal Bull of Oceania came into existence. The Bull is a declaration given by the Vatican a nation unto itself. This came about by the colonizing nations of the world bickering about their booty being raided by each other so they went to the Pope to sort this problem out. As the purported ruler of the world & looking to expand his dominion or sovereignty, he then divided the globe up like a mandarine & assigned zones to each at the table, our Nations sit within the zone assigned to Britain.
They called our continent “Terra Australis”, Land of Spirit or Light.
So the big picture is …Britain was given the Vatican’s Papal Bull jurisdiction over our part of the globe since 1494.
It is well known that the Dutch, French & Portuguese visited before 1770, they had a job to do….they mapped our land, chartered our waters, studied our peoples & resources. Throughout the coasts of our continent we have many accounts of these liaisons; in fact there are Mobs that carry these bloodlines as a result of these visits well before the Invasion of Britain.
In 1770 our continent was given another name but only in legal terminology, Terra Nullius (Empty Land), this is when in regards to their laws our peoples became “flora & fauna”. When land is deemed Terra Nullius it paves the way to “settlement” (legal term for squatting) & then opens the door to plant “Common Law”…This is how their law came to be upon our continent illegally.
Right now we are hearing about “Australia becoming a republic” .A referendum asking the same “republic question” to the Australian people can not be asked again ,it is illegal within their jurisdiction to do so. Though the PG has a couple of options up its sleeve;
➢ It can secede from the Crown…..meaning it can break away from the Crown, British Parliament (BP) & Commonwealth just as the 40 or so micro-nations called “principalities” have done upon this continent (a bit of history that the above mentioned didn’t want you to know about, the Principality of Hutt River being the 1st) It is a movement that has been happening over the past 36 years. These principalities as its name suggests are ruled by “princes”. These people realized that for themselves to step out of the jurisdiction they needed “sovereignty” so they declared themselves “princes” .In reality they have a very flimsy type of sovereignty in fact these principalities need to have the legitimate sovereignty of the people of the land to be totally empowered. Even if it means having Originies* within the citizenship base, then our sovereignty is used to justify their own (the vampirism of our sovereignty!). At this point of time with the PG changing laws about land tenure in regards to fee simple (a clause on deed & title meaning no one can enter the property uninvited including police or crown) now more than ever these principalities are & will be seeking the Originies of the land having had a taste of freedom from the purported government’s jurisdiction.
➢ The British Parliament can repeal the Australian Constitution Act 1901...
This means that since the Australian Constitution is just an act of the British Parliament it can erase the entity called “Australia” at the stroke of a pen.
The British parliament could offer “Independence”. Though ,it is not true severance as the name would suggest.
The problem with independence given from the crown is that it will still have ties to the British Parliament .Here is how….
It is the expected that the signatories of any official document/instrument such as a declaration of independence or treaty are either opposing or independent bodies.
If one of the signatories is in service or employ of the other signatory then it makes the agreement, be it a declaration or treaty null & void.
Kevin Rudd has sworn allegiance to the Queen of the British Parliament as a Prime Minister which means he is in service to the British Parliament & the Queen. An official document produced between them is null & void.
ILLEGAL AGAIN
SO WHAT WILL THEY DO KNOWING THEY HAVE NO SOVEREIGNTY OF THEIR OWN?
In any case the new republic will need sovereignty to become a legal entity…
They will have to get it from somewhere…
Here is a look at what could happen….
➢ Soon enough the begging of a treaty will begin again through the reconciliation movement. For example; It was in their best interest to have had us to beg for a “Sorry”. Why? Because the people demanded an apology for years with nothing else prominently attached such as compensation & reparation thus the apology alone became a “legal remedy” to the whole Stolen Generation/Stolen Wages issue, in which we were paid in full. The people need to be clear & strong about the direction of their campaigns & not be contaminated by purported government’s guided versions of them.
➢ It will ratify the UN Declaration of Indigenous Rights. All in the name of “good will”. The UN is an image laundering machine. It protects, primps & polishes the purported government’s & other the member states’ image within the international community .The PG ratifies treaties to benefit its image & has used the UN in its former glory as the League of Nations to justify itself as an international entity by signing onto international treaties. It only has domestic sovereignty under the British Parliament since it is still legally a colony of Britain. We all know it doesn’t heed the UN charters. Their law is not enforceable upon any nation .They are at best guidelines. Under the UN charters, indigenous populations (of the nations that have been colonized) come under the status of peoples. Peoples are not seen as nations thus their sovereignty or nationhood is not acknowledged by that body. The “4th World” is made up of such peoples. The PG has always shared this view in regards to Originies upon this continent. We are put under the banner of “peoples”. This means in their jurisdiction we are seen as one body, one people. This is akin to seeing Africa as one country & all its Mobs as one nationality.
➢ They will manufacture the “Treaty of all treaties”. The treaty will be a style that cedes our sovereignty & looks upon us as a people. It will offer the approval of the creation of defacto governments in remote communities especially to those Mobs that are using or threatening to use their sovereign rights. A defacto style government is one that rules within a jurisdiction though is funded by and ultimately adheres to the jurisdiction of a mother government; in autonomy, defacto governments are just one step above a shire council in reality. For the rest of the continent it will initiate a treaty with its handpicked indigenous leaders to represent all Mob & they will sign off on for the continental ceding of sovereignty. The purported government will use our sovereignty to build the future republic. The vampirism of sovereignty at its peak.
Only Nations that have proclaimed their continuing sovereignty will be free from such actions.
If we think that the policy within their jurisdiction is inhumane now than how it will be when Kevin Rudd has the free reign to make any Law unhindered….in the name of building a “republic”….????
Glossary
ORIGINE
Latin: meaning the original people. The term is starting to be used internationally through the opposition of using the term “aborigine” because of its meaning in Latin.
Ab= not
Origine=original people
POW
Prisoner Of War. A Nation that has had a declaration of war made against them without a treaty of peace negotiated with them at any time afterwards is deemed to be still at war. Kattung had war declared upon them on 30th March 1804.The Kattung Nation members within the PG jurisdiction are POW’s.
BIRTHRIGHTS
Birthrights can never be given by a foreign power be it government, monarchy or corporation. They are born with oneself just as we were given a body at birth. We carry birthrights within us. Our hands & feet were given at birth to be used for this lifetime so are our birthrights.
SOVEREIGN RIGHTS
Sovereign rights are our birthright to govern upon & protect our homelands, to uphold our Law, to determine our own destinies whether that be spiritually, culturally or economically, to be apart of the international community & to be free from the jurisdiction of foreign powers.
CIVIL RIGHTS
Civil rights are rights that can only be given to the people by a state/government or monarchy.
For more details and to contact:
kanuguba1@gmail.com
Racism and the NT Intervention
One of the clearest examples of the tenuous link between child abuse and many measures in the NT intervention, is the brazen undermining of Aboriginal land rights.
Provisions include:
- The Australian government forcing compulsory 5-year leases on all major Aboriginal communities in the NT. No negotiation or lease document is required. ‘Just terms’ compensation will only be paid ‘if warranted’. The leases do not guarantee Aboriginal people right of residence – it is not clear whether the government could evict Aboriginal people from their own communities.
- The government compulsorily acquiring town camp leases and vesting freehold title in itself. This dispossesses Traditional Owners of their land. No notice or process is required. Compensation may be payable but is not guaranteed.
The implications of these provisions are two-fold. One: these changes dilute Aboriginal control of land and expand their potential for commercial development. The context of the NT intervention was a push for an Aboriginal community in the NT to host a nuclear waste dump on their land; twinned with corporate agitation for the expansion of uranium mining and exports. The change of government in Australia last year did not also see a change in the aims – or influence – of the mining lobby. Mining interests have led opposition to the notion of Aboriginal land rights, and certainly have not opposed the NT intervention: weakening as it does Aboriginal control of land, easing access to land for powerful corporate players.
The NT intervention destabilises Aboriginal control of land, and community structures enabling the making of decisions regarding land. Secondly, it destabilises Aboriginal communities themselves, with reports today of the movements of outer communities in the NT moving into town centres as the NT intervention spreads across the territory in size and scope. Again, this undermines the force of Aboriginal decisions regarding access to land.
These provisions display the racist extensions of the intervention beyond even the inherently racist aspects of the invasion. The undermining of Aboriginal land rights not only weakens Aboriginal communities and culture, but also further advances exploitation of land and Aboriginal people being dumped with the problems associated with storing nuclear waste or with the consequences of uranium mining. The environmental racism implicit in the intervention adds further importance to greenies supporting the alliance for Indigenous sovereignty.
Though sudden and intense, the NT intervention is not new policy: but an extension of government ideologies towards Indigenous people. The intervention is a development that already deserves its own shocking – but not new – place in the ongoing history of Indigenous genocide in Australia.
Provisions include:
- The Australian government forcing compulsory 5-year leases on all major Aboriginal communities in the NT. No negotiation or lease document is required. ‘Just terms’ compensation will only be paid ‘if warranted’. The leases do not guarantee Aboriginal people right of residence – it is not clear whether the government could evict Aboriginal people from their own communities.
- The government compulsorily acquiring town camp leases and vesting freehold title in itself. This dispossesses Traditional Owners of their land. No notice or process is required. Compensation may be payable but is not guaranteed.
The implications of these provisions are two-fold. One: these changes dilute Aboriginal control of land and expand their potential for commercial development. The context of the NT intervention was a push for an Aboriginal community in the NT to host a nuclear waste dump on their land; twinned with corporate agitation for the expansion of uranium mining and exports. The change of government in Australia last year did not also see a change in the aims – or influence – of the mining lobby. Mining interests have led opposition to the notion of Aboriginal land rights, and certainly have not opposed the NT intervention: weakening as it does Aboriginal control of land, easing access to land for powerful corporate players.
The NT intervention destabilises Aboriginal control of land, and community structures enabling the making of decisions regarding land. Secondly, it destabilises Aboriginal communities themselves, with reports today of the movements of outer communities in the NT moving into town centres as the NT intervention spreads across the territory in size and scope. Again, this undermines the force of Aboriginal decisions regarding access to land.
These provisions display the racist extensions of the intervention beyond even the inherently racist aspects of the invasion. The undermining of Aboriginal land rights not only weakens Aboriginal communities and culture, but also further advances exploitation of land and Aboriginal people being dumped with the problems associated with storing nuclear waste or with the consequences of uranium mining. The environmental racism implicit in the intervention adds further importance to greenies supporting the alliance for Indigenous sovereignty.
Though sudden and intense, the NT intervention is not new policy: but an extension of government ideologies towards Indigenous people. The intervention is a development that already deserves its own shocking – but not new – place in the ongoing history of Indigenous genocide in Australia.
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