Overview of Treaty, Treaties, UDIs and Recognise

These are some of the issues that must be negotiated and settled if we are truly to unite on this island continent through Treaty/Treaties and decolonisation, and/or by way of Unilateral Declarations of Independence (UDIs).
 
The truth must be told and people must be held accountable and responsible for the genocide and tyranny that we have faced, and continue to face, from this prison colony.

 
Ghillar, Michael Anderson 9 September 2016

 
Put clearly, Australia does not have its own sovereignty. Under its British constitution all governments in Australia are caretakers in occupation and govern for the non-Aboriginal people who call themselves Australians. In point of fact Federal, State and Territory governments govern in right of the Crown of Britain. … Howard and Abbott appear demented when opposing Treaties …

Former Prime Ministers John Howard and Tony Abbott confirmed in September 2016 that they vigorously oppose any ideas of a Treaty between the Commonwealth of Australia and First Nations Peoples in Australia:

'John Howard has described talk of a treaty as "appalling" …."I'm appalled at talk about treaty, that will be so divisive and will fail," Mr Howard said and Tony Abbott says he has never supported the idea. …"A treaty is something that two nations make with each other, and obviously Aboriginal people are the first Australians, but in the end we're all Australians together, so I don't support a treaty."

[ http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-08/conservatives-lock-in-against-trea... ]

It is their opinion that Australia cannot Treaty with its own citizenry, because the notion of Treaties is associated with international agreements between Sovereign Nation States. Clearly both these former Prime Ministers are historically demented. This dementia is fostered by the fact that both men hated studying any literature associated with the invasion and the ultimate rise of an oppressive occupying colonial power which had failed to complete the total annihilation of the First Nations Peoples, whose Country had been invaded.

Both these former Prime Ministers are historically demented. This dementia is fostered by the fact that both men hated studying any literature associated with the invasion and the ultimate rise of an oppressive occupying colonial power. Image: John Howard and Tony Abbott proudly stand proudly in front of Robert Menzies painting.

It is important to acknowledge the concerns and influence that have been exercised by the Samuel Griffith Society of constitutional lawyers. I have previously cited from the expressed concerns by this society of lawyers when they advised John Howard in 1998 that Australia's sovereignty was now under threat from Aboriginal Nations and their Peoples.

Former PM Tony Abbott, having recently addressed this body of lawyers in Sydney now no doubt shares the concerns of the Samuel Griffith Society of constitutional lawyers.

Put clearly, Australia does not have its own sovereignty. Under its British constitution all governments in Australia are caretakers in occupation and govern for the non-Aboriginal people who call themselves Australians. In point of fact Federal, State and Territory governments govern in right of the Crown of Britain.

The internationally accepted norm of freeing ourselves from oppression and tyranny being imposed by a dominant occupying power, even if recognised as a member State of the United Nations, is through the Proclamation/Declaration of a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDIs) and the creation of our own governance on and within our own lands. This is an accepted practice under international law for Peoples who are determined to free themselves from violent domination, humanitarian crises and tyranny by the illegal occupiers of our lands.

The internationally accepted norm of freeing ourselves from oppression and tyranny being imposed by a dominant occupying power, even if recognised as a member State of the United Nations, is through the Proclamation/Declaration of a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDIs) and the creation of our own governance on and within our own lands.

The second way of freeing ourselves from tyranny and violent oppression is through the internationally accepted process of decolonisation and this can only be done by way of formal sovereign Treaty/Treaties between the invaded and occupied Nations/Peoples and the occupier State.

Any other way cannot be accepted.

Before we rush into any Treaty/Treaties processes we must listen to the experiences of the Canadian First Peoples non-Treaty Nations and how the Treaty process can be abused.

The fact that Australia does not have its own sovereignty is illustrated in all Australian laws. The legislations that are created by the Australian Parliament and/or the State and Territory governments are not law, nor are they legal, if the Queen's proxies in Australia, that is, the Governor-General and the State Governors, fail to assent to the legislation by way of signature representing the Queen's authorisation.

The Australian State, Territory and Federal governments are colonial caretakers of the Crown's property now known as the island continent of Australia. Image: Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull stands during the swearing-in ceremony at Government House on July 19, 2016 in Canberra, Australia. Elected governments and each politician must swear their allegiance to the British Crown.

Now let's ask ourselves is this a process of an independent Nation?

NO!

The Australian State, Territory and Federal governments are colonial caretakers of the Crown's property now known as the island continent of Australia.

The Mabo (No. 2) judgment did more than cause concern for farmers' rights, it caused concerns for the governments as a whole. There are two primary reasons why this concern was earth shattering for these colonial governments. Firstly, Mabo (No. 2) totally dispensed with the past notion that the land that they occupied was terra nullius (land belonging to no-one). Secondly, the High Court held that there were inhabitants here with Laws and customs of their own. The Mabo (No. 2) judgment clarified this point by ruling that Aboriginal Law and custom is not a construct of the British common law, but now the British common law recognises it. This means that all and sundry living within this continent cannot overlook the rights of First Nations Peoples to be governed by their own Law and culture within their own respective Nations' boundaries.

John Howard and Tony Abbott no doubt have been advised that, in reality, Mabo (No. 2) completely changed history and the legal and political landscape of Australia.

The Mabo (No. 2) judgment did more than cause concern for farmers' rights, it caused concerns for the governments. Since then there has been a war against First Nations and People and our Peoples Sovereign Rights through systematic deceit, lies and abuses, including the enforcing of 'Recognition' in an attempt to extinguish our sovereignty.

Now more than ever the Australian Government and their State counterparts are focusing so many resources into side-tracking the Australian mindset, including being absolutely deceitful with their Aboriginal collaborators by suggesting that it is time now for Aboriginal people to be recognised in the constitution of Australia. Tony Abbott's reference was that it completes our constitution, but Tony Abbott does not explain what this means for First Nations Peoples. In actual fact it addresses Sir Robert Menzies' concern when in 1965 Parliamentary he debated that if you take the word 'Aboriginal' out of the constitution the Aboriginal people will be outside of the Australian legal and political system. He then went on to suggest with words to the effect of: 'This parliament, when making laws for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people will have to use the Race Power section 51(26) to legislate for them, as they are independent Peoples who are foreign to our legal and political system. This can be confirmed by looking at all the early legislation soon after Federation that determined that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples were indeed aliens and not citizens.

Even Beasley Snr commented in the 1960s parliamentary debates that Australia should be ashamed of itself because Australian Aborigines were never included, not meant to be, citizens of a white Australia.

Howard and Abbott and their conservative membership have a political and legal resonance that equates to the tyranny and policies of the Hitler regime. After their iconic leader Sir Robert Menzies met with the Third Reich in Munich in 1938 Menzies thought that Hitler's policies and leadership were something that should have been adopted by Australia.

PM Robert Menzies visited Munich in 1938 and came back to Australia full of praise for Hitler. – (Melbourne Argus 15/11/38). Menzies was a strong anti-communist advocate and MHR Mahoney claimed Menzies told him, 'I have a great admiration for the Nazi organisation of Germany ... We must not destroy Hitlerism or talk about shooting Hitler'".

The reasons for drawing this conclusion are based upon the fact that in 1938 Robert Menzies, the leader of the Liberal party, traveled to Germany on a fact finding tour. On his return to Australia, Menzies was in support of David Lloyd George MP in England, who said he:

'…was not afraid of Hitler; he admired him. This was one of the reasons why Menzies found him [Hitler] intriguing. He had once said that Hitler was a 'great leader' and he shared the view that Menzies himself had formed on his visit to Germany in 1938.'

[ Williamson, K. 1984, The Last Bastion, Lansdowne, Sydney, p. 86 ]

Menzies' open support for Hitler became a talking point for the Labour party by Curtin in opposition. The discussion revolved around winning the next election or the parliament being a hung parliament. It was said within the party room:

'How could anyone who calls himself a labor man consider governing with Menzies? … The man who came back from Germany in 1938 and told us we have a lot to learn from Hitler?'

[ Williamson, K. 1984, The Last Bastion, Lansdowne, Sydney, p. 44. ]

In point of fact there is a lingering question mark that raises a very serious legal question about the rights of our Aboriginal brothers and sisters who are currently sitting in parliaments across this continent to sit in those parliaments. This arises because, if their ancestors were not franchised by State laws at Federation, then they do not have any legal authority to sit in a parliament let alone have the right to vote. If there were to be a constitutional challenge on the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to sit in any parliament or local government, I suggest that the law that was held in Sue v Hill, which ruled that Britain is a foreign power, and that Mrs Hill's dual citizenship and loyalty to England prevented her from taking her place in the national Australia parliament. The fact that Menzies and Beasley Snr identified that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples were not citizens and that special laws had to be for them under the Race Power means that the Aboriginal people currently elected to the Parliament have a dual citizenship and a loyalty to another set of laws and culture, therefore placing them in the same position and category as was the case in Sue v Hill.

Some people may wish to argue that Aboriginal people do have the right to vote but this is not fact. The only Commonwealth legislation that allegedly gives Aboriginal people the right to vote in any election is the 1962 Commonwealth Act. But this act is not legal because in 1962 the Commonwealth did not have the power to pass any laws for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples in any State of the Commonwealth of Australia. In the case of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory the situation is somewhat different because these Territories came under the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth.

Put simply, prior to 1967, Section 51(26) read that the Commonwealth can pass laws for any race for whom it is deemed necessary, except the Aborigines of the States.

The 1983 Senate Standing Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs in Two Hundred Years Later was ambivalent on the issue of Aboriginal Sovereignty Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples:

It may be that a better and more honest appreciation of the facts relating to Aboriginal occupation at the time of settlement, and of the Eurocentric view taken by the occupying powers, could lead to the conclusion that sovereignty inhered in the Aboriginal people at that time.

This matter is acknowledged as being a real and very serious issue for Australia. Even the Expert Panel Report on constitutional Recognition understood the seriousness of this matter and sought to avoid it, as Megan Davis summarised:

'Sovereignty was an issue raised by many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the course of the work of the Expert Panel. It would come as no surprise to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that constitutional recognition of the sovereign status of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples would be highly contested by many Australians and would jeopardise broad public support for the Expert Panel's recommendations. Similarly, it would come as no surprise that qualitative research found that 'sovereignty' and 'self-determination' were poorly understood concepts and there were similar diverse understandings of sovereignty in the non-Indigenous community as there were in the Indigenous community.' She then stated brusquely that 'The Constitution is not a place for conversations about sovereignty.'

[ www.sovereignunion.mobi/content/constitutional-recognition-treaty-and-so... ]
[ www.sovereignunion.mobi/content/constitution-recognition-campaigners-hit... ]

No Treaty/Treaties or any settlement of any kind will not be worth a pinch of salt if the Sovereignty issue is avoided. Sovereignty is real, as Justice Willis concluded in R v Bonjon, 1841:

"the Supreme Court of New South Wales had no jurisdiction to proceed with the trial of Bonjon" and Bonjon was discharged and released from jail.

[in Macquarie University Decisions of the Superior Courts of New South Wales 1788-1899]

Inset: (John Walpole Willis 1793-1877) Justice Willis was an English-born judge, and a judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. Background Image: 'Courthouse' Source: Residentjudge.files.wordpress.com.

Justice Willis stated in his judgment that:

" … if this colony were acquired by occupying such lands as were uncultivated and unoccupied by the natives, and within the limits of the sovereignty asserted under the commission, the aborigines would have remained unconquered and free, but dependent tribes, dependent on the colonists as their superiors for protection; their rights as a distinct people cannot, from their peculiar situation, be considered to have been tacitly surrendered. But the frequent conflicts that have occurred between the colonists and the Aborigines within the limits of the colony of New South Wales make it, I think, sufficiently manifest that the Aboriginal tribes are neither a conquered people, nor have tacitly acquiesced in the supremacy of the settlers".

Justice Willis adds:

"I repeat that I am not aware of any express enactment or treaty subjecting the Aborigines of this colony to the English colonial law, and I have shown that the Aborigines cannot be considered as Foreigners in a Kingdom which is their own".

Justice Willis then reasoned that:

"Aboriginal people remained 'unconquered and free, entitled to be regarded as 'self-governing communities'. Their rights 'as distinct people' could not be considered to have been 'tacitly surrendered'. As they were 'by no means devoid of legal capacity' and had 'laws and usages of their own', 'treaties should be made with them'. The colonists were 'uninvited intruders', the Aborigines 'the native sovereigns of the soil' ".

[ http://nationalunitygovernment.org/content/anderson-unite-common-cause-d... ]

So, without exercising Unilateral Declarations of Independence, Treaty/Treaties is the correct word, but I recommend that my brothers and sisters take a very serious look at the true nature of our Nations' pre-existing and continuing sovereignty before they sign away anything in a Treaty, compact or other agreement.

Stan Grant NITV journalist, member of the 'Constitution Recognition Council' is seen here speaking at the Victorian Treaty Talks. As a non Victorian Grant was not welcome by many at the meeting but used his profile to espouse the assimilationist views of the 'Recognition' propaganda machine.

The proposed Victorian Treaty will domesticate our Victorian brothers and sisters because, if the Treaty is ultimately sanctioned by the Victorian parliament, it will be done so in right of the British Crown. So they need to ask themselves: do they have unfinished business with England, or are they entering into an arrangement with the illegal colonial occupiers of our lands and territories. It is important to understand who the real authority and head of power is in the case of Australia.

We are under occupation by a foreign power, which keeps us in our place by superior force, perpetuating poverty, and establishing a platform for dysfunction within our communities. They do so through exploiting the effects of poverty and oppression. Psychologically they play the game of being generous on the one hand and making certain chosen ones feel important by entertaining their ego and vanity, and thereby set them apart for the media to promote as being the Aboriginal 'leaders', never mind whether they do have a true leadership position, or not, with the grassroots Peoples, who are constantly living on the edge in a siege mentality. The oppressor currently has the upper hand in the case of Australia, because he/she writes the welfare cheques and continually informs the Aboriginal people that they are trying to 'Close the Gap' between Aboriginal poverty and white poverty by using the taxpayers money.

Radio announcers such as John Laws and others continually inform us that we should be so grateful and if we moved on and forgot the past, assimilation would be effected faster, but First Nations Peoples' attitude to this is: Let's stop having the Ode of Remembrance at 6 o'clock in the RSLs; tell the Jews to move on and forget the past; they don't assimilate into the Western ideological and religious norms; or now tell the Muslims that they must assimilate, because they live in Australia. White Australia wants multiculturalism in name only. It must hurt them to hear people of other lands, being called Australians, but speak their mother tongue and other languages as well. As for the 'real Aussie' he can't even speak the English language that well in many cases. They talk about the Aussie slang, but only the shearers and bushies can speak the real jingoism of Australia. Other than that, most white Australians, especially the youth, are adopting the African-American lingo and mannerisms, including dress sense and yet we have politicians and radio journalists speaking of the Australian culture and way of life. To this we say: What culture? What way of life?

There is an intensity of white racism across the continent with vigilante Facebook groups and a recent killing of Elijah, a young Aboriginal boy in Kalgoorlie WA. Between the right wing Radio shock-jocks, the governments, the courts, the police and the racist media, the genocide hasn't eased after 228 years of lies, murder and gross abuses.

Australia's colonial past is that of a penal settlement where the Colonial Secretary's Office was more concerned about keep others away from this penal settlement, because it was a prison and not a free settlement and at least there could be no trade arrangements because England was the parent country and the New South Wales colony was one of their prisons.

John Howard and Tony Abbott would have been better served admitting to their true Australian history and then they would have to accept that Australia is the world's Greatest Pretender.

I agree with both Howard and Abbott, however, that Australia cannot enter into a Treaty with Australia's First Nations and Peoples because they need to put this proposal to their foreign head of power, the Queen. She would have to give them permission to enter into such an important phase in dealing with one of the last vestiges of the British Empire.

Treaties of any kind in Australia will have to be signed off by the Queen and/or her representatives because any Treaties negotiated will change the political and legal landscape forever. This is why Queen Elizabeth II who, by Australian law and English law, is not just the Queen of England and head of the Crown, but she is also the Queen of Australia. It may well be that if her ministers of the colonial States negotiate Treaties with First Nations Peoples she will have to come to Australia and sign these Treaties on our soil.

I accept that there is much in this statement, but I have put it out in this form so as to give the reader an insight into the broader historical aspects that have to be considered and understood.

Our people today are signing Indigenous Land Use Agreements, ILUAs, without truly understanding what they are surrendering to the oppressor colonial State and no-one fully informs them of the consequences. They sign ILUAs because they are told they will get something. In reality they give everything away without knowing it for the crumbs that are wiped off the table by this oppressive Australian regime, which gets away with it because they play on the poverty and needs of the people and with the empty promise of being able to gain an outcome for the future our Peoples are sadly mistaken and will soon realise they have been conned. Just ask those who have already signed ILUAs.

Will a Treaty be the same?

One thing is for certain we cannot have an A and B team, as what happened with the travesty of the Native Title negotiations.

Interestingly enough the millions of dollars of taxpayers money topped up by mining company investments promoting 'Recognition' of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Australian constitution is but a dust storm blowing all the bulldust, so as to ensure our eyes are blinded to what is behind the shield of this dust storm. The shield of cover that the dust storm hides is the fact that First Nations Peoples are Sovereign Nations and Australia does not have its own sovereignty, in the way First Nations Peoples do.

The "Recognition" campaign is a major campaign to keep the colonial power in place.

We must be mindful that if the push for Treaties/Treaty succeeds authorities are likely to try and bludgeon us into a process whereby they maintain dominance equivalent to be the conqueror, but we have never been conquered.

Nevertheless, it is worth examining this process. The proper legal method by which a dominant society gains the true patrimony and citizenry from Peoples, who have been invaded, is to negotiate a Peace Pact or a Treaty of Settlement, in which the conqueror agrees to certain terms for their inclusion into the dominant State, while at the same time maintaining their own identity, as in our case the First Australians. In other words we would be the First Nations People of Australia (or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians)

The other method was that the King or Queen of England would make each individual person and their families citizens of the dominant power by way of making them 'denizens' in the 'demesne'.

We have never been Australians and by legal definition, under Australian and international law, we remain outside that political and legal system as a Peoples who have been occupied by a dominant oppressive force that defines us as 'Aliens'.

In the modern context, after the 1967 Referendum, it was obligatory for the national government to free the enslaved and imprisoned, that is the stolen generation members and their families, together with those locked up on mission station prisons, who were classified as Wards of the State. Those who lived on Travelling Stock Routes and the Commons remained relatively free, but were not included in the social political and legal network of the white Australian society. The normal process would be that the oppressive occupiers of our lands would offer all these people citizenship under the normal Australian process.

We have never been Australians and by legal definition, under Australian and international law, we remain outside that political and legal system as a Peoples who have been occupied by a dominant oppressive force that defines us as 'Aliens'.

Through decolonisation, Treaty/Treaties are necessary because it will define our relationships into the future. It will also define the terms and conditions on which we agree to enter into that dominant oppressive system of governance. It will define our rights as First Nations and Peoples. It will define our laws and customs and how they relate to us and the rest of society. It will define how sacred lands and territories. It will recognise our ceremonial religious practices. It will recognise these sacred places as open spaces and not confined to the interior of a temple or monastery. It will define our totemism (heraldry) and thereby establish laws of protection against the destruction of ecosystems and waterways. It will embrace our languages. It will define an education system that will be inclusive of our historical teachings of the Dreaming and our understandings of our monuments and icons, such as the rock engravings, carved and scared trees and their relationship to our society as First Nations. It will define our nationalities under our First Nations identities beg Wired, Goomeroi/Armillaria, Indian etc.. It will define how we shall share, through development, equitable arrangements for royalties and royalty disbursements of the various Nations natural resources.

After 228 years of colonial indoctrination, many of our people have the need to de-colonise their minds and assert our inherited sovereignty which was never ceded by any of the Nations on this continent.

Image: Serwah at social space 'Intersection' Photo by Elizabeth Jarrett. Source: Facebook: DECOLONISE

It will also be about recognising and naming those responsible for mass murder and genocide within this Country and their obligations to assist us to bury our dead, instead of allowing their bodies and bones to be continually trampled by their imported stock: sheep, cattle goats, pigs, donkeys etc.

We must stop, as a first step, the over policing of our communities, tyranny over our children, and rid ourselves of the neo-Nazi type police who are put into our communities throughout Australia to continue Governor Phillip's practices of cutting off their heads and placing them on stakes so as to place fear into the communities:

That we were to cut off and bring in the heads of the slain; for which purpose hatchets and bags would be furnished. … that against this tribe he [Phillip] was determined to strike a decisive blow, in order at once to convince them of our superiority and to infuse an universal terror, …
Watkin Tench, Detachment leader, December 17901

[ Flannery, Tim 1996, 1788: Comprising A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay and A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson: Watkin Tench, The Text Publishing Company, Melbourne, p. 168. ]

 
These are some of the issues that must be negotiated and settled if we are truly to unite on this island continent through Treaty/Treaties and decolonisation, and/or by way of Unilateral Declarations of Independence (UDIs).

The truth must be told and people must be held accountable and responsible for the genocide and tyranny that we have faced, and continue to face, from this prison colony.

'Dare to be wise' - Decolonisation  Go to page |  PDF Download (5.36 MB)

Decolonisation underpins the Sovereign Treaties processes in contrast to ‘Recognise’ which fosters assimilation. An Essay by Ghillar Michael Anderson, personally handed to the UN