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Michael Anderson
Occupy London
December 2011

The defining phase in our struggle

Michael Anderson | 13th December 2011

We said it aloud all the time "Sovereignty Never Ceded" and now we can reveal that our sovereignty is real, both as a matter of fact and law. The challenge that is now before us as Peoples is how to put it all into practice.

To assert our sovereignty as a right recognised in English law is the political and legal confrontation that we will now face with the Australian governments and territories.

It must also be understood and acknowledged by us that what has emerged in the last two hundred plus years is the Australian State, successor in title from colonial Britain, which will now defend and use their numbers to suppress our continuing sovereign title and dominion. But our Peoples have never acquiesced and our resistance continues. It is this committed and determined resistance that will see us overcome our disadvantages.

It is our sovereign inherent right from time immemorial to take back that which is rightfully ours. This can be achieved by peaceful means, but we are realists and acknowledge that the Australian State's fear will cause them to dig into their trenches and attempt to use force to suppress our rightful endeavours.

The fact that, through an Act of the British Parliament and an Order in Council by Queen Victoria, our dominion and permanent sovereignty over our lands, waterways and natural resources was recognised and confirmed, and at no material time, during the colonial periods of development to the present day was ever diminished.

Consequently, it cannot be deemed or construed in any way that these sovereign rights and title were taken from us. The Australian governments, on the other hand, continue to tell us that this is not the case.

My journey to England is to investigate this and to gain the British Parliamentary and legal view on our continuing sovereignty and dominion over our lands, waters and all things natural.

To my absolute delight we now understand that the original Pacific Islanders Protection Act of 1875 and Queen Victoria's Order in Council were absolute law and the intent of the Act and its purpose were clearly defined. There were, and are, no ambiguities. I am now advised that an Order in Council during the colonial period became absolute law in the colony.

As the High Court Mabo (No.2) judgement concluded Aboriginal sovereignty is not justiciable within the Australian courts.

On the question of jurisdiction over Aboriginal people, it is clear that British common law was imported into the colonies specifically for British subjects on foreign soil and it does not apply to the sovereigns of the soil, i.e. Aboriginal Peoples.

The courts are now restricted and legally bound, because their place and station is a creation of, and for, the invader society only, where they deal with legal and other matters that belong to that colonial State, which is their genesis.

A legal crisis is now at hand. The Australian courts have, and continue to, hold that Aboriginal Peoples are amenable to Australian laws as a result of a decision in the Supreme Court in NSW in 1836 (King v Jack Congo Murrell). The Supreme Court at this time adopted the view that is can be assumed that Aboriginal people were in fact subject to the English common law of the colony. When we read this and other cases of this period it is very clear that the judges had problems in respect to the citizenship status of Aboriginal people and whether or not Aboriginal people could be prosecuted in their Admiralty courts.

The judges at this time adopted the view that, in the absence of certainty in respect of the citizenship of Aboriginal people, it was concluded that, if Aborigines were accorded the protection of English law and they transgressed against it, then they had to be governed and ruled by the same English law. The colonial Admiralty courts could not find acceptance of Aboriginal people prosecuting their own, under their own Law/Lore, because Aboriginal Law/Lore was viewed as barbaric and was not acceptable to the Christian value system.

Today, the Australian courts refuse to take into consideration the fact that the Pacific Islanders Protection Act of 1875 altered and affirmed forever the question of jurisdiction over Aboriginal Peoples. The fact that Aboriginal sovereignty and dominion over our own lands, waters and natural resources was affirmed by the British Parliament and the Crown's Order in Council dramatically changed the legal circumstances regarding our inherent rights, putting beyond doubt the question of our jurisdiction.

For our people to continue to be prosecuted as a matter on legal convention is absolutely repugnant, immoral and deceitful. It is now an absolute imperative that the Australian Government talks with us to find solutions. To deny any efforts to correct this injustice can only be viewed as an act of war against us and a crime against humanity. Our only recourse to any refusal will be to launch international campaigns against Australia as a nation state, where we will argue that the majority of our people who are in prison are nothing more than political prisoners, because of the silent war of attrition against us now raging across the continent.

Another quest confronting us is that of the unfettered mining rights being given the Australian State over our Country, desecrating our sacred and religious sites. If white farmers can lock their gates and assert their land rights, then we must do the same and stand our ground.

If we thought that the past struggles were an achievement, then this new battleground that we now find ourselves on, will finish it.

As independent sovereign Peoples we cannot permit the likes of characters such as Prof Larissa Behrendt and the Indigenous Peoples Organisation (IPO - a self nominated group working with Human Rights Commission) to conduct conferences within universities, such as the one proposed for 20 December 2011, which is designed to look at litigation on Aboriginal issues for and on our behalf.

How can these people say and do these things in our names? We must ask: Who is their constituency? and, secondly: Do they run these conferences and outcomes to interfere and circumvent our grassroots movements. Tell me one case or political campaign they have been successful in winning.

Mabo (No.2) came from the National Aboriginal Conference (NAC), not from the lawyers. Brother Eddie Kioki Mabo accepted the challenge of an hypothetical case and won.

In order to stop these self-righteous self appointed Aboriginal leaders from betraying us, we must unite and crush everything they do in our name. We now fight for what is right. We no longer fight for a theory. This is no longer a case of 'what ifs'. It is about taking hold of our future and taking responsibility for it.

On the deficit side to our findings, Australia will attempt to say that what I depict here is not true and will point to various repeals they say have occurred, which take away from that which I am asserting, but let me put this in perspective. England repealed most of the 1872 and 1875 Pacific Islander Protection Acts in 1964 and in 1986 finalised the repeal of the 1875 Act. In repealing these Acts there was a saving statement, to quote the Statute (Repeals) Act 1986 Chapter 12:

Clearly, the import of the intentions of the original Pacific Islanders Protection Act 1875 remains as part of the law of the colony of Australia.

The 1986 Australia Act did nothing to remove the recognition by the British Parliament and its monarch of Aboriginal sovereignty and dominion over our places, waters, minerals, gas, oil and natural flora and fauna.

John Howard's attempt as Prime Minister to repeal the Pacific Islanders Protection Acts 1872 and 1875 by the Criminal Code Amendment (Slavery and Sexual Servitude) Act 1999 fails to alter in any way shape or form the effect of the original act which is preserved in the above Order in Council.

Further, the Australia Act 1986 affirms that the Colonial Law Validity Act entrenches the colonial laws existing in the Australian colony.

Australia now finds itself in a double jeopardy situation. The Parliament and monarch of Britain is the same body of authority that gives legitimacy to the Australian State 1901 Australian Constitution Act, which comes from the same British Parliament assented to by the same British monarch, Queen Victoria, who affirmed our sovereignty an dominion.

For the Australian government to assert that it cannot give recognition to our continuing Aboriginal sovereignty and dominion is an argument that has neither substance, nor legal foundation.