Sovereign Union serves the Crown with formal objection to the Act of Recognition

13 February 2013

Dear Governor-General,

Please find attached Act of Sovereign Union that has been endorsed and adopted by several and various nations within Australia.

Correspondence between us, the Queen of England, Prime Minister Ian Cameron of UK and his Parliament, which was responded to by the British Foreign Office confirmed to us that there has never been any form of Treaty, Compact or arrangement that signified that Aboriginal Nations and Peoples around this nation have ever ceded their sovereignty to England during and after British invasion in 1788, nor is there any evidence that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples have ever acquiesced to the current Australian system after the establishment of the various State legislatures nor to the Federal government after Federation in 1901.

Reading of past court cases from the 1830s and the 1840s clearly demonstrates that the legal system during its formation in the colonies was at a total loss as to the legal status of Aboriginal people, in particular the jurisdiction of the courts and their ability to prosecute Aboriginal people.

In the Jack Congo Murrell case of 1837 the full Supreme Court concluded that they had legal jurisdiction because as Chief Justice Forbes states if Aborigines were to be afforded the protection of English law then they must be subject to it. In legal terms the Supreme Court erred, because any reasonable person within the legal jurisprudence knows that if there are no legal foundations or precedents and/or in the absence of legislation, then this decision is flawed. In response to the court’s conclusion Jack Congo Murrell’s lawyer, Sidney Thomas, then said that if Murrell was to be prosecuted as a British subject then surely he was entitled to bring a case against the British Crown for compensation for the lands that had now been taken from him by force.

It was at this point in time that the court examined how land can be acquired and the court concluded that land could only be acquired if the occupiers of the land were conquered as a result of a declared war; voluntary cession on the part of the original inhabitants; or the country was barren and therefore unoccupied by people which made it terra nullius. We know the court in the Murrell case decided that the Aboriginal people were in no way in a state of civility that they could be regarded as an organised society governed by their own, capable of believing in the higher order of the Supreme Being e.g. God, thus they were without religion of any form which categorised them into a state that could be likened to a civil sovereign society of people and as a consequence the country was not peopled by a civilised society and therefore terra nullius. It was from this position that Australia maintained the lie of terra nullius, that is, until the High Court Mabo 1992 decision. Since this date all we have seen are newly imposed injustices through legislation at the Federal and State levels that continue the perpetration of a lie, creating laws that prevents them from having to pay just compensation for land and our resources being illegally removed from our Peoples. Therefore maintaining the tyranny of dictatorship over our Peoples and thereby maintaining our Peoples’ state of poverty, having to rely on government and welfarism for our continued survival.

In respect to this proposed Act of Recognition we recommend this matter be referred to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs to look at its possible legal impacts on Aboriginal Peoples’ continuing sovereignty. Aboriginal people do not want to be involved or engaged in deceitful legal deceptions. We are tired of being dictated to and remind you that Senator Aiden presented a petition to Senate declaring Aboriginal Nations and Peoples have never ceded our sovereignty.

We have looked at the Bill for the Act of Recognition and the words chosen are so deceptive that the legislative draughtsmen have chosen words ‘first inhabitants’. The wording does not give recognition to any legal title First Nations and Peoples have as owners of this land under OUR law and custom. The words chosen in respect of our status as First Nations and Peoples is equivalent to that of a kangaroo or wallaby who also occupy this land under their customs, whereas as we humans have no title proclaimed as the original owners of this land under our law and customs. We are always classified as guardians or custodians, which is a clever legal play on words, that fails to give recognition to our title as the true land owners.

In conclusion it is more appropriate at this time for the Federal Government to be considering a plebiscite amongst Aboriginal Nations and Peoples as to whether they want to become part of an assimilated multicultural society, But it appears that all political parties continue to pursue their own political agenda as defined in the 1930s and 1960s that Aboriginal Peoples must be assimilated into a single Australian society observing the same customs and beliefs as all other Australians. But this is absolutely contradictory when we consider the Jews, Catholics, Anglicans etc. who have their own private schools. Moreover, they have their own churches, mosques synagogues and temples where they pray and observe their own religion. As Aboriginal Peoples we are not afforded the same courtesies and respect.

Sincerely

Michael Anderson
Convenor
Sovereign Union of First Nations and Peoples in Australia
ghillar29@gmail.com
0427 292 492

  Download PDF - Act of Sovereign Union pdf file

Whereas in the course of human events and history there are times when it becomes absolutely necessary for one Nation or People to dissolve the political and legal bonds which have connected them with another;

Whereas we now call upon the powers of the Creators of the DREAMING to enforce the natural authority that establishes a decent respect of humankind. It is required that we should declare the causes which impel us to the separation from our oppressor and to now declare our unity under our DREAMING and songlines, as we have since time immemorial;

Whereas we hold the Law of the Dreaming, as evidence of authority that all people are born equal, and that they were granted by the Creator certain sovereign inalienable rights; among these are the right to life, liberty, the right to maintain the Law of the DREAMING and the pursuit of spiritual wholeness and personal wellbeing;

Whereas to secure these rights in the modern world, governments are instituted among different Nations and Peoples, deriving their just powers from the consent of the people and the spiritual authority of the Dreaming. Whenever any form of government becomes destructive, it is the right of the Peoples to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, ensuring that at the very foundation of this process are principles based upon the rule of Law of the Peoples and organising its powers to ensure the most pleasing of outcomes for peaceful existence, safety of the Peoples’ happiness and wellbeing;

Whereas prudence will dictate that governments long established should, without prejudice, support the objective of the Peoples who choose to exercise their inalienable sovereign right to be governed by their own peers in accordance with their Laws and under their authority;

Whereas all experience has shown that humankind is more disposed to suffer, while the wrongs are sufferable, than to correct them by abolishing the entrenched subjugation. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations derides the rights of Peoples, which reduces them to absolute despotism, it is the right of the oppressed, it is their sacred duty, to reject and throw off such tyrannical governance and to provide new guards for their future security and to pursue their own goals and objectives. Such has been the patient sufferance of First Nations Peoples of this island continent now known as Australia; and such is now the necessity which requires us to dispel the existing destructive systems that oppress us; and to reinforce our own systems of governance, in accordance with our Law of the DREAMING;

We resolve to adopt and adhere to the following Statement of Principles:

1. Our Peoples are equal in dignity and rights to all other Peoples, while recognising the rights of all other Peoples to be different and to be respected as such.
2. We recognise that the diversity of Nations and other Peoples contributes to cultures and civilisations, which constitute the heritage of all humankind.
3. As First Nations and Peoples we assert the right to freely exercise our basic human rights free from discrimination of any kind.
4. It is recognised and accepted that we as First Nations Peoples have been deprived of our basic human rights and fundamental freedoms, which resulted from British colonisation and dispossession.
5. The colonial usurpation of our lands, waters, and natural resources has prevented us from exercising our right to development in accordance with our sovereign inherent cultural, socio-economic and spiritual interest in these modern times.
6. As First Nations and Peoples it is our sovereign inherent right to have control of our lands, including our natural resources, our environment, our waters, which is derived from our ancient political, economic, religious and social structures in accordance with our culture, Law and philosophies.
7. It is our inherent sovereign right to declare and advance our interests in all lands, waters, natural resources, subsurface and airspace as decreed by our DREAMINGS and songlines, through our obligation to Mother Earth and Creation.
8. We have an ancient inherent obligation to protect our heritage and to control and regulate its use.
9. It is recognised and accepted that we have an ancient sovereign inherent right to protect, control and regulate our ancient practices that ensure their sustainability and thereby establishes equity in development and management of our natural environment and ecosystems.
10. We recognise and accept that our Nations and Peoples have a sovereign inherent right to freely determine our future and way of life, with each other and with other sovereign nation states, in a spirit of co-existence and co-operation, thereby ensuring mutual benefit and respect.
11. Any and all such agreements, arrangements, ‘treaties’ shall be consistent with all international laws that govern human rights and human interaction.
12. We have a right to engage all human rights covenants and conventions in order to promote our hopes and aspirations as Nations and Peoples.
13. Nothing in this set of principles may be used to deny any Nations or Peoples their sovereign inherent rights to freely pursue their right of self-determination while asserting sovereignty.
14. This statement of principles is a step forward for the recognition, promotion and protection of our sovereign inherent rights and freedoms in respect to our future development and wellbeing.

Signed this              day of                                       20              at

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