Cultural Heritage

Ghillar, Michael Anderson, Head of State of the Euahlayi Peoples Republic and convenor of Sovereign Union is proposing a number of options that First Nations might consider when seeking redress following the High Court’s decision in the Timber Creek case. The High Court recognised that Native Title claimants should be eligible for compensation for the ‘loss of rights to gain spiritual sustenance from the land’ among loss of other rights and interests’. [node:read-more:link]

We now come in all sizes and colours, but you cannot take away the spirit of our forefathers and foremothers and our absolute connection to Mother Earth. The divide and rule by colour distinction will no longer work. We are who we are, always was and always will be. However, once you welcome non-Indigenous people to Country, in their world you are opening the door and letting them in and what is your's becomes their's. Right now their only legitimacy on Country is when they are welcomed in ... One way to deflect Welcome to Country is to Acknowledge Country! [node:read-more:link]

Ghillar, Michael Anderson, asserts that First Nations are owners of water, not just stakeholders and promotes the callout for the 'Water is Life National Gathering' in Canberra on 12 and 13 February 2019. After the massive fish kills in Menindee Lake he demonstrates with a 2019 image from Google Earth that there is still plenty of water just southwest of Menindee Lake, in the Tandou cotton farm, which had a bumper crop this year and has just planted another. This is after selling its water licence for $78 million for an environmental water buyback in 2017 and not being charged for its final year of water allocation. [node:read-more:link]

We have come to a point where governments and ourselves know that First Nations Peoples continue to be sovereign and independent. Our inherent rights can no longer be denied and if we fail to understand our position, then we are destined to be beggars in our own Country.

This article aims to dig deep so that we begin to understand the motives for this total disrespect for Owners/Traditional Owners and Senior Lawmen. [node:read-more:link]

The Bar Association of NSW's submission to a Law Reform Commission inquiry into First Nations incarceration calls for a new approach to sentencing which takes into account the deprivation and disadvantage inherent in an individual's Aboriginal background. The association also calls for an end to mandatory sentences, which make it impossible for courts to make any allowance for such disadvantage in their decisions. The rate at which Aboriginal people end up in jail is appalling and in NSW last year Aboriginal people were 3 per cent of the population, but 24 per cent of the prison population. [node:read-more:link]

Treaty: Northern Basin Aboriginal Nations (NBAN) - Inter Nation Multilateral Treaty at the original site of the 1972 Embassy in Canberra, 10:00am Wednesday 10 May 2017.
23 First Nations across southern Queensland and northern, north west, upper western and western New South Wales gathered in Canberra yesterday for today's signing of a Multilateral Treaty between these First Nations, which affirms each Nation's independent sovereign status.       ... [node:read-more:link]

Proposed changes to South Australia's Aboriginal Heritage Act will reduce powers of traditional owners, according to Indigenous groups.

South Australian Native Title Services chief executive officer Keith Thomas believed amended language in the act would give traditional owners less say over their heritage. "This is going to help people who want to access lands and destroy heritage, rather than improving the protection of Aboriginal heritage," he said. [node:read-more:link]

While the 1992 Mabo judgement was a major milestone in Aboriginal history, we must remember that the judges in this case presented the same cowardice as Justice Blackburn in the Millirrpum Gove case in the 1970s.

In the Gove case, the court gave much weight to the evidence presented by anthropologist Ronald Berndt who coined the phrase, "the Aborigines don't own the land, the land owns them" or words to that effect, thus resigning our people to forever being part of the natural flora and fauna of this country. It must also be stated that the Gove matter was not presented with the 1872 Pacific islanders Protection Act as amended in 1875.

In the Gove matter Justice Blackburn was presented with enough evidence to permit him to make the same conclusions as did the High Court in Mabo but failed to do so. I think this was because of the extent of uncertainty the decision would have presented the Australian state, territory and federal governments in respect to land rights for the white population. [node:read-more:link]