Culture

Australian governments want courts, constituted overwhelmingly by non-indigenous lawyers, to decide land disputes as for feudal socage.

This article puts up an argument that Australian indigenous land title is communal allodial title, as a bundle of subsisting rights by operation of Australian Continental Common Law, which therefore cannot be extinguished by the fraud inherent in frame transformation. [node:read-more:link]

7 Points to Know about Treaty + Personal Statements

On 8th June 2018, the Central Land Council together with the Northern Territory Government illegally signed the Barunga Agreement on behalf of The First Nations People of the Northern Territory, Australia. This agreement is a memorandum of understanding towards a Treaty.
- The grassroots people would like to let you know a few important points on this subject. [node:read-more:link]

Understanding the difference between sovereign treaties under international law, which affirm sovereignty of First Nations, and domestic treaties within the colonial system, which automatically mean First Nations cede sovereignty.

Ghillar, Michael Anderson presents a set of 4 videos to explain the complexities and traps when entering into a Treaty with the Australian government and/or the British Crown. [node:read-more:link]

Need to delete sections 268.121 – 268.122 of the law against genocide in International Criminal Court Consequential Amendments Act 2002. The release on 29 November of The Family Matters Report 2017 details the 'escalating national crisis’ of the rate of removal of First Nations children from families. From our perspective the core issue is being left out of the debate. Removal of children from the group is one of the five definitions of genocide. The alarming rate of the removal of First Nations children 'from the group’ is only possible because the Commonwealth of Australia has not imported the full force of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. etc ... [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]