Documents and Papers

Many of our People are now engaging in and considering Treaties with Australian State and Territory governments. Initial stages for a Treaty with the Commonwealth government and the National Aboriginal Conference was agreed to by the Fraser Liberal Coalition government in 1979, after Kevin Gilbert and others set up the National Aboriginal Government on Capital Hill, Canberra (before the new Parliament House was constructed), and called for a Sovereign Treaty and Bill of Rights. [node:read-more:link]

What is extraordinary about the British claim of Sovereignty over the eastern half of New Holland and Van Diemen's Land is the extent of the area it covered. Even for a Radical Title, which is a term used for how European Powers could claim precedence over certain lands, to negotiate Rentals, Purchases or Treaties ahead of other European Powers, this claim went far wider than the lands ostensibly "discovered" by Cook. On top of this, this Radical Title was then coupled with the decision to give the British Crown full beneficial ownership. [node:read-more:link]

This report tabled in the British House of Commons in 1837 is very telling on the attitudes and information received on the state of their colonies. The report for New Holland (now known as Australia) begins here:
'The inhabitants of New Holland, in their original condition, have been described by travelers as the most degraded of the human race ; but it is to be feared that intercourse with Europeans has cast over their original debasement a yet deeper shade of wretchedness. [node:read-more:link]

The story of Lieutenant James Cook and British Sovereignty over Australia has been overcooked. At no time on any of Cook's three voyages to the Pacific was he intending to go anywhere near New Holland. He did chart the east coast of New Holland in 1770, but that was not part of his Instructions. The whole story about Cook and his association with the claim of British Sovereignty over the lands now known as Australia is retrospective, rather than consistent with the events of the time. Cook's initial "mission" was to get to Tahiti to study the Transit of Venus, and to then look for the fabled Great Southern Land, Terra Australis. [node:read-more:link]

After the Native Title Act was introduced, WA introduced 'complementary' State legislation, which was a template for corruption to rob the Peoples of their lands, waters and natural resources. The First Nations Peoples of WA became stuck with Native Title facilitating bodies, which quickly manifested a very rotten strategy, to wind back the clock so that the government could take control of all the lands from the Peoples and unjustly deprive the Peoples of all that was set aside for them and their future descendants. [node:read-more:link]

Our greatest fear is not whether we negotiate a Treaty, but the forcing through of the Recognition campaign for inclusion in the colonial Constitution. Ghillar, Michael Anderson, provides an historical insight into the NAIDOC 2019 theme ‘Voice, Treaty, Truth’, which reveals that each time First Nations Sovereignty rises up too powerfully it is suppressed in favour of the ‘trip wire to assimilation’. The ‘Voice’, of the NAC was shafted in 1984; the NAC ‘Treaty’ framework was dismantled and ‘Truth’ has barely been heard yet. [node:read-more:link]

Under international law and domestic contractual law - no treaty or contract can be classified as legal if we are under the 'rules and disciplines of war'. If our First Nations Peoples are not fully aware of these facts, then any contract entered into, treaty or otherwise, can be argued to be invalid. It is imperative that we as First Nations People know all the wrongdoings, so as to ensure that we have a clear understanding of our legal rights now and going forward. We will be making the call, not the colonists. Our rights, our future - never forget it. [node:read-more:link]

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]