When Aboriginal people convene in the Australian capital, Canberra, next month one of the topics they’ll discuss is unilateral declarations of independence. A trained lawyer with international diplomatic experience, Ghillar Michael Anderson, is circulating a paper on how such declarations, UDI for short, work. The leading campaigner for Aboriginal sovereignty has advised several nations on declaring their independence from Australia. His Euahlayi people and four other nations have already done so, and most recently he advised the Anunga Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara people in South Australia.
By Ghillar Michael Anderson
Many people are wanting to understand UDIs – Unilateral Declarations of Independence - and this topic will be discussed at the upcoming Gathering of Nations on 21 -22 November 2015 in Old Parliament House, Canberra. There will be opportunities for further discussion during the surrounding days at the Aboriginal Embassy.
A Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) is a formal process leading to the establishment of a fully recognized state, which declares itself an independent and sovereign pre-existing state without a formal agreement with the occupying nation state, because the two have never been together.
The current move by the Commonwealth government’s Recognise campaign to include Aboriginal people in the Australian Constitution (which is a 1900 Act of the British Parliament) clarifies that Aboriginal Nations and Peoples are NOT in the Australian Constitution and are therefore outside it and continue to be independent. Unilateral Declarations of Independence are not a radical action in any way, but are stating what the current situation is. Under international law every Nation has the right to govern itself the way it chooses to in its culturally appropriate way. Every Nation has to have a land base, a population, law, and the ability to enter into international relations. It is well documented that Aboriginal Nations and Peoples traded with each other along the songlines and trading routes, as well as trading overseas into countries now known as now Papua Nuigini, West Papua, Indonesia, Maluku, Malayasia and China. When decolonization was in full swing in Africa and other areas Australia was left out of the process by what was called the “Blue Water Principle”.
The term Unilateral Declaration of Independence was first used when Rhodesia became Zimbabwe and declared independence in 1965 from the United Kingdom (UK) without an agreement with the UK. [Douglas George Anglin. Zambian Crisis Behaviour: Confronting Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence, 1965-1966. McGill-Queens, 1994]
Prominent examples of unilateral declarations of independence include that of the United States in 1776, [Don H. Doyle. Secession as an International Phenomenon: From America's Civil War to Contemporary Separatist Movements. University of Georgia Press, 2010] the Irish Declaration of Independence of 1919 by a revolutionary parliament, the attempted secession of Biafra from Nigeria in 1967, the Bangladeshi declaration of independence from Pakistan in 1970, the (internationally unrecognized) secession of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus from Cyprus in 1983, the Palestinian Declaration of Independence of the Palestinian territories in 1988, and that of the Republic of Kosovo in 2008 which was suffering a humanitarian crisis. [United Nations. Index to Proceedings of the General Assembly 2008/2009: Subject Index. New York, New York, USA: United Nations, 2010. Pp. 138]
During the breakup of Yugoslavia, the government of the United States asked the governments of Slovenia and Croatia to drop their UDI plans because of the threat of major war erupting in the Balkans because of it, and the USA threatened that it would oppose both countries' UDIs on the basis of the Helsinki Final Act if they did so. However, four days later both Slovenia and Croatia announced their UDIs from Yugoslavia.[Florian Bieber, Džemal Sokolovic. Reconstructing multiethnic societies: the case of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Ashgate, 2001. Pp. 41]
The High Court of Australia in Mabo (No. 2) 1992 confirmed that Aboriginal Peoples continue to hold title to Country by way of pre-existing and continuing Law, Culture and custom. The High Court also confirmed that Aboriginal Law, Culture and customs come from the Peoples and the land and we are governed according to these Laws that were existing before the British invasion, misleadingly called ‘settlement’. This makes Aboriginal Law, Culture and custom the Law of the Land, the continental common law, which continues to this day. But, thanks to agreement from the 'Magnificent Seven', the 1993 Native Title Act as amended, is a fraudulent attempt by the federated colonial government of Australia to steal all these rights by statute.
In the international legal context, however, the continental common law of the land can never be legislated away from the people, unless the people themselves negotiate to do so with their full free prior and informed consent to the terms they settle on. No other way is possible. For a colonial power to do otherwise is an act of war against the Nations and Peoples of the land, and then we are governed by a Police State under Martial Law.
CONTEXT:
In the 1980s a Treaty campaign resulted in the former PM Malcolm Fraser accepting, on behalf of all Australians, that the pre-existing Aboriginal sovereign nations had not ceded sovereignty to the British and also accepted as a second precondition to the negotiation of a treaty that Aboriginal people had pre-existing, continuing proprietary rights in the lands known as Australia and its waters.
Despite PM Fraser and the National Aboriginal Conference (NAC) reaching agreements on the underpinning preconditions, the Attorney-General at the time advised the PM Fraser and the Department of Aboriginal Affairs that to use the term Treaty was to signify an agreement between internationally recognised States and it was this reality that the Fraser government was advised to avoid at all costs. Instead it was recommended that a compact or a domestic agreement such as a Makarrata (the Aboriginal choice of words at the time) be entered into. This was essentially domesticating the Aboriginal resistance and movement. The legal advice to Fraser went onto say that the Commonwealth should be careful to avoid falling into a trap of recognizing individual Aboriginal Nations under Australian domestic law where Aboriginal Nation States be recognized independent domestic sovereign states along the same lines as the Native Americans.
[ http://nationalunitygovernment.org/content/word-treaty ]
In the American case as it stands today many native Indian tribes have some vast territories where they govern independently of local States such as in North and South Dakota, where, on and within these territories, native Indian laws apply and no State law or federal laws can interfere with the way they choose to govern themselves. They control their own economy, their own education system and they conduct their own ceremonial practices. They still have conflict, however, over resources and resource development, but they have won significant court cases in recent times regarding past wrongful acts by governments and have won significant compensation.
Their world is not iron clad secure, because they can be subject to laws being changed in relation to their treaty arrangements by way of Congress and Presidential decrees. Recent legal history shows that any Act to alter the laws which impact on their rights is so often meet with massive compensation pay outs.
On the other hand, the Commonwealth of Australia case demonstrates that its objective is for some of the assimilated educated Aboriginal people to work on deceitful national projects to:
· undermine our inherent rights;
· avoid any and all compensation for wrongful acts;
· avoid Australia’s international human rights obligations;
· to assimilate Aboriginal people into one Australia thereby denying our rights to exist as Nations and Peoples in our own right with our own nationality, our own language, culture, customs, law and ancient spirituality.
The current governmental regime across Australia is now currently committing a major international crime against our people by conducting a similar action that is being perpetrated throughout the middle east by the Islamic state, IS, by amending heritage legislation throughout Australia, and thereby give rights to mining companies and others under and within the Australian legal system to destroy our ancient religious sites, ceremony grounds, sacred places and to collect our material cultural objects and to put them in boxes locked away in keeping places and museums under their control thereby totally destroying our physical cultural existence from the face of Australia. This is aimed at the deliberate desecration of all things Aboriginal in the environment and on the landscape, which results in ensuring that Aboriginal people have no past, no record throughout the millennia, and our past becomes a distant memory. If we become people with no past, then we will have no future as Aboriginal Peoples, thus becoming spiritually sterilized Australians.
We who took up the mantle of our Old People in their fight for civil rights and our Aboriginal identity have a moral obligation to stay the course, fight the fight and locate solutions. In the words of Mahatma Ghandi: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
Contact:
Ghillar, Michael Anderson
Convenor of Sovereign Union of First Nations and Peoples in Australia
and Head of State of the Euahlayi Peoples Republic
Mogila Station, Goodooga NSW 2838
ghillar29@gmail.com, 0427 292 492 www.sovereignunion.mobi
Background compilations
Respect and Listen: Treaty
-- STICS Forum: First Nations
Women Speak out for Treaty -- Sovereign
Union: Treaty
-- Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Studies (AIATSIS): Treaty
-- concerned Australians: Time to talk
Treaties! -- The Stringer: Treaty
-- Australians Together: Why Treaty?
-- New Matilda: treaty
-- New Matilda: constitutional
recognition -- Sovereign Union - First
Nations Asserting Sovereignty into Governance: Sovereignty,
land rights, native title and treaty issues
-- Jens Korff, Creative Spirits: Would a treaty
help Aboriginal self-determination? -- Gilbert
+ Tobin Centre of Public Law, UNSW: Treaty Project
Issues Papers
Background videos
concerned Australians: Treaties
-- STICS Forum: First Nations
Women Speak out for Treaty -- Sovereign
Union - First Nations Asserting Sovereignty: Treaties of Unity' - Alice Springs
meeting September 2015 - 7 Videos -- 98.9FM
Brisbane: Watch the Let’s
Talk Treaty discussion -- The Wheeler
Centre: Intelligence
Squared Debate: True Reconciliation Requires a Treaty
Background audio interviews
Radio Skid Row: "Recognise"
project is leaving behind they key issue of Aboriginal sovereignty & that
treaties with Aboriginal peoples must come first. --
CAAMA Radio: Freedom Summit 2
pushes for Treaty
Background articles
Natalie Cromb, Independent Australia: A fair go for
the First Nations: Australia needs a Treaty -- Freedom
Movement SA: First Nations
leaders gather once
more in the heart of Australia to define Treaty -- Callum Clayton-Dixon, The Stringer: Treaties Are Agreements Between Equals -- Michael Anderson:
'That Word' Treaty - The Value of Historical Insights -- George Williams, Sydney Morning Herald: Treaty with Australia's indigenous people long overdue --
Professor George Williams, Indigenous Law Bulletin: Does True Reconciliation in Australia Require a Treaty? -- Gerry Georgatos, The Stringer: Treaty --
Treaty
Republic: Stop the Genocide,
Recognise Sovereignty, Draft a Treaty
-- Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
(AIATSIS): Treaty - An overview of the history of the debates about a
Treaty -- Michael
Anderson, Sovereign Union: A
Sovereign Treaty is the only constitutional reform with the potential of
justice for Aboriginal Nations and Peoples
Background motions, policies and/or demands
National Tertiary Education Union: Motion on
Constitutional Recognition: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander motions
passed at NTEU National Council 2015
-- Emma Murphy, Socialist Alliance: Real self-determination requires radical changes -- National Aboriginal Freedom Movement: Aboriginal Sovereign
Manifesto of Demands -- Freedom Movement: 'A Call for Treaties of Unity' Declaration - September 2015
Ice use in indigenous communities is at crisis point
Sarah Martin reporting in todays THE AUSTRALIAN
NACCHO Australia’s peak body for Aboriginal health has convened an emergency meeting in Canberra today in response to concern among health professionals that they are under-resourced to deal with the ice scourge that is “fast becoming an epidemic” across indigenous Australia.
In a stark warning to authorities, chairman of the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation, Matthew Cooke, says that without an urgent response to support early intervention strategies, the use of the drug will continue to spiral, resulting in more people being jailed, and deaths among users.
“We are going to have higher rates of incarceration if it is not dealt with immediately,’’ Mr Cooke said.
“And we are going to lose people, people will die as a result of using this drug.
“We already know that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are over-represented in the prisons and jails, and this drug does not discriminate — people of all ages are using it, from very young people to the elderly.”
Mr Cooke said the use of the “disgusting” drug was devastating communities and, unlike alcohol and tobacco, its impact on families and communities was immediate.
“It is fast becoming an epidemic,’’ he said.
“I wouldn’t have said that some time ago, but the reality is that the trend of increase is rapid and sadly what has been anecdotal from many of these communities is now being backed by the evidence.”
Health services were battling with ice-induced psychosis, increased aggression, family violence and the underlying mental health issues of drug users that were being compounded by methamphetamine use.
Today’s National Ice Forum, which will be attended by Assistant Minister for Rural Health Fiona Nash, will call for more funding for treatment services, rehabilitation and prevention strategies.
The indigenous health organisation also wants support for additional mental health first-aid training for frontline services.
Julie Tongs, chief executive of the Winnunga Nimmityjah indigenous health service in Canberra, said that she believed about 10 per cent of the centre’s 6000 clients were now using ice.
The health centre has had to establish a separate waiting room for psychotic ice users because of the extent of the problem and the risk to staff and other patients.
Ms Tongs said the health service was calling police on a regular basis to deal with ice patients.
“We have called the police more in the last 18 months than I have had to in the last 16 years as chief executive of Winnunga,” Ms Tongs told The Australian yesterday.
She said the government needed to fund early intervention strategies, more skilled health workers, rehabilitation services, and family support measures.
We need more resources on the ground,” Ms Tongs said
“NRL Grand Final winner Johnathan Thurston and Apunipima Cape York Health Council Public Health Medical Advisor Dr Mark Wenitong are reminding communities to say no to ice.
At the National Ice Roundtable summit government-level discussions will continue to put ice in the spotlight.
Federal Government Minister for Rural Health Senator Fiona Nash will address the summit and there will be a Q&A panel and case studies.
Dr Wenitong will attend the summit and speak about Apunipima’s approach to tackle ice.
In April this year, Apunipima started a social media campaign to help bring awareness of what the drug can do to individuals, families, friends and communities by involving four well-known public Indigenous figures. Posters featuring the celebrities were used to support the campaign.
Thurston joined the campaign along with footballer Davin Crampton, CQUniversity Cairns Taipan Kerry Williams and hip-hop group The Last Kinection to spread the message about saying no to ice.
Thurston, who took the NQ Toyota Cowboys to Grand Final victory on October 4, said tackling ice must be a whole-of-community approach.
“Every bit we do as individuals in our communities to give ice the boot is a step closer to driving the message home that ice is lethal,” Thurston said.
“I encourage people to be active in their communities to take a stance against ice and support your mob. At the end of the day, raising awareness about ice and what it can do to our mob, friends and families is necessary to help kick ice out of our communities.”
Dr Wenitong is a vocal supporter of kicking ice out of our communities and is looking forward to attending the summit.
“Ice destroys friends, families and culture and ultimately lives,” Dr Wenitong said. “Our approach is strategic and we will work with all agencies at all levels to deliver a community-based response to rid ice from the Cape and beyond.”
“Having celebrities like Thurston, Crampton, Williams and The Last Kinection on board with Apunipima sets a great example to our Indigenous communities and encourages them to heed their messages.”
Breast cancer handbook for Aboriginal health workers
by nacchomedia
Cancer Australia has released Breast Cancer: a handbook for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Workers.
This handbook provides evidence-based information for Indigenous health workers to start the conversation with Indigenous women and promote increased breast cancer awareness, prevention activities, screening, early detection and quality of life after diagnosis.
Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer, and the second most common cause of cancer death in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women. Compared with non-Indigenous women, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are 14% less likely to survive 5 years after a breast cancer diagnosis.
The handbook is a valuable resource for all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health professionals.
To download: Breast cancer: a handbook for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Workers
To order: Breast Cancer: a handbook for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Workers - Free call 1800 624 973 FREE or order online.
To promote: Breast cancer awareness messages use the image above and link to Cancer Australia's breast cancer awareness page: http://canceraustralia.gov.au/affected-cancer/atsi/breast-cancer-awareness
Cancer Australia encourages Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women to know their body, note the breast changes to look out for, report any unusual changes to their health professional and for women over 50 to participate in screening every two years.
A book 'In The Absence of Treaty' is now available as PDF
The book explores the current inadequacy of the process used in engaging with Aboriginal people, which results in control slipping away from them. It provides concise but incisive account from recent reports about the reasons for the ongoing and growing frustration of many Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory. In doing so it hints at possibly the only solution - treaties.
“Aboriginal sovereignty and treaties must come first"
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander motions passed by the National Tertiary Education Union:
Stop the forced closures
"This motion commits the NTEU to continuing activism on the issue of the forced closure of Indigenous communities. This motion additionally broadens the definition of "Indigenous communities" to incorporate everything from remote communities, to urban communities and to on-campus communities such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Centres. The NTEU sees the continuing attacks on Indigenous communities to be an attack on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander autonomy and self-determination and therefore in recognition of the 2002 10 Point Plan for a post-Treaty Union, it is felt that the time has come to
strengthen this stance."
Constitutional recognition
"The NTEU has now formally adopted a dissenting, rather than question, stance on the issue of Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. This motion notes the broad bipartisan support of Constitutional Recognition in Australian Politics and the deliberate funding of a "yes" campaign by the federal government despite there being a lot of dissent in the Indigenous community. Additionally, this motion pushes the need for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rights to be recognised first via treaty negotiations before being written into the Constitution."
A profile of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander higher education student population
Stand up and be counted
facebook.com/events/1656551727921649/
facebook.com/1042255972457879/posts/1167497053267103
Event Photo: facebook.com/sosblakaustralia/photos/gm.1656551741254981/1167557456594396/
A global protest against the threatened closure of Aboriginal communities.
WHY: Because 247 communities in WA, as well as communities in other states and territories are still in jeopardy due to cuts to funding. It's urgent that all communities and supporters stand up to defend communities, culture and land and achieve ways of keeping communities alive and strong.
HOW: By mobilising in large numbers in different towns and locations in Australia and around the world and making our voices united, loud and clear to say "NO FORCED CLOSURES"
WHEN: 27 November 2015 (check local times in your area)
WHERE: In all major cities in Australia, smaller towns, Los Angeles, Berlin and other locations.
Former prime minister pushes 'unfinished Indigenous business'
The former Australian prime minister, Paul Keating, has backed a treaty with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, describing it as the "unfinished business of the nation" and suggesting it could precede Indigenous recognition in the constitution.
Keating says the push for Indigenous constitutional recognition has lost direction and needs to be given shape and form "by someone who believes in a treaty, someone who believes that the Aboriginal peoples need to be dealt with as a nation".
His comments come as new Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is being urged to re-set the relationship with Indigenous Australia and adopt a different approach to the prime minister he deposed, Tony Abbott.
Republic must be concluded by an agreement by all people
Sovereign Union of First Nations and Peoples in Australia
Asserting Australia's First Nations Sovereignty into Governance
www.sovereignunion.mobi
_______________________________
OPINION 20 October 2015
Former PM Paul Keating's foray back into Aboriginal politics [16 October 2015 Sydney Morning Herald article Paul Keating pushes 'unfinished business' of Indigenous treaty and republic] where he talks up the need for a Treaty with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and describes it as the 'unfinished business of the nation' is pleasing to the ears of some of us older fighters who sees the Recognition campaign as trap.
It is interesting that Prof Patrick Dodson clearly has lost his way in the political melee and finds himself in a quagmire of confusion and frustrations, when he 'argued that constitutional recognition should come first' (before a Treaty).
From 1979 to 1981 Prof Patrick Dodson and a small group of supporters made submissions to the Senate Standing Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs saying that a Treaty, underpinned by sovereignty, is not an issue that should be pursued. Prof Dodson's return to this argument in the same Sydney Morning Herald article suggests to me that he, Marcia Langton, Lois O'Donaghue (Lowitja) and Peter Yu had reached an agreement when they all met together with HRH Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace in 1999. What is revealing in Prof Dodson's objection to the Treaty and Sovereignty debate is his commitment to fight tooth and nail against these notions.
The thought of PM Malcolm Turnbull reviving the suggestion of Australia becoming a Republic is exciting, because it will open the door to much public discussion, which will include the broader community, and which I have no doubt will include Aboriginal participation in these discussions both at a local, regional, state and Federal levels. A significant move such as a Republic must be concluded by an agreement by all people on the construct of a new Constitution before consent can be given by the people for them to be governed.
The creation of specific rights for Aboriginal Peoples as the original title holders to this Country, pre British invasion, will be an essential factor before anything can be proceeded with.
Why should enormous amounts of money be wasted in pursuing and promoting 'recognition in the constitution', knowing that the majority of Aboriginal people at the grassroots vehemently rejects this as a pathway? We say this because, as Keating rightfully eludes to, Australia must deal in an open and honest manner with the true history of this country so as to conclude the 'unfinished business of the nation'.
Michael Gordon's Sydney Morning Herald article of 16 October 2016 Paul Keating pushes 'unfinished business' of Indigenous treaty and republic concluded his article by saying: 'The Chinese have this word, the chi, the blood energy. An Australian republic would revolutionise Australia's chi, the blood energy, and not just by telling us better who we are and affirming our sovereignty over the place, but it is being a powerful economic event into the bargain.'
Clearly the so-called liberal minded free-thinking journalists still find it difficult if not impossible to even consider that there continues to be in this country a continental common law, Aboriginal Law, that can only be taken if the each individual Aboriginal Nation chooses to cede it, otherwise Aboriginal Law is the Law of the Land. Yet we continue to have an imposed foreign sovereign State occupying our Lands, and as Aboriginal Nations and Peoples we will continue to be subject to a dictatorial and autocratic occupation by an alien State, that will continue to rule us by sheer weight of numbers and force. Our Human Rights will be limited to what they, the occupiers, are prepared to afford us under their terms and conditions. Unless our sovereignty is asserted and respected our right to be self-determining and retaining our nationalities will be quashed. This and other issues will be the central focus at the up coming Gathering of Nations in Canberra 21-22 November 2015.
We have reached a point in time where the discourse from here on must be determined by us as Nations and Peoples. Not one group or person has all the answers. It will take all our ideas and all our brilliance to locate a pathway forward satisfactorily for all our Peoples across this Country. There is no more room for personality clashes, but we must make every effort to shut down those who are running interference on behalf of the colonisers. If we cannot maintain an aggressive approach to bringing an end to our colonisation then we will be responsible for leaving a legacy of frustration, ambiguity and uncertainty for our future generations. Is this the legacy you want to leave behind? Or are we adult and mature enough to satisfactorily work together to nut out our differences, shed the colonial mindset and think and be Aboriginal. We cannot work both sides of the fence to find a solution. If we need to travel the hard road, then so be it. But if you seek to please because you are not prepared to fight the fight and walk the hard road then you do not belong in this struggle. From my personal position I say to those who are weak and want to work with our colonisers to assimilate us into a single society, observing the same rules, following the same traditions and beliefs of those who oppress us: You have lost the right to participate in locating solutions for you have already made your choice to work against us.
The forthcoming Gathering of Nations I hope will assist us to locate pathways forward and thus free us from oppression.
Ghillar Michael Anderson
Convenor of Sovereign Union of First Nations and Peoples in Australia
and Head of State of the Euahlayi Peoples Republic
Mogila Station, Goodooga NSW 2838
ghillar29@gmail.com, 0427 292 492
www.sovereignunion.mobi
Only Australia is without a treaty with its Aboriginal people
Of the so-called developed nations only Australia is without a treaty with its Aboriginal people.
But: would it help Aboriginal people advance?
What is a treaty about? -- Why do Aboriginal people want a treaty? -- Is a treaty likely to happen soon? -- What would be written in a treaty? -- The Barunga Statement -- Treaty timeline
Sources on Treaty thinking
Background compilations
Respect and Listen: Treaty -- STICS Forum: First Nations Women Speak out for Treaty -- Sovereign Union: Treaty -- Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS): Treaty -- concerned Australians: Time to talk Treaties! -- The Stringer: Treaty -- Australians Together: Why Treaty? -- New Matilda: treaty -- New Matilda: constitutional recognition -- Sovereign Union - First Nations Asserting Sovereignty Asserting Australia's First Nations Sovereignty into Governance: Sovereignty, land rights, native title and treaty issues -- Jens Korff, Creative Spirits: Would a treaty help Aboriginal self-determination? -- Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law, UNSW: Treaty Project Issues Papers
Background videos
concerned Australians: Treaties -- STICS Forum: First Nations Women Speak out for Treaty -- Sovereign Union - First Nations Asserting Sovereignty - 'Treaties of Unity' - Alice Springs meeting September 2015 - 7 Videos -- 98.9FM Brisbane: Watch the Let’s Talk Treaty discussion -- The Wheeler Centre: Intelligence Squared Debate: True Reconciliation Requires a Treaty
Background audio interviews
Radio Skid Row: "Recognise" project is leaving behind they key issue of Aboriginal sovereignty & that treaties with Aboriginal peoples must come first. -- CAAMA Radio: Freedom Summit 2 pushes for Treaty: http://caama.com.au/freedom-summit-2-pushes-for-treaty
Background articles
Natalie Cromb, Independent Australia: A fair go for the First Nations: Australia needs a Treaty -- Freedom Movement SA: First Nations leaders gather once more in the heart of Australia to define Treaty -- Callum Clayton-Dixon, The Stringer: Treaties Are Agreements Between Equals --
Michael Anderson: 'That Word' Treaty - The Value of Historical Insights -- George Williams, Sydney Morning Herald: Treaty with Australia's indigenous people long overdue -- Professor George Williams, Indigenous Law Bulletin: Does True Reconciliation in Australia Require a Treaty? http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/ILB/2014/1.pdf -- Gerry Georgatos, The Stringer: Treaty
Background motions, policies and/or demands
National Tertiary Education Union: Motion on Constitutional Recognition: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander motions passed at NTEU National Council 2015 -- Emma Murphy, Socialist Alliance: Real self determination requires radical changes -- National Aboriginal Freedom Movement: Aboriginal Sovereign Manifesto of Demands -- Freedom Movement: 'A Call for Treaties of Unity' Declaration - September 2015