By Ghillar, Michael Anderson, Convenor of the Sovereign Union, last surviving member of the founding four of the Aboriginal Embassy and Head of State of the Euahlayi Peoples Republic
Lightning Ridge, 17 July 2017 -- I do understand frustration and anguish because our people truly have lost so much from the first days of the British invasion. What interests me in all of this slandering and rumour-mongering against me and the Sovereign Union on Facebook is not so much the viciousness, but the fact that those who are conducting this campaign are mostly Gomeroi people, who seem to prefer to maintain the status quo and the continued death and destruction of our Peoples, on the one hand, by opposing our assertions of sovereignty. On the other hand I share the anguish and the fear of vast areas of Gomeroi Country, 15% of New South Wales, desecrated by the extractive industries Gomeroi has no right of veto under the oppressing colonial regime and Native Title legislation.
Gomeroi are stuck between a rock and a hard place in the fight against the extractive industries, which are backed by the New South Wales government and now the Commonwealth government has weighed in to ensure the natural gas from the Pillaga is sold domestically, because most of Australian gas is sold overseas, leaving a domestic shortfall.
Very few of our people understand in detail what the processes are and very few understand that we can say No and walk away, but then we have to find new ways to stop the extractive industries. I can assure our people that I am yet to find any lawyer in this country who is prepared to take on the racist Native Title Act, and I have been looking. We have to look elsewhere.
Those who think the New South Wales Native Title Services Corporation (NTSCorp) will fight on our behalf against mining are deluded. We’ve been through that process and that is why the 19 Gomeroi Applicants sacked the NTSCorp legal team, because they would not take instruction and challenge the extractive industries the way we were instructing them to do. NTSCorp kept reminding us that they only get funded to put Native Title claims into the system, and once in the Native Title process they tell the claimants that they have no right of veto.
The only way to avoid this is to not put in a Native Title claim at all, and fight another way. Even blockades and protesting are rarely effective methods to stop mining, at best they can delay it.
Once the Native title claim is lodged, which the Commonwealth government pays NTSCorp to do, Applicants have to negotiate in ‘good faith’. If the Applicants object to the extractive industry’s proposals, under the Native Title Act, they take the claim to arbitration. The arbiter is the National Native Title Tribunal (NNTT). The arbitration process only requires the mining company to make a reasonable offer in good faith. There is no ability under the Native Title Act for the NNTT to order compensation for loss of land and desecration of sites.
The governments are trying to get as many claims in as possible so that they can clean up their colonial past.
If our people don’t want to go down that path then that is our right, but I do appeal to our people to say if you chose not to go down this path then we have a very big fight on our hands. I have been at Gomeroi Nation gatherings and meetings where a few have said, ‘NO’ to mining and the others say, “We may as well get something.” And the No voters have always lost out. This is what we are up against. What makes this even worse is the recent Native Title (ILUA) Act amendment by the Turnbull/Brandis government, where they amended the Native Title Act to override the obligation that all Applicants, representing their section of the claimant group, support it and sign it, in favour of the majority. This is against our own Law, as the majority can now override the local landowner clan with the strongest connection to country.
I totally agree that we do not support the mass destruction proposed by the extractive industries.
Having been involved in the political movement for so long it is easy to smell a rat. The government is very clever at being informed by ASIO and the police of criminal wrong-doers, who can be bludgeoned and blackmailed into orchestrating a government campaign to destroy and influence dysfunction through a campaign to destroy any trust of a burgeoning movement that challenges the skeletal framework of our occupying state and its authority.
I am convinced that those people out there carrying on this destructive campaign to shut down the Sovereign Union and its leadership are government-directed and led by people who do not have the ability to think for themselves. If they had this ability then they would certainly be putting themselves out there to take over the leadership and lead from the front by showing an alternate pathway to that which is being promoted by the Sovereign Union.
It is frustrating to think that our people get greater thrill and excitement at smashing and destroying their own simply because they know they can. What makes this even easier for them to do this is because trust is rare. We have never seen much victory over the oppressor in our lives and that is why the Aboriginal Embassy, the Mabo High Court decision and the Gurindji Walk Off are key revolutionary achievements in our history.
I know that for some of those people who were there in the struggle in the 1970s, we maintain a friendship, which will last forever. Some have become so despondent at the fact that too many of our people have lost their way. In part we may be at fault because we did not paint the picture clear enough for everyone to see. Our primary objectives were to get land rights and water rights, but the big picture was the fact that our Sovereign Nations continue to exist and that not one of them had acquiesced nor ceded their sovereignty. Our objective was, and is, to get back self-governance by exercising a right of self-determination, through assertions of sovereignty.
Many of our educated people, during the mid seventies, gained positions in the public service at very senior levels. Not many, I can say, walked away from those jobs and went home to live with their people and reverse the brain drain. Many who have gone home did not use their knowledge and experiences to advance a course towards self-governance and self-determination within our own Country.
The recent condemnations, rumour-mongering and slander that is targeting me personally represents a very deep-seated concern from some who hide behind a Black wall. The information that is being spread about my work experience in former PM Whitlam’s office; in the US State Department; in the NSW Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions is true, and I have written about it openly. It is no secret. My Old People instructed me to learn the whiteman’s ways, so I did. It has enabled me to understand how governments, courts and the United Nations operate. We have to know our enemy to understand our enemy, otherwise we are fighting blind and stabbing in the dark.
The Sovereign Union understands who the enemy is and its Achilles Heel, and through the Sovereign Union I will continue to drive forward a political movement that seeks to set the record straight in respect to our rights, in particular our rights as Sovereign Peoples, whose Nations have a right to be self-determining and the right to chose our own economic and political association and governing pathways.
It is worth mentioning at this point that seven years ago I initiated an invasion at the rear end of the Anzac March on Anzac Day in Canberra with signs, which read, ‘Lest we forget the Frontier Wars’. I say I did that with about twenty other people. We have had a win. The War Memorial has agreed never to oppose our march again, and now displays a painting by Rover Thomas of his People’s massacre at Ruby Plains. The denial of our Peoples’ horrendous history is cracking. Where were you, our detractors?
To the detractors I say: In order for me to step backwards, put up your vision for us all to see. Inform the public of how you will fight the First Nations cause against the tyrannical oppressors. Get out there and take the lead.
One thing my detractors will never stop me from doing and that is fighting the fight for my own Nation and Peoples, on our Country.
Do not underestimate those who support me and the sovereignty movement, those who are around me, who have a deep and determined resolve to fight the fight against our oppressors.
The resolve is such that we say, “Say your piece, but if that is all you can do, then you have shown your colours.” I can only say to those who believe in what I do and what I have achieved to this day, “I am not finished!!”
In response to some of the lies and slander:
No, I do not have any personal association with the Queen or anyone from the Crown of the United Kingdom, nor do I know anyone at that level, but I do forward correspondence to HRH Elizabeth II about our assertions of sovereignty as she is the Head of State of the illegal occupying power that oppress our Peoples and desecrates our Country.
No, I do not possess the power or authority to grant permission for the Moree Plains Shire to raid with impunity the bore belonging to Toomelah community for the purpose of supplying Boggabilla and other surrounding areas, as has been claimed by Alice Haines' ‘Save Toomelah’ Facebook page, but then the critics know this and are looking for anything to mislead and misinform people.
No, I have not done anything about stopping water flows in the Barwon River via the Northern Basin Aboriginal Nations (NBAN) Treaty. It would be better if the detractors understood that the real target of all our frustrations in not having the rivers flow is the Commonwealth government, Barnaby Joyce and the non-Aboriginal irrigators and farmers. NBAN is trying to increase the cultural water flow to cultural sites and sacred off-river sites. This in turn increases the environmental flow, as well as the flow to our cultural sites.
No, the NBAN treaty was not with a corporation or any government. It is between sovereign Nations of the Northern Murray Darling Basin. A Treaty between our own Sovereign Nations, which is what so many are calling for.
No, I did not authorise the thousands of hectares of the Whitehaven Coalmine, the NSW government did that, with final approval by the Commonwealth government. The mines are operating on former farmlands and the New South Wales government gave approval for the State Forests to be mined. With no right of veto, all the Gomeroi Native Title Applicants could do was negotiate over 78 hectares of land the mine wanted for storing overburden, waste rock and pay $1000 per hectare. Soon I will provide a detailed analysis of the way the Native Title Act underpins a pro-mining process manipulated by NTSCorp in New South Wales.
Yes, I do have an overall objective in respect of achieving the right to be self-determining for my mob, our Nation and those other Nations around the Country who have invited me to work with them and, I might add, many of whom understand how governments work by sending in our own people to disrupt and destroy people who are becoming organised and assertive.
For those of you who support me and the sovereignty movement and believe in what I do, I appeal to you to screenshot and send to me all of the slander and rumour-mongering on Facebook and other social media against myself and the Sovereign Union. I will be using these to great advantage. I thank you for your support and belief.
Maybe the detractors will one day find their Dream.
Ghillar, Michael Anderson
Convenor of Sovereign Union of First Nations and Peoples in Australia
and Head of State of the Euahlayi Peoples Republic
ghillar29@gmail.com, 0499 080 660, www.sovereignunion.mobi