Part Two
copyright B. Reyburn 1994
JUDGEMENT DAY
Judgement Day requires us to judge ourselves. Which side
do we take when we are presented with a choice. Do we
support the Anglo-Australia State's acts of genocide
against that country's First Peoples? Or do we seek to
find a living arrangement for life which acknowledges the
place of the greater intelligence which creates us all?
Support for the Anglo-Australian State is support for a
process of bloodless genocide which is going on before
our eyes.
Support for Australia's First Peoples is support for
people who have kept our heritage alive by living the
truth that the land is our eternal soul.
For the good of your soul, write to Queen Elizabeth II,
as Queen of Australia, requesting her exercise her
Constitutional powers to annul those parts of the
Australian Government's 1993 Native Title Act which seek
to extinguish the native title rights of Australia's
First Peoples.
Judgement Day dawned in Australia on 3 June 1992.No doubt this
is news for many people who would expect Judgement Day to
occur all over the world at the same time.
The philosopher Wittgenstein once pointed to the failure of
the linear mind to apprehend eternity by asking the question
"If it is 4 pm here, what time is it on the sun."
Likewise, the linear notion of a twentieth century as a time
rather than a particular arrangement or investment of energy
prevents many minds from making good contact with the reality
of their surroundings. We become mystified by purely local
arrangements.
Really, we live in a cosmic drama. Eternity is not
characterised by straight lines but by cycles. European
rationality, which has invested heavily on the linear
interpretation, has made a bad investment. The constraints it
tried to shrug off, return to reclaim what was always theirs.
The tunnel vision of those who believe in the hype of the
twentieth century prevents them from seeing what is going on
before their very eyes.
With the Commonwealth Games presently underway, demanding our
attention with cries of "Gold", other matters important for
our soul are pushed out of sight. There is more to life than
the distractions of organised sport.
While many Anglo-Australians were preoccupied by the big State
of Origin football game on 3 June 1992, the High Court of
Australia was delivering its judgement in another game
concerning state of origin.
People from the Torres Strait island of Mer had challenged the
established legal view that Australia's indigenous peoples had
no rights in their countries except for those which came from
the Crown.
By a majority of six to one, the High Court judges found that,
under the common law imported into Australia with British
colonisation, the Meriam people were correct.
In reaching their decision, the judges had to overturn the
infamous doctrine of terra nullius which denied Australia's
First Peoples the recognition of their relationship to their
living countries.
The myth that the Crown became the owner of the land when it
proclaimed sovereignty over Australia was dispelled.
The myth of the empty continent had been of fundamental for
the survival of the existing social order in Great Britain.
By not having to acquire the resources of a whole continent -
by suspending the rules of life and stealing the carefully
nurtured wealth of Australia's First Peoples - British
authorities were able to raise the domestic standards of
living.
The myth of the empty continent full of 'natural resources'
was required to prop up the failing European way of life.
British authorities could revitalise the image of life which
put them into positions of privilege.
But an empty continent? There never was such a place. The
world was fully populated. The only empty continent which
existed was in the motivated imagination of people in
positions of privilege who wanted to put off the day when
their debts had to be paid in full.
That day is here.
If Australia was not a terra nullius when they arrived,
British colonists attempted to make it one both conceptual and
practically. Australia's First Peoples had been, and continue
to be, subjected to an extremely savage version of genocide at
the hands of the British and Anglo-Australian colonisers.
The original people of Australia were treated as being unreal.
Whatever happened to them was of no account. European elites,
happy to share in the fortune of their British cousins, did
not affirm the existence of Australia's First Peoples.
But the pretence could not be kept up for ever.
After two centuries, the evidence mounted to such an extent
that it no longer became possible to continue the pretence of
the empty continent.
Australia's First Peoples have survived. And so has the truth.
Much of the history of Australia can be seen as an attempt by
British interests to protect their fantasy that Australia was
an empty continent which belonged to them.
One of the major impacts of the European fantasy was that
First Peoples had to put up with new arrivals who were firmly
convinced that the land belonged to them exclusively. They had
bits of paper, backed up by the highest authority of the
distant British Crown, to prove it.
The statements from First Peoples that they held the land
according to an ancient system of law were pushed aside.
Dreaming law relates people to country.
Dreamings are not bounded by European notions of boundaries,
fences or marks on paper. They are not created by the British
Crown and they are not extinguished by the Crown. They
originate from a transcendental source.
It is an index of the generosity of many First Peoples that
they are presently prepared to accept the co-existence of both
forms of title. Cathy Freeman's laps of honour carrying both
the Aboriginal and Anglo-Australian flag is a clear
demonstration of the spirit of co-existence.
This spirit has been lacking from the heart of Anglo-
Australian authorities from the outset. Just as it was lacking
when the Anglo-Australian State was invented in 1901, the
spirit of co-existence has been lacking from the two most
importance recent events in Anglo-Australian life.
They are the 1992 High Court decision and the 1993 Native
Title Act of the Australian Government.
While the High Court laid to rest the myth of terra nullius,
it immediately sought to protect Anglo-Australian investment
by inventing another myth.
That myth is that while the Crown's presumption of sovereignty
did not result in the Crown obtaining ownership of the land,
the Crown did obtain ownership when it issued titles to its
subjects which were inconsistent with the continued enjoyment
of native title rights.
So while the Crown did not acquire the whole of Australia in
one foul swoop by running up a Union Jack and chanting the
ritual spells of European imperialism, its representatives now
argued that it acquired the ownership rights to Australia by
the stealthful means of issuing titles as colonisation spread
slowly across the land.
This is another fantasy of the European mind.
The relationship between First Peoples and their living
countries is of the character of a covenant between Creator
and Created. Life is the word of transcendental power made
manifest. The foods which come from country are sacramental.
The whole of life is sacred.
The relationship between people and creation country is not
extinguished by the faulty acts of Westminster Parliaments.
While these Parliaments may recognise that relationship, they
are not empowered to unilaterally extinguish it.
Fences and marks on maps do not extinguish a living truth.
Even people who have been preventing from discovering their
cultural heritage are able to rediscover their Dreaming
identity. And the Dreaming of their living countries.
The High Court of Australia did not take this view. Rather it
sought to restrict the recognition of native title rights to
the parts of Australia which were not wanted by Anglo-
Australians.
The High Court sought to protect those interests which had
grown fat on the stolen wealth of Australia.
In arriving at their decision, the High Court of Australia was
sitting in judgement of itself. It proved itself unable to
adequately protect the real interests of Australia's First
Peoples.
The Meriam peoples case was the first time since the
Australian High Court's establishment earlier this century
where it had had an opportunity to give its official view on
such matters.
And it demonstrated very clearly that the monocultural norm
governing its practice was that of protecting the emotional
and financial investment of Anglo-Australian at the expense of
the well-being of the original peoples.
Native title, in its opinion, might survive in those parts of
Australia which had not been granted to others by the Crown.
Most of the productive land in Australia is under Crown
leasehold.
Not only did the High Court propound the preposterous doctrine
that wrongful acts of the Crown extinguished the ancient
rights of First Peoples, the judges also found by a narrow
margin of 4 to 3, that it was not necessary for the Crown to
pay compensation for the presumed extinguishment of the rights
of First Peoples.
Just how much movement had there been from the pretence of the
doctrine of terra nullius to this newly invented common law
recognition of native title rights? From no rights to no real
rights?
How real are native title rights when the ancient laws of the
land are presumed to dissolve like mist by the mere exposure
of a Crown grant to an English colonist to run some cattle.
What form of right is it that can be not only done away with
in this fashion, but also carries with it no requirement that
its presumed loss is replaced by something of equal value?
What form? An imaginary form.
In passing judgement on itself, the High Court of Australia
failed to rise to the opportunity to redeem the people who owe
their allegiance to the Anglo-Australian State. That task
required a decision which fully acknowledged the reality of
the situation in Australia.
Judgement Day moved on to the Parliament of the Commonwealth
of Australia. The place which represents voice of the Anglo-
Australian people.
An opportunity existed here for the government to pass Statute
law which held that the rights of First Peoples were not
extinguished by the issue of Crown titles.
The High Court had held that native title was extinguished to
the extent of the degree of inconsistency between the Crown
title and the enjoyment of native title rights.
Under the proposed new Anglo-Australian rules laid down by the
High Court, where Crown had issued titles which provided for
an exclusive possession, such as freehold, native title was
completely extinguished. The European sacred right of private
property was thought to annul the power of the creative forces
in the country itself.
The picture was less clear cut regarding Crown leasehold. It
would depend on the degree of inconsistency. Many pastoral
leases in Australia were issued with conditions in them which
protected the rights of the native peoples to travel over
their countries and to take food and water.
A strong case could be made out, by those who opted to play by
the new Anglo-Australian rules, that these leases did not
extinguish the common law rights of native title.
In many parts of Australia First Peoples have never ceased
living in accordance with their laws even though a pastoral
lease has been granted over their countries by the Crown.
In the Northern Territory senior lawmen continue to insist
that they are the people who are responsible for caring for
the country even though hostile cattlemen try to drive them
away.
Whole communities have fought to stay on their traditional
countries, even though life has been made very hard for them
to do so.
Confronted with the High Court's abandonment of the doctrine
of terra nullius, the Commonwealth Parliament in Canberra was
stampeded into passing the Native Title Act in December 1993.
No time was allowed for these major issues to be fully debated
by both Peoples.
The mad rush resulted from business interests which insisted
that the government ensure the validity of its titles. The
abandonment of the doctrine of terra nullius, and the
realisation that the Anglo-Australian State was built up out
of stolen wealth, raised serious questions regarding the
validity of the titles issued by the Crown.
Having been told by the High Court of a great wrong, the
Anglo-Australian response was to pass a law which said that
all past invalid acts of the government were now valid!
Welcome to the curious land of Oz.
Instead of seeking to put right the great wrong which lies at
the heart of Anglo-Australian life, the Parliament was
manipulated to in an attempt to turn lies into truth.
Without valid titles, these businessmen argued, business
investment would be severely retarded since banks could not be
assured that the collateral for loans was secure.
The uncertainty which British colonisation had introduced into
the lives of First Peoples had begun to flow back into the
world view of twentieth century business.
For those who had invested heavily in the pretence that the
Crown owned the land in Australia, the collapse of the
doctrine of terra nullius was of cosmological proportions.
Cracks were appearing in the image of life they had crafted
for themselves.
Rather than attempting to commit real resources to
establishing a sound foundation, which would require forming a
genuine partnership with Australia's First Peoples, the Anglo-
Australian Parliament decided to attempt to paper over the
cracks, and apply a coat of whitewash.
With precious time rapidly running out, and instead of
allowing for a genuine debate in which all people in
Australia could be involved in an attempt to arrive at a
lasting solution, an elite dominated by Anglo-Australian
interests rushed the Native Title Act through Parliament.
With the High Court recognition of native title less that two
years old, and a lot of argument to be had in the courts
regarding whether the leases which cover a large part of
Australia extinguish native title, the provisions of the
Native Title Act pre-empted the options of any judge
confronted by such an argument.
The first response of the Anglo-Australian Parliament to the
common law recognition of native title rights was to make
explicit that freehold and leasehold Crown titles extinguish
native title irrespective of the degree of inconsistency
between the two bundles of rights.
The Anglo-Australian Parliament formalised the results of two
centuries of genocide against Australia's First Peoples.
It is worth quoting from one of the High Court judges in the
Meriam peoples case. In passing lightly over the process of
Anglo-Australian genocide, Justice Brennan said:
...the exercise of a power to extinguish native title
must reveal a clear and plain intention to do so, whether
the action be taken by the Legislature or by the
Executive. This requirement, which flows from the
seriousness of the consequences to indigenous inhabitants
of extinguishing their traditional rights and interests
in land, has been repeatedly emphasised by courts dealing
with the extinguishing of native title of Indian bands
in North America.
The seriousness of the consequences to indigenous inhabitants,
in the Australian context, means being sold into wage-slavery
in an alien way of life for all time.
Prime Minister Keating made it clear that, under his
government's legislation, native title rights to land under
pastoral lease were to be extinguished completely -
irrespective of any degree of inconsistency.Under the
Australian Constitution the result of this is to bind the
States to a similar position.
In the Native Title Act there is a distinction between
category A and category B past acts. Those in category A,
which include grants of freehold and leasehold titles, are
said to extinguish native title. Those in category B are said
to extinguish native title to the extent of any inconsistency.
Clause 15(1) of the Native Title Act says, in part:
If a past act is an act attributable to the
Commonwealth:
(a) if it is a category A past act - the act
extinguishes the native title concerned.
A category A past act is defined as a grant of a freehold
estates and grants of commercial, agricultural, pastoral or
residential leases.
A category B past act is one which extinguishes native title
to the extent of the inconsistency between the two forms of
title.
In both cases, Crown titles are held to be superior to the
rights which originate in the ancient law of the original
peoples.
The Native Title Act, since it seeks to institutionalise the
gains of terra nullius, would be better described as the White
Homelands Act.
Unless the law is changed, the expression 'category A past
act' will come, with time, to carry the same sort of emotion
we associate with the pass laws in South Africa.
At the moment these words are too fresh for us to appreciate
just what they represent - a bloodless form of genocide
against Australia's First Peoples.
To gain that appreciation we need to look closely at what is
going on with this rushed legislation.
The Preamble to the Native Title Act states, in part, that;
The High Court has ... held that native title is
extinguished by valid government acts that are
inconsistent with the continued existence of native title
rights and interests, such as the grant of freehold and
leasehold.
Note that it omits the reference to the question of
extinguishment to the extent of any inconsistency.
Similarly in the Second Reading speech of the Native Title Act
Prime Minister Keating says:
Only validated freehold grants, residential, commercial
and pastoral or agricultural leases, and validated Crown
actions basically involving permanent public works, will
extinguish native title. Naturally, existing reservations
for the benefit of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
people will be preserved.
On the face of it, there appears to be a clear and plain
intention on the part of the Anglo-Australian government to
completely extinguish native title rights in relation to Crown
freehold and pastoral leasehold.
Imagine a Judge confronted with the question of whether or not
it was the government's clear intention that pastoral leases
would extinguish native title completely.
The explicit wording of Section 15(1)(a), when read with the
definitions of category A past acts, says that grants of
pastoral leases extinguish native title. The language is
perfectly clear and unambiguous.
The Queens Counsel for the cattlemen would say that the
Parliament had the clear choice of whether to put the granting
of pastoral leases into Category A or Category B. It made an
informed and deliberate choice to put the granting of pastoral
leases into category A.
Being fully aware of the consequences for Australia's First
Peoples, the Australian Government made a deliberate choice to
put pastoral leases into category A. Kept this deliberate act
on hold.
Under the rules of Statutory interpretation, the QC can also
point to the comment in the Second Reading Speech and the
Preamble which say nothing of pastoral leases extinguishing
native title only to the extent of any inconsistency.
A very strong case can be mounted that it was the governments
clear intention that, when confronted for the first time by
the existence of common law recognition of native title rights
in relation to pastoral leases, it chose to extinguish them
completely.
It is worth noting that the Prime Minster's reference to the
preservation of existing reservations in his Second Reading
speech.
Dating back to the middle of the last century, these are
reservations in the terms of the leases in favour of the
continuing right of Aboriginal people to have access to
country under pastoral leases.
The matter of the survival of First Peoples had been
considered by British colonial authorities. Australian
historian Henry Reynolds has made study of issue. He found
that, in the late 1840s, the Imperial Government had been
clearly of the view that it did not intend to exclude the
natives from land held under lease.
Secretary of State Earl Grey had said:
I think it is essential that it should be generally
understood that leases granted for this purpose give the
grantees only an exclusive right of pasturage of their
cattle ... but these leases are not intended to deprive
the natives of their former right to hunt over these
Districts, or to wander over them in search of
subsistence, in the manner to which they have been
heretofore accustomed, from the spontaneous produce of
the soil.
In an article published before the Native Title Act, Reynolds
says that it was the Imperial Repeal of Colonial Waste Land
Act of 1855, which:
...accounted for the recognition of Aboriginal use and
occupancy rights in pastoral leases issued by various
colonial governments in the second half of the 19th
century. Left to themselves, the colonial governments
would have ignored the Aboriginal interest.
Reynolds concludes his article:
So the question remains. Was the Aboriginal interest in
the sprawling pastoral lands of Australia ever validly
extinguished? If not, the presumption must be that
pastoral leases all over the country are encumbered by an
unextinguished Aboriginal right of use and occupancy.
Given the importance of the question it is essential that
the relevant governments either confirm the survival of
that interest or explain how, when and by what means the
Aborigines' rights were extinguished.
The answer to that question is, for Commonwealth acts, the
rights were extinguished after Reynolds posed the question -
by the Native Title Act of December 1993. Each State will have
a different date as its legislation, in line with the
Commonwealth Government's, is proclaimed.
We are witnessing the historic moment of legal dispossession.
The Native Title Act makes the people who were originally
granted rights to graze cattle into the legitimate proprietors
of the soil by stating that their leases extinguish native
title. This completely reverses the original intend of the
Imperial Government.
It is easy to understand why Anglo-Australia would not want to
recognise the co-existence of native title rights with
pastoral leases.
Apart from the interests of the cattlemen, many of whom want
exclusive ownership of their private domains, the question of
mineral rights sits in the background.
It is one thing to allow Aboriginal people traditional rights
of access for hunting and ceremonies, it is another thing
entirely to suggest that native title rights and pastoral
leases might co-exist.
The Anglo-Australian Crown continues to hold to the view that
all minerals in Australia belong to it. The Crown then grants
mining rights to corporations in return for the payment of
royalties.
Symbolically, water is defined as a mineral. Who will
seriously argue that Australia's First Peoples did not have
rights in water? If nothing else, the water is theirs.
Just as it has been demonstrated that the Crown was wrong in
its assumption that it acquired the actual ownership of the
land when it proclaimed sovereignty over Australia, it is
equally possible that it will turn out to be mistaken that the
Crown also acquired the mineral rights from Australia's First
Peoples.
There has never been a treaty between the original peoples and
the British. Far from ceding their rights in minerals, many
First Peoples continue to view them as theirs. By what means
were the rights in minerals transferred from the original
people to the Crown?
If legal minds can get such a fundamental issue as land
ownership wrong for two hundred years, they can also get the
issue of ownership of the mineral wealth wrong. Yes, there is
a sense in which Australia is slipping through the hands of
the English speaking businessmen.
The world is waking to the fact that the representative face
of Australia is not white, and does not speak English as a
first language. And in the first languages, it is said that
minerals have Dreamings. By original Australian law, this is a
way of expressing a form of sovereign right.
By including pastoral and other forms of leasehold land in
Category A of the Native Title Act, a move has been made to
protect Australia as the jewel in the British empire.
The great mineral wealth of the country is thereby protected
from the claims of the original peoples. They can hunt and
dance as much as they like, but the minerals are reserved for
the Crown and the giant and faceless corporations.
Just what imperial families are large shareholders in these
mining corporations? What is their role in the process of
making the laws we, who agree to live by the rule of law, live
by?
With First Peoples seeking to obtain recognition of the co-
existence of their native title rights to land under pastoral
lease in several States at the time of writing, a good example
of how the new regime operates can be seen in the struggle of
the Waanyi people.
The bloodless character of the process of legally separating
First Peoples form their birthright countries can be clearly
seen in this case.
The mining company CRA, which is recovering from the closure
of the mine at Bougainville, has Crown issued rights to a
massive mineral rich ore body described as the next El Dorado,
in north-western Queensland.
CRA is sitting on one of the world's largest zinc deposits.
Some 30 Billion dollars is expected to flow from minerals in
this part of the world over the coming years.
CRA argues that, for the project to come on line as required
(as calculated by financial projections) it must conduct some
test or feasibility trials. The problem for them is that the
area selected for these tests also involves an area which has
been subject to a native title claim.
Under the Native Title Act, the onus is placed on the
surviving First Peoples to prove their native title to the
Anglo-Australian government. A National Native Title Tribunal
has been established.
For First Peoples to activate the Tribunal they must first
satisfy the Registrar that they have a prima facie claim. This
is a condition laid down in the Native Title Act.
The people making the application for recognition of their
native title rights must provide an sworn affidavit that they
believe that native title has not been extinguished.
In the Waanyi case, the land in question is to a small area
which contains an initiation site. The area was, apparently,
excised from a pastoral lease in 1907 to provide a camping
facility for - wait for it - miners in the area!
The Carpentaria Land Council are seeking to obtain recognition
of native title on behalf of Waanyi people, Fiona Kennedy in
the Weekend Australian of August 6-7 reports a CRA spokesman's
views:
"The legal advice to CRA and advice to the Queensland
Government is that any native title that might have
existed in the area was extinguished by pastoral leases
that date back to 1883."...
It has now been announced that the claim has not been accepted
by the Registrar of native title claims on the grounds that a
prima facie case has not been established.
A report by Fiona Kennedy and others in the Weekend Australian
13-14 August states that the decision of tribunal Registrar
that the Waanyi people have not made out a prima facie claim
... appears to lend weight to arguments by CRA - and
other groups including the Queensland Government - that
the pastoral lease at Lawn Hill extinguished native
title.
She based her opinion on the Pastoral Leases Act of 1869,
which "appeared to indicate that a lease granted under
the Act is intended to confer exclusive possession"...
The President of the Native Title Tribunal, Justice French,
has now backed up the decision of the Registrar and refused to
accept the claim.
As provided for by the Act, he will hear arguments from the
Waanyi people and, if he does not reverse his decision, the
matter will be appealed to the Federal Court.
In the Federal Court, the Judges can be expected to wring
their hands and say, it is regrettable but the provisions of
the Native Title Act make the government;s position on this
matter quite clear - pastoral leases completely extinguish the
native title rights.
Note that not a drop of blood has been shed in this process.
The abuse of the law making apparatus to over-ride the laws of
life in favour of the vested interests of corporations can be
traced back to the Bloodless Revolution of 1688. And that
takes us to the core of the Commonwealth.
In place of a transcendental power rooted in respect for life,
the Will of the people became the source of law. But that Will
is as interpreted by a professional elite in close alliance
with the business interests busily exploiting the carefully
nurtured resources of other peoples.
Do the people of the planet have the Will to ensure that the
laws coming from our law-making houses ensure the well-being
of First Peoples?
How appropriate is it in this situation - where concerns of
indigenous law are at stake - to have a court mechanism which
is governed entirely by processes which belong solely within
Anglo-Australian society?
The State of Queensland is clearly on the side of the mining
company. Unfettered development is very much part of that
Government's agenda for the 1990s. It was the State of
Queensland which opposed the Meriam people in their struggle
for recognition.
During that struggle, the State of Queensland actually
legislated to do away with the rights of the Meriam people.
The High Court overturned that offensive act of State as it
contravened the Commonwealth's 1975 Racial Discrimination Act.
Queensland left its run too late.
At core here is a very important issue. How can the Australian
States - which consistently favour commercial interests at the
expense of protecting the rights of First Peoples - be
entrusted with the responsibility for the well-being of First
Peoples?
The record of the Commonwealth Government is little better.
Both levels of government act as a protective front for the
operations of the businesses of Anglo-Australia, and these
business interests consistently demonstrate their opposition
to the real recognition of the rights of Australia's First
Peoples.
What kind of arrangement is necessary to ensure that the well-
being of First Peoples is protected from those who proclaim
their sovereignty over life in Australia?
And if you ever needed any evidence regarding whose side the
State's laws are on in the struggle for justice, check out how
CRA feel free to put the boot in to the impoverished Waanyi.
Waanyi people were seeking an injunction to prevent CRA
starting work until the issue of native title had been
settled. They had to suspend this action when the Registrar
did not accept their Native Title claim. Jamie Walker reports
(Australian 17 August):
Outside the court, a spokesman for CRA, Mr Jim Singer,
said a crucial bulk sampling program at Century had
already been delayed five weeks by the action - making
completion ahead of the end-of-year wet season a "very
tight" proposition.
Failure to complete the program before the onset of "the
wet" could delay the project by a further six months,
forcing important customers to be turned away.
In such circumstances CRA could seek to recover those
costs through legal action, he said.
Mr Philip McMurdo QC, for CRA Ltd, accused the Waanyi of
"prevarication and procrastination".
Respectable Anglo-Australian businessmen indeed. It looks as
though CRA Directors have learnt nothing as a result of their
experience with local people in Bougainville.
Here in Australia they feel reassured that they can continue
to operate under the old imperial rules, embodied in the 1993
Native Title Act, which kept the natives in their place.
The general point which can be made, bearing in mind the giant
heavy-duty and insensitive earth moving machines involved in
these massive mining operations, is that the collapse of the
Western Way will not be due to technological failure but to
its failure to ground itself on stable social foundations.
What support can we show the Waanyi people in their struggle
against an unfeeling industrial giant?
And note that CRA is leading the way in the development of a
mineral province in Queensland worth billions of dollars. None
of the other companies will want to learn that those ore
bodies also carry Dreaming messages.
Do we hear a call for the collective power of solidarity to
send messages to the mining industry, through the CRA
boardroom, that its behaviour is not acceptable?
Corporations are the key players in the game involving the use
of State laws for the protection of private wealth. Does the
Royal family own shares in CRA? Under the circumstances, is it
appropriate that they continue to hold them?
The role of the State in protecting privately held wealth
requires faithful servants.
Whenever Anglo-Australia wants to convince itself that it is
treating First Peoples fairly it appoints a Anglo-Australian
Judge or legal person (with no claim to cross-cultural
expertise or grounding in indigenous law) to determine the
matter!
The present process of determining the existence of Native
Title consists of a bureaucratic Tribunal staffed by people
who are not qualified in Dreaming law. Reason is confined to
European categories alone.
How on earth can they recognise the Dreaming dimension of the
country when it is presented to them for verification. These
parts of their own Being have repressed by the process of
internalising the norms of the Anglo-Australian State.
As has been demonstrated by the Native Title Tribunal
Registrar in the Waanyi/ CRA case, that according to Anglo-
Australian law native title has been extinguished.
Native Title Tribunal personnel who deliver judgements based
solely on Anglo-Australian legislation and which state that
native title has been extinguished may be active participating
in a process of genocide against Australia's First Peoples.
Nuremberg principles apply since at least 3 June 1992..
With the demise of the doctrine of terra nullius, there are
new ground rules in place. A lot of what has been taken as
acceptable practice in Australia is now up for review.
The fundamental position in this regard must be restated -
Europeans can recognise the existence of native title but they
cannot unilaterally extinguish it.
Providing such recognition runs contrary to the present spirit
which inhabits the hearts of Anglo-Australian authorities.
They do not seek to embrace First Peoples and restore them to
their proper place in life.
Rather the authorities seek to institutionalise the
disadvantage of the last two centuries.
The Native Title Act says, in effect, "Look, we've been doing
the wrong thing for two hundred years and we'll keep all of
what we've gained and you can have some scraps."
A clear demonstration of what lies in the heart of Anglo-
Australia can be seen in relation to Prime Minister Keating's
idea of what would compensate the surviving First Peoples for
the hell Anglo-Australia has put them through.
By way of providing for those First Peoples who would never
benefit from the belated common law recognition of native
title, the Anglo-Australian government has put together what
it calls a Social Justice package.
And what price does Anglo-Australia Inc put on the lions share
of the continent and islands of Australia?
What value did they place on a resource base which, in
materialist terms alone, provides a base which has a Gross
Domestic Product approaching 500 Billion Australian dollars a
year during the coming decade?
A resource base from which the sale of one mountain of
Dreaming iron ore alone in the Pilbara generates 3 Billion
Australian dollars a year - as part of a process by which the
BIG Australian mining company BHP generated a profit of over 1
Billion Australian dollars last year? (Admittedly this was a
'good' year - and BHP had to jettison tens of thousands of
workers to achieve this result for the shareholders.)
Another mining company, MIM, earned $1.5 Billion last year
from the export of minerals.
A resource base which supports a share market trading in the
expropriated resources of First Peoples which has a domestic
capitalisation of approximately 300 Billion and which pays an
annual dividend on listed securities of more than 10 Billion
last year?
And it pays this dividend after it has fed, clothed, educated,
nursed, housed, provided holidays and entertainment for 17
million other souls. After it provides 8 million jobs.
The Social Justice Package announced by Prime Minister Keating
will consist of a mere 1.5 Billion over the next decade! A
pittance for surrendering rights to a continent.
How soon that will disappear. How little of lasting benefit it
will provide. The money is to be put in a trust which will
generate some mere tens of millions of dollars per year.
Instead of being paid with no strings attached to an
indigenous form of self-government, the social justice package
will be administered via the structures set up by Anglo-
Australia. These have been conclusively demonstrated to fail
to meet the real needs of First Peoples.
An act of self-determination is long overdue in Australia. The
experiment with the Westminster system has not been capable of
looking after the well-being of peoples and country.
It would have been far more appropriate to have offered a
resource rent calculated as a certain percent of the Gross
Domestic Product per year. One per cent would provide 3 to 4
billion dollars per year.
The managers of Anglo-Australia would throw up their hands in
horror - where would the money come from? Would they have to
forego part of their superannuated futures?
But then, Europe could never afford to both pay the proper
price for Australia and to preserve the privileges of the
elite. That is how the story started. The British Crown did
not pay the price for acquiring the countries of the original
Australian peoples.
The rolling action of Judgement Day can now be seen to extend
to the Queen herself.
Where does she stand on this issue. The British people have an
immense debt to Australia's First People. It is time for them
to begin to repay that debt.
The Native Title Act was assented to by the Queen's
Australian agent, the Governor-General of Australia, Bill
Hayden, on 24 December 1993.
It can be argued that the extinguishment of the relationship
between Australia's First Peoples and their living countries
is an act of genocide. Genocide is not a valid exercise of
sovereign power.
The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment
of the Crime of Genocide states that:
genocide means nay of the following acts committed with
intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national,
ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) killing members of the group;
(b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of
the group;
(c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of
life calculated to bring about its physical destruction
in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within
the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to
another group.
This almost reads like the formula of British colonisation in
Australia!
The entry under genocide in the Encyclopedia Britannica goes
on to say that perpetrators may be punished whether they are
constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials, or
private individuals.
Genocide is not a domestic matter but one of international
concern.
You may now recall that the 1993 decision of the Anglo-
Australian Parliament to put the grant of pastoral leases into
category A of its Native Title Act, and to thereby completely
extinguish the native title rights of the original people, was
a deliberate decision.
The conditions of life which this legislative action will
inflict on Australia's First Peoples will harm them mentally,
physically, spiritually.
Dispossession and the lack of official affirmation of their
relationship to their countries results in great hardship and
despair.
Denied recognition they are prevented, by cattlemen and State
officials, from obtaining the foods which form a sacrament
between themselves and the forces which generate them.
The lack of recognition drives people to alcohol and other
forms of self destruction. People are imprisoned and die in
custody at high rates. They die many years earlier than they
should, after leading lives which have been greatly
impoverished.
The condition of life of Australia's First People is not only
a matter for people in Australia, it is a matter for the whole
Commonwealth, and for people worldwide.
Section 59 of the Australian Constitution states:
The Queen may disallow any law within one year from the
Governor-General's assent, and such disallowance on being
made known by the Governor-General by speech or messages
to each of the Houses of Parliament, or by Proclamation,
shall annul the law from the day when the disallowance is
made known.
The Queen is Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, as Queen of
Australia.
By the laws of life which transcend those of nation-states,
genocide is never a valid exercise of sovereign power.
For the sake of your soul, write to Her Majesty at Buckingham
Palace, requesting her to annul those parts of the Australian
Government's 1993 Native Title Act which seek to extinguish
the native title rights of Australia's First People. She has
until the 24 December 1994 to act.