"Those who lose dreaming are lost" - Australian Aboriginal proverb

"Stand up and be counted. We want to hear your voices"
- Dr Lowitja O'Donoghue AC, CBE, DSG, AC, CBE, DSG , 7 September 2023

Introduction

The October 2023 referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament was an appeal by First Nations Australians to 'enact' legal inclusion under the Australian constitution: "making reparations" on formal isolation by Crown Rule under the "Native Title Act" of 1993. (Details under Pt. 2). On righting wrongs Maireid Sullivan October 2023 I feel encouraged by the ongoing Australia-wide campaign for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament: uniting all Australians, to acknowledge our multi-cultural status in a chorus of VOICES within a Representative Democracy The dream of a free society is based on the idea that all people are equal in common law —that each has a right to exercise free will and free speech within the law, and that government has a role in acknowledging and supporting the personal sovereignty of every citizen. Instead, we find ourselves turning a blind eye to problems that will not go away. The good news is that there are creative solutions! Finding solutions for ongoing problems: It's always a matter of justice; But, we're not so good at understanding the root causes of injustice behind our systemic breakdowns. With cross-party support, when Paul Keating became Prime Minister, in 1991, he ‘re-awakened’ the Federation 1901 'dream' of a Republic, free from Crown rule, with the launch of the Australian Republic Movement, followed by the April 1993 establishment of a Republic Advisory Committee(pdf), which confirmed "a republic is achievable without threatening Australia's cherished democratic institutions". (Liberal Party Prime Minister John Howard's Government went on to launch an unsuccessful 1999 Republic referendum.) The conundrum: In June 1992, following his "ten-year battle for justice and political status" Torres Strait Islander Eddie Koiki Mabo overturned the legal fiction of terra nullius, or 'land belonging to no-one' when he won the High Court "decision" which, in July 1993, became The Native Title Act of 1993, aka The Mabo Act, thereby 'returning' full land title to ALL Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people still residing on their traditional lands, on the grounds that, "The doctrine of tenure applies to every Crown grant of an interest in land, but not to rights and interests which do not owe their existence to a Crown grant." (pdf) Thus, under Crown Law, Native Title holders were constitutionally separated from Australian Federal government oversight: Slowly but surely, "vested interests" took advantage of this 'separation' by 'going direct' to exploit Native Title Law and Freehold Law. One example: The Great Southern Railway, aka "The Ghan" was privatised in 1997, under the tenure of Liberal Party Prime Minister John Howard (1996-2007), and Defence Minister Robert Hill (2001-2006). In partnership with Halliburton (& subsidiary KRB), the railway connection from Adelaide to Darwin was completed in 2004, and the first journey delivered depleted uranium for storage in 'the centre' of Australia: "Controversy follows the US giant Halliburton wherever it goes but little is known about its Australian operations." (SMH, March 2005) Shortly after my return to Australia, following seven years touring the world, in 2003, we began work on our award winning film, Time afer Time: A celebration of the great heritage of ancient Celtic, American and Australian peoples, in collaborating with local Indigenous friends. One day, while out in the car, I tuned in to ABC Radio 1pm news broadcast, and heard an announcement (a legal requirement) by an aged indigenous Australian Native Title holder, confirming a contract to allow depleted uranium storage on a 200 years storage contract for a fee of AUD12 million. (Detailed under Part 2) "Singing Them Out" until reparations are made. As a student of history, I was astonished to discover the impacts of British colonialism on "Indigenous" Irish, American and Australian cultures. The fact that "Indigenous" Chinese out-smarted 'imperialists' is a major cultural lesson. Plenty of researchers have proven that ancient 'indigenous traditions' around the world recognised land as common property - to be occupied respectfully, but never 'privatised for profit'. In addition, European Common Laws handed down across Pre-Roman Empire Irish/Celtic cultures shared a traditional approach to dealing with wrong-doing by a member of a community or tribe who hurt or offended a member of another family/tribe: The family must 'sing them out' publicly until they make reparations. As a "traditional" Irish singer, I became a Celtophile inspired by one question: "If I can understand the concept of 'The Dreaming,' where can I find it in my own cultural history?" and the fact that "traditional" Australian people also "Sing them out publicly until they make reparations" focused my attention. Into the 1980s Popular debate around "multicultural" heritage followed the 1980 passage of the Australian Bicentennial Authority ACT (ABA), with plans for the 1988 Australian Bi-centenary, celebrating the anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet of British ships at Sydney in 1788. Prime Minister Bob Hawke refused to fund the First Fleet re-enactment, because he believed this might offend Indigenous Australians: The planning process awakened debate on Australian national identity and the ongoing demands for Indigenous rights. "When PM Hawke promised there would be a treaty made with Aboriginal people. It was an agreement that some believed would recognise Aboriginal land, law and unceded sovereignty." (Garrick, 2023) During the 1980s, Melbourne celebrated "multiculturalism" with the revival of Marvellous Melbourne, slipstreaming on Cultural Tourism, (Craik, 1997) aka "cultural-economic activity" inspired by post-industrial Seattle and Pennsylvania. The Cultural Tourism agenda was designed to attract international investment and up-market tourism by focusing on celebrating the performing and visual arts. Before Glasgow rose from post-industrial poverty to European Capital of Culture, 1990, their Director visited Melbourne City Council's Cultural Tourism Committee, in the midst of the 1987 economic 'Crash' (Simon, 2003, 3.1), to show how focus on Glasgow's arts history profile enlivened the entire community, while Ireland rose from historic poverty on the international Celtic music wave (Sullivan, 1995). Visionary Indigenous Australians, beginning with the Western Desert Papunya Tula Settlement artists, energised Australia’s Cultural Tourism policy. "It’s The Old People Who Know." When the Victorian Arts Centre's Theatres Building opened in 1984, the Playhouse Theatre foyer walls were covered, from floor to ceiling, with Victorian Tapestry Workshop tapestries, featuring Aboriginal designs based on the paintings of the outback Papunya Tula Settlement artists, following the work of their school teacher, Geoffrey Bardon. Suddenly, Aboriginal art forms, using the pointillist "dot painting" technique, awakened international excitement and curiosity. "This was the beginning of the Western Desert art movement that has become one of Australia’s most recognisable art forms" - National Museum of Australia "The Early Influence of Geoffrey Bardon on Aboriginal Art" D. Wroth, 2014 Papunya and Geoffrey Bardon Excerpt: If you are new to aboriginal art you may not have heard the story about Papunya and Geoffrey Bardon. This is a powerful story about a courageous displaced people and a man who worked against enormous pressure to bring their culture out into Western view. ... This story starts in an Australian outback government town of Papunya. It was home to many different groups of desert aboriginal people, including Pintupi, Luritja, Walpiri, Arrernte, and Anmatyerre, who’d been moved there in the late 1960s under a government policy of assimilation. The town had no cultural significance for the people of these different language groups. Many of them had, up until this time, lived on their own country with their own language and followed their traditional ways. They all had rich story telling traditions that related to their ancestral country. Now they found themselves separated from the very country that had such significance for them. It must have been a truly devastating time. In 1971 Geoffrey Bardon came to Papunya as a school teacher. He asked young school children to paint things that related to their world, not to the western ways. Eventually the older men who spoke some English came to him and said, “Why are you asking the young people? It’s the old people who know.” A group of men started telling very significant stories. This meant they had to work out which aspects of those stories could be told and which parts had to be withheld from public view... >>>more From a culturally productive perspective, the enthusiasm shared across recent First Nations Peoples' national debates defining a "Yes" to an Indigenous Voice to Parliament offers new cultural opportunities on a brilliantly gender-aware, anti-ageist, equally empowering democratic model for all Australians. Australian Prime Minister since May 2022, Anthony Albanese, self-described as a member of the anti-nuclear movement “for more than four decades”, supported Australia signing and ratifying the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, ratified in 2020 and entered into force in January 2022. On 21 July 2023, the Albanese Government released Measuring What Matters, based on five wellbeing themes: "Australia’s first national wellbeing framework, that will track our progress towards a more healthy, secure, sustainable, cohesive and prosperous Australia. ...a living framework that will continue to evolve and improve over time to reflect ongoing feedback from the community, new research, improved data availability, and changing community views. . ." - Press Release - Treasury Department, 21 July 2023 Release of national wellbeing framework focuses on “Inclusion, equity and fairness are cross-cutting dimensions of the Framework.” We need to learn to work together to achieve ‘national wellbeing’ within a "multi-cultural" Republic if we are to achieve "representative government". Onward!

Part 1
Indigenous Voice to Parliament
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Norman Tindale (1974) indigenous map of Australia - large format map ANU Biography: Norman Barnett Tindale, AO (1900-1993) - Obituary “We don’t accept this idea of British sovereignty because it’s unjust. Now we’re proposing a better way to do things and we’ll tell you through song. We’ll tell you through dance. We’ll tell you through oratory. We’ll take you to court. Then we’ll tell you again through song, and dance, and oratory. It’s really a modern epic of Australian history.” – Professor Marcia Langton, ABC Radio, 2 Nov. 2012 Voices on the Voice: Marcia Langton 3 August 2023, Sydney University A keynote address by prominent Melbourne University anthropologist and geographer Professor Marcia Langton AO, on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament. "She's been a crucial figure in the development of Indigenous Voice to Parliament – as one of the most experienced members of the working group advising the government and led a report that proposes how the Voice could be implemented. ... Marcia Langton has produced a large body of knowledge in the areas of political and legal anthropology, and Aboriginal arts and culture." - Sydney.edu Professor Langton was joined on stage for a conversation hosted by Professor Lisa Jackson Pulver, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Indigenous Strategy and Services at the University of Sydney: 'Voices on the Voice' series. Be Fearless: Lowitja O'Donoghue speaks from the Heart (0:39) 7 September 2023 Dr Lowitja O'Donoghue AC CBE DSG (1 August 1932 - 4 February 2024) has dedicated her life to campaigning for recognition and for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to be heard. "Stand up and be counted. We want to hear your voices" - Dr Lowitja O'Donoghue AC, CBE, DSG, AC, CBE, DSG , 7 Sept. 2023 In 1990–1996, Lowitja O'Donoghue was the inaugural chairperson of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC - 1990-2005). In December 1992, she became the first Aboriginal Australian to address the 1993 United Nations General Assembly during the launch of the United Nations International Year of Indigenous Peoples. "Following the 1992 Mabo decision by the High Court of Australia, O'Donoghue was a leading member of the team negotiating with the federal government relating to native title in Australia. Together with prime minister Paul Keating, she played a major role in drafting the bill which became the Native Title Act 1993, and Keating shortlisted her for the position of Governor-General of Australia in 1995." -Wikipedia

The Indigenous Voice Co-design Process Final Report was presented to the Australian government in July 2021: The process included 150 community consultations; 120+ stakeholder meetings; 4,000+ submissions and surveys lodged; 52 co-design members; 13 webinars. National Indigenous Australians Agency Indigenous Voice Co-design Process Final Report to the Australian Government: Excerpt from the Forward (pdf) Across Australia, momentum is strong for an Indigenous Voice to the Australian Parliament and Government. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples want a greater say on the laws, policies and programs that affect our lives and non-Indigenous Australians support that call. In this Final Report of the Indigenous Voice co-design groups, we present our proposal for realising this urgent solution to the ongoing predicament of Indigenous Australians with a robust and feasible means of improving outcomes. In October 2020, we presented the Indigenous Voice Co-design Process Interim Report to the Australian Government. Since the release in January 2021 of proposals for an Indigenous Voice in the Interim Report, Australians from across the country have taken the opportunity to provide their feedback. Over 9,400 people and organisations participated in a consultation process led by co-design members. This marks one of the most significant engagements with the Australian community on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs in recent history... ‘The Voice to Parliament Handbook’ by Thomas Mayo and Kerry O'Brien, May 2023 An easy-to-follow guide for the millions of Australians who have expressed support for the Uluru Statement from the Heart (pdf), but want to better understand what a Voice to Parliament actually means... Amazon Authors Biographies: excerpt Indigenous leader from Torres Strait Island, Thomas Mayo is a published author, First Nations Voice campaigner, and unionist. "As he gained the skills of negotiation and organising in the union movement, he applied those skills to advancing the rights of Indigenous peoples becoming a signatory to the Uluru Statement from the Heart." Multi-award winning journalist and ABC broadcaster, Kerry O'Brien has "covered all the big historic Indigenous issues of his time, including land rights, deaths in custody, Mabo, the Stolen Generations’ inquiry, the birth and death of ATSIC, the intervention and the Uluru Statement from the Heart. He was a member of the Eminent Panel advising the Queensland Government on a path to treaty."

Part 2
Problem - Analysis . . .
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Crown vs MABO

Singing Them Out
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Excerpts from Part 9: Australia's tax system – Past & Future . . . "We're not here because we love the state and we've got bleeding hearts, for Christ's sake. We're here to make money. We're here to do business."  – Halliburton consultant Malcolm Kinnaird (1933-2014) and South Australian of the Year 2003 (Source: Birnbauer, W. (2003): Tapping Australia's water, The Age, May 7 2003) BIG Deals: - Depleted uranium storage - Fracking - Water contamination and privatisation - Arms trade Focus on Depleted Uranium (DU) Note: Conveniently, a 2002 study from the Australian defense ministry concluded that "there has been no established increase in mortality or morbidity in workers exposed to uranium in uranium processing industries." Pier Roberto Danesi, then-director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Seibersdorf +Laboratory, stated in 2002 that "There is a consensus now that DU does not represent a health threat." - Stone, Richard (13 September 2002). "Environmental Radioactivity: New Findings Allay Concerns Over Depleted Uranium". Science. 297 (5588): 1801. Since then, hundreds of studies have proved differently: NIH Reports: Human Health studies Australian Defence Minister (2001-2006), Robert Hill served under John Howard, Liberal Party Prime Minister of Australia (1996-2007) Robert Hill (b.1946-) Adelaide-born barrister and solicitor Robert Hill (b.1946-) joined the Liberal Party during PM Malcolm Fraser's tenure (1975-1983). He was elected to the South Australian Senate in 1980. Under PM John Howard's tenure (1996-2007), Robert Hill became Federal Minister for the Environment from 1996, and Minister of Defence (2001 to 2006). In 2003, Robert Hill's 'alliances' came to my attention with William Birnbauer's report, Tapping Australia's water, The Age, May 7 2003). In his role as Defence Minister, Robert Hill commissioned a report on overhauling the Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO), the operation responsible for procuring military hardware. Robert Hill appointed fellow South Australian and engineer Malcolm Kinnaird to head the review team. Two days after Robert Hill resigned from the Senate, on 15 March 2006, he was appointed Permanent Representative to the United Nations (2006-2009). Robert Hill went on to become Adjunct Professor in Sustainability and Co-Director of the Alliance 21 project at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, and, a Commissioner of the Global Ocean Commission. Malcolm Kinnaird (1933-2014) South Australia's 'Australian of the year' 2003 "Malcolm Kinnaird's 2003 review of Australian defence procurement set a standard for the defence department." Kinnaird, Hill, deRohan, and Young, founded in 1960 by Malcolm Kinnard, which became Kinhill Engineers Pty. Ltd. in 1996, was acquired by Halliburton's Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR) in 1997. “a man whose nickname isn't Bull Kinnaird for nothing” -Alex Kennedy, Kinhill Forced Back to its Core, 1993, Financial Review "Mr Kinnaird was also a great mentor to those around him and advised Government's of both persuasions at a state and federal level. His 2003 Kinnaird review of defence procurement is still in use by the Department of Defence." (ABC News: 2014 Obituary) National sovereignty, "responsibility for the common good," is distinguished from personal sovereignty: "these two conceptions - sovereignty as self-defense and sovereignty as acting on behalf of the common good - are in conflict and suggests that international bodies must acknowledge this tension." - Johnson, J. T. (2014) Sovereignty: Moral and Historical Perspectives, Georgetown University Press Daniel Ellsberg (1931-2023), is known for his extensive studies on nuclear weapons and nuclear policy, and for the Pentagon Papers (1971), officially titled “Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force” [The complete Report is now available...], commissioned by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1967, documenting United States Department of Defense history of the United States' political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967. Britannica has an excellent overview. The Ellsberg paradox also comes to mind, popularized by Ellsberg's 1961 paper "Risk, Ambiguity, and the Savage Axioms" (pdf) No better example than the now legendary 1968 The New York Times, 8 February 1968 report by Pulitzer Prize winning New Zealand journalist, Peter Gregg Arnett, "Major Describes Move": 'It became necessary to destroy the town to save it,' a United States major said today. He was talking about the decision by allied commanders to bomb and shell the town regardless of civilian casualties, to rout the Vietcong." We're all familiar with the ongoing controversy surrounding the Australian tech genius, Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, who wanted to 'expose' the lies that committed Australia to the US military's "Coalition of the willing" - validating entrepreneurial military-supported enterprises. Military "enterprise initiatives" don't need to 'win' in order to justify draining the public purse. While 'ancient' warfare nurtured the soil with 'blood & bone' modern methods poison all life on Earth. ". . . the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.” - Mark Twain, (1835-1910), The Mysterious Stranger "Incorporation" - What is a Corporation? Corporations possess many of the same legal rights and responsibilities as individuals. - What is a "Limited liability company (LLC)? "Limited liability" shareholders are not personally responsible for the company's debts. "I believe that corporations having achieved the status of living persons whilst having no life and no morals was one of the greatest mistakes that mankind has allowed to happen..." - 2010, Rainbow Power Company, Australian Solar Energy pioneer Peter van der Wyk, (1945 - 2023), aka Peter Pedals, author, Energy From Nature (1989)

Part 3
Solution:
Making reparations
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Fortunately, we keep records: Australian Taxation Office (ATO) Register of Foreign Ownership of Australian Assets ... The Registrar's role in administering the Register includes: - maintaining accurate records of interests and changes that need to be registered for the purposes of administration of the foreign investment laws, such as case management and compliance - accurate reporting to government of foreign ownership in Australia. The visibility of interests held by foreign persons in specified assets in Australia will also inform future policy development by government. >>>more Australia Government Treasury Dept Foreign Investment in Australia - About investment proposals Types of reviewable investments - Commercial acquisitions - Australian land investments - Residential real estate INDEX 1. - Declaration of an Australian Republic 2. - Reinstate Australia's Federation (1901) Tax System, 1910: prevent tax evasion; share benefits with all citizens equally. 3. - "Moving forward" together: Treasury Department Review "The whole of the people have the right of the ownership of land and the right to share in the value of land itself, though not to share in the fruits of land which properly belong to the individuals by whose labour they are produced." — Alfred Deakin (1856-1919), Prime Minister of Australia from 1903-1910. 1. Declaration of an Australian Republic 1991 With cross-party support, the Australian Republican Movement was established in 1991. In April 1993, PM Paul Keating established the Republic Advisory Committee, Chaired by Malcolm Turnbull, which in late 1993 released a report: The Road to Republic, "a republic is achievable without threatening Australia's cherished democratic institutions."(pdf) 1995 1995 STATEMENT BY THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P J KEATING MP, the 24th prime minister of Australia, from 1991 to 1996. Stored on the Internet Archive WaybackMachine: This is the text of the speech Prime Minister Paul Keating (b.1944-), delivered to the House of Representatives, announcing the government's commitment to the establishment of an Australian federal republic. Listen to Keating's Speech and John Howard's Comments on the Announcement An Australian Republic - The Way Forward by Paul Keating, Prime Minister of Australia, June 7, 1995 "It is the view of the Government that Australia's head of state should be an Australian and that Australia should be a republic by the year 2001. Tonight I shall describe the means by which we believe this ought to be done. Honourable members will recall that to fulfil an undertaking given during the last election campaign, on April 28 1993 the Government established a Republic Advisory Committee to prepare an options paper which would describe the minimum constitutional changes necessary to create a federal republic of Australia..." 1999 Prime Minister John Howard's Government proposed Australia's (unsuccessful) 1999 referendum on change from constitutional monarchy to a Republic. "Australians all, let us rejoice in this unique island continent and its independent future." - Robert Glass, 2016 2016 In the true spirit of Australia's 1901 Founding Fathers, in the lead up to January 26, 2016 Australia Day celebrations, The Celtic Club of Melbourne ran a competition for a Declaration of the Australian Republic. The only rule was that it be 470 words, the length of the Irish Proclamation posted and read by Padraig Pearse on the steps of the General Post Office, Dublin, 24 April 1916. And, the winner was Economist and historian Robert Glass, 26 January, 2016 Published in Tintean, April 6, 2016 Excerpt: We the Australian people declare ourselves to be a self-governing republic, totally free of formal links to other countries in our governance arrangements, based on our established democratic traditions of a parliament freely elected by universal adult suffrage, the separation of powers between the legislative, executive and judicial arms of government, and a commitment to the rule of law, applied equally and consistently to all citizens. In making this declaration we recognise the continuing need to reconcile ourselves with the original inhabitants of this island, including by formal recognition in the Australian Constitution, of their prior occupation of the continent over thousands of years. We acknowledge that this declaration is the final step on Australia’s journey to total self-government, initiated by the rebels of Eureka in 1854, and continued in the refusal to establish an hereditary (‘bunyip’) aristocracy, the extension of the suffrage to women ahead of other countries, and, belatedly, to indigenous Australians, and in the enshrinement of the fair go and respect for others as key principles in Australia’s economic and social policies, programs and institutions. As a Republic, the citizens of Australia will continue to enjoy the rights and freedoms, now central to the Australian way of life, namely: >>> more 2. 2007 "Unlocking the Riches of Oz" In May of 2007, Bryan Kavanagh, Land Valuer at the Australian Tax Office (ATO) (over 30 years), published "Unlocking the Riches of Oz: A Case Study of the Social and Economic Costs of Australian Real Estate Bubbles, 1972-2006" - Download REPORT (pdf). Synopsis excerpt: ...we investigate the extent of Australia’s publicly-generated natural resource rent in order to assess the scope for ‘Unlocking the Riches of Oz' currently suppressed by the deadweight costs of taxation. Re-calculating GDP on the assumption of the notional public capture of one half of Australia’s resource rent since 1972, we show the benefits that would flow to all Australians, the environment, housing affordability and industrial relations by reducing taxes in favour of greater reliance on resource rents to be substantial. Q&A - "Citizen Dividend" or "Basic Income" "Basic incomes: fund them out of Rent" Legendary UK economist Fred Harrison interviewed Bryan Kavanagh on 9 September 2021 In an unpublished 18 April 2008 filmed interview, Mr Kavanagh proclaimed the value of collecting Economic Rent / Resource Rent instead of taxing productivity. Excerpts: We're at a turning point where the economy is not working for us. There is a big discovery to be made, and this lies in an epochal change—the rediscovery of Resource Rent: Shifting—transferring taxes to Resource Rent is going to open the way for a whole new development for humanity. The implications for humanity are greater freedom, more time for relaxation, for family, more time for the arts, and far less government control of our lives. These ideas might sound mystical, but they are the sorts of solutions that could be delivered to us, once we pass through this new frontier. It's not just land rents we want to capture. We want to capture licenses for electromagnetic spectrum, aircraft slots, all forms of forestry and mineral licenses, all resources. These would supplement our charges on land values, and add to the enormous Resource Rent pot, that is now 285 billion—more than our current [Australia 2008] level of tax revenue. We've witnessed the progressive loss of a sense of community, and land rents represent community. If we collected Resource Rent, we'd get rid of poverty. We have a widening gap between wealthy and poor because the wealthy are capturing Resource Rent. We've got to rediscover the land tax system. This would open up enormous benefits. It would fund infrastructure, education, health, all of these areas that are crying out for funds, and this fund is sitting there, being grossly capitalized by individuals and causing us to ratchet up taxes to fund them. But if we decrease taxes, and capture more of the Resource Rent, we would be doing as nature intends us to do—using growing Resource Rent funds for public purposes. Understanding the role of land in the economy was critical to classical economic analysis. Although it is even more critical today, it is ignored. Planet-friendly economic activity is currently suppressed in favour of the promotion of land monopoly, speculation, urban sprawl and environmental pollution. – Bryan Kavanagh, 18 April 2008, Melbourne 3. "Moving forward" together - for all Australians. 2008 - 2010 Treasury Department Review In the 2008–09 Budget the Australian Government announced a comprehensive ‘root and branch’ review of Australia’s tax system. Australia's Future Tax System, 2010 - 40 year projection - beginning with a tax on resource extraction aka Resource Rent. Background Following the August 2007 stock market crash which led to the 2008 GFC, in November 2007, Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd was elected Prime Minister of Australia. On 3 December 2007, Kevin Rudd was sworn in as the 26th prime minister of Australia: Prime Minister Rudd's first 'directive' to Australian Treasury Secretary Dr. Ken Henry, led to a review of taxation policy. 1910 - 2010: One hundred years later Australia's Future Tax System Review Final Report, 2 May 2010 In short, Dr. Henry's review confirmed the original intention of Australia's Founding Fathers following Federation in 1901 with the 1910 launch of the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). Turning point for 'moving forward' together: Launched by Prime Minister, the Hon. Kevin Rudd, MP, 2 May 2010 "Stronger, fairer, simpler: a tax plan for our future" (pdf) Parliament of Australia, Library Section Briefing, 2010 "As stated in the Report’s preface, the Review took a long-term perspective and intended the Report to be a guide for reform of the tax and transfer system in Australia to meet the challenges from the economic, social and environmental changes envisaged over the next 40 years. The 138 recommendations made in the report are therefore intended to be viewed in the medium to long-term perspective and not in the short-term context of a three-year Parliament." – Bernard Pulle, 2010, Senior Research Specialist at Parliament of Australia A Big Mistake- Deputy PM Julia Gillard's Opportunism Public servants are well informed of wide ranging possibilities for responsible government planning, but they are constrained by political directives, hence Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's directive to the Treasury Department provided an historic opportunity to be prepared, but, instead, he lost his 'job' to Deputy PM Julia Gillard. Following massive international Murdoch-led advertising and lobbying by the Minerals Council of Australia, Julia Gillard's "private talks" with key members of the mining industry led to her agreement not to implement the Treasury Dept. recommendations if 'selected' Prime Minister.

Summary
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Reinstate Federation tax system: Australian Taxation Office 1910 "Government 'of the people, by the people, and for the people' requires public capture of Economic Rent– the whole Rent, and nothing but the Rent." - Maireid Sullivan ~ That annual Consolidated Revenue Fund surpluses be shared EQUALLY with all citizens after public services and public infrastructures have been funded. ~ That all taxes on labor and the fruits of labor be abolished: – Tax 'shelters' such as NGOs, foundations, and offshore tax 'havens' would no longer be needed. – Collection of Economic Rent would provide funding for all public services and infrastructure, and a "Citizen Dividend" aka Universal Basic Income (UBI) representing equal 'shares' of annual consolidated revenue surpluses. – Sustainable clean energy solutions are waiting for permission to emerge. There are many innovative solutions for provision of additional public services. E.g. the "dirty work" could be managed via National Service programs. "Tax bads not goods" Economic Rent Explained by Canadian economist Frank deJong: Economic Policy Resolution, 2010

Part 4
Review: History of Indigenous Constitutional Recognition
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"We cultivated our land, but in a way different from the white man. We endeavoured to live with the land; they seemed to live off it. I was taught to preserve, never to destroy." – Tom Dystra, Elder

Cultural Awakening Index: 1920 - 1973 - 1920: NAIDOC "Day of Mourning" - 1964: AIATSIS ACT of 1964 - 1967: Referendum on Indigenous Constitutional Recognition - 1967: “This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius" - 1970: The Myth of Equality, Tom Roper - 1971: First "Aquarius Festival" at ANU - 1972: It's Time! The Labor Party wins on a slogan! - 1973: Nimbin: The second NUAUS Aquarius Festival, 12 - 21 May 1973 1920 NAIDOC: National Aborigines' and Islanders' Day Observance Committee Download Timeline pdf NAIDOC History: 1920 - Present Before the 1920s, Aboriginal rights groups boycotted Australia Day (26 January) in protest against the status and treatment of Indigenous Australians ... On Australia Day, 1938, protestors marched through the streets of Sydney ... From 1940 until 1955, the Day of Mourning was held annually on the Sunday before Australia Day and was known as Aborigines Day. In 1955 Aborigines Day was shifted to the first Sunday in July after it was decided the day should become not simply a protest day but also a celebration of Aboriginal culture ... In 1974, the NADOC committee was composed entirely of Aboriginal members for the first time. The following year, it was decided that the event should cover a week, from the first to second Sunday in July.... 1938 NAIDOC Week, the first to second Sunday in July, has its roots in the 1938 Day of Mourning: AIATSIS overview: 'We hereby make protest' On January 26 1938, while many Australians celebrated the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the landing of the First Fleet, a group of Aboriginal men and women gathered at Australia Hall in Sydney. They had come together to continue a struggle that had begun 150 years previously. They met to move the following resolution: 1959 "Walkabout" to Cultural Awakening How Indigenous Rites of Passage into Manhood became an 'eye-opener' for "White Australians": The popular story, "The Children" (London, 1959), by English journalist D. G. Payne, published under a pseudonym, was re-released by Penguin Australia under the title "Walkabout" in 1963 and, again, in 1973. (Read Chapter One & Two HERE) The 1971 film, Walkabout took up the same story: two American children survived a plane crash in the desert and were saved by a boy on "walkabout" - played by legendary Northern Territory Yolngu First Nations actor David Gulpill (1953-2021). Memorising - a 'rite of passage' before 'going walkabout' Boys, age 10 to 16, prepared for their 'rite of passage' as a 'journey into manhood' by memorising a song that mapped their chosen route, describing geographic terrains, with multi-language verses identifying neighbouring tribal border lands, so that when they were heard, they were welcomed, rather than feared. 1960s Passionate pleas for justice. We want hope, not racialism, Brotherhood, not ostracism, Black advance, not white ascendance: Make us equals, not dependants. ... Kath Walker aka Oodgeroo Noonuccal During the 1960s international ‘awakening’ to the need for social and political change, for the first time, the Aboriginal Australian poet Kath Walker (1920-1993), as she was known then, was recognised worldwide as a brave new voice calling for understanding and peace. But I'll tell instead of brave and fine when lives of black and white entwine. And men in brotherhood combine, this would I tell you, son of mine. ... Kath Walker aka Oodgeroo Noonuccal 1962 National Museum Australia: 1962: Indigenous Australians granted the right to vote via The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1962 on 21 May 1962. Digital Classroom In a snapshot For much of Australia’s political history, tens of thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people couldn’t vote in state or federal elections. In 1962 the Australian Parliament passed a landmark Act to give all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people the option to enrol and vote in federal elections. But it was not until 1984 that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were finally treated like other voters and required to enrol and vote in elections DEFINING MOMENTS From the first federal electoral Act in 1902 to 1965, when the last state changed its law, tens of thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were subject to regulations which prohibited them from voting at federal and state elections. 1964 The AIATSIS Act of 1964 In 1964, the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), was founded as an independent Australian Government statutory authority. 1967 Referendum on Indigenous Constitutional Recognition 'Flora & Fauna' - a myth, propounded by many. Until The 1967 Referendum Indigenous Australians were written into the Australian Constitution as 'Flora & Fauna' - to be ‘collected & controlled’. The 1967 Referendum – Parliament of Australia ... in which Australians voted overwhelmingly to amend the Constitution to allow the Commonwealth to make laws for Aboriginal people and include them in the Census of Population and Housing conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, commencing with the 1971 Census. The referendum put the following question to the Australian people: Do you approve the proposed law for the alteration of the Constitution entitled 'An Act to alter the Constitution so as to omit certain words relating to the people of the Aboriginal race in any state and so that Aboriginals are to be counted in reckoning the population'? The amendment deleted part of section 51 (xxvi) of the Constitution and repealed section 127. Turnout for the referendum was almost 94 per cent, and the result was a strong ‘Yes’ vote, with a significant majority in all six states and an overall majority of almost 91 per cent. . . . Background The reasons for the previous and explicit exclusion of Aboriginal people by sections 51 (xxvi) and 127 of the Constitution are not entirely clear. However, the effect of this exclusion was the implementation by the states of policies that could broadly be termed ‘assimilationist’, and laws that resulted in Aboriginal peoples’ dispossession, oppression and alienation. Following longstanding calls for greater Commonwealth involvement in Indigenous affairs, in the 1960s the pressure for change built rapidly. In the face of evidence that assimilationist policies had failed, and with Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal activists drawing attention to the denial of civil rights and discrimination that these policies entailed, the plight of Aboriginal people became a significant political issue. Activists ran petition campaigns to amend the Constitution in support of Indigenous civil rights, and bills seeking to amend the Constitution in favour of Aboriginal people were debated in the Federal Parliament. In 1967, in response to a Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI) petition calling for a referendum on sections 51 and 127 of the Constitution, the Holt Coalition Government introduced the Constitution Alteration (Aboriginals) Bill 1967 to the Parliament. The legislation was passed unanimously. Because no parliamentarian had voted against the proposals relating to Aborigines, the Government only prepared a ‘Yes’ case for the referendum. The campaign for a ‘Yes’ vote gained widespread support among the Australian public and this was reflected in the final vote. . . >>>more Updates: 1989: The AIATSIS Act (1989) mandates AIATSIS to provide leadership in the field of ethics and protocols for research related to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and collections. 2020: In October 2020 AIATSIS published the Code of Ethics for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research. Download documents in pdf format HERE View Recent Noteworthy Legislation HERE Australian anthropologist, William E. H. Stanner (1905-1982) worked extensively with Indigenous Australians. "Stanner was an influential figure prior to the successful 1967 referendum on Aboriginal affairs." - Windschuttle, Keith (May 2009), Bill Stanner and the end of Aboriginal high culture, Quadrant.  W.E.H. Stanner's words changed Australia. Without condescension and without sentimentality, in essays such as 'The Dreaming' Stanner conveyed the richness and uniqueness of Aboriginal culture. In his Boyer Lectures he exposed a 'cult of forgetfulness practised on a national scale,' regarding the fate of the Aborigines, for which he coined the phrase 'the great Australian silence'.  … The Dreaming & Other Essays (1953), W. E. H. Stanner Excerpts: “The ideas of absolute extinction and of indestructible soul or spirit may both be found in the belief system.” p. 55 … The Australian Aboriginal’ outlook on the universe and man is shaped by a remarkable conception, which Spencer and Gillen immortalised as ‘the dream time’ … I prefer to call it what many Aborigines cal it in English: The Dreaming, or just, Dreaming. A central meaning of The Dreaming is that a sacred, heroic time long ago when man and nature came to be as they are; but neither ‘time’ nor ‘history’ as we understand them is involved in this meaning. I have never been able to discover any Aboriginal word for time as an abstract concept. And the sense of ‘history’ is wholly alien here. We shall not understand The Dreaming fully except as a complex of meanings. A black fellow man call his totem, or the place from which his spirit came, his Dreaming. He may also explain the existence of a custom, or law of life, as causally due to The Dreaming.” “The ideas of absolute extinction and of indestructible soul or spirit may both be found in the belief system.” p. 57 1967 “This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius" - Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical, 1967, Off-Broadway. Hair broke box-office records across Australia, June 1969 to March, 1973. The Age of Aquarius represented cultural awakening: peace, equality, generosity, creativity, environment and health awareness. (Wikipedia) 1970 The Myth of Equality, Tom Roper, 1970 National Union of Australian University Students (NUAUS) - Tom Roper bio: Wikipedia - Introduction (pdf): Excerpt: “For many years the National Union of Australian University Students has been campaigning for improvements in Australian education. … Over the last three years NUAUS has devoted much of its energies to publishing the plight of disadvantaged groups in the Australian community. Abschol, our Aboriginal Affairs Department, has been strengthened and we have just set up a Social Action portfolio…. As part of our 1969 campaign we produced an eighty one page set of fact sheets on inequalities…This book is intended to provide the facts. It will also argue the case for specific reforms...” - Tom Roper, July, 1970 1971 The National Union of Australian University Students (NUAUS), now the Australian Union of Students, launched the first "Aquarius Festival" at ANU: "a site for politics and protest as much as it was for performance and entertainment." - NFSA 1972 "I do not for a moment believe that we should set limits on what we can achieve together, for our country, our people, our future." - Gough Whitlam, 13 Nov. 1972 https://www.whitlam.org/ It's Time! The Labor Party wins on a slogan! By early 1972, Labor was leading in the polls. "Unemployment was at a ten-year peak and inflation had reached its highest rate since the 1950s when Labor Party Leader Gough Whitlam (1916-2014) pledged free public education, free universal health insurance, free dental care for students, renovation of aging urban infrastructure, and an end to conscription." (Additional notes: 1972 Election, Part 6). 1973 First "Welcome to Country" ceremony Nimbin: The second NUAUS Aquarius Festival, 12 - 21 May 1973, held in the small rural NSW town of Nimbin, on the theme of ‘sustainability’, became a "Rainbow Region" meeting point for Bundjalung people, students, and agricultural sector workers, especially dairy farmers struggling under the new co-op regulations that had put so many out of business. In pictures: Remembering Aquarius: 2023, Australian Geographic

Practicing Reconciliation
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1988 Australian Bi-centenary Wikipedia offers a detailed overview on debates during the lead-up to the 1988 Australian Bi-centenary celebrations: … The Australian Bicentenary was marked by pomp and ceremony across Australia to mark the anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet of British ships at Sydney in 1788.[1] The Australian Bicentennial Authority (ABA), pursuant to the Australian Bicentennial Authority Act 1980,[2] was set up to plan, fund and coordinate projects that emphasized the nation's cultural heritage. State Councils were also created to ensure cooperation between the federal and state governments. The result was a national programme of events and celebrations to commemorate the Bicentenary, … … On Australia Day, Sydney Harbour hosted a re-enactment of the arrival of the First Fleet. The Hawke Government refused to fund the First Fleet re-enactment, because it believed this might offend Indigenous Australians.[4] Radio 2GB in Sydney stepped in and held a fund raising appeal to keep the re-enactment on track. The government instead funded a rival display of Tall Ships which sailed up Australia's east coast and entered Sydney Harbour on the day, and it was felt that this was more acceptable to the Indigenous community. The event triggered debate on Australian national identity, Indigenous rights, historical interpretation and multiculturalism. >>>more 1992 Year of the World's Indigenous People Redfern Speech - 10 December 1992 by the Hon. Paul Keating, Prime Minister of Australia, 1991–1996. The Australian launch of The International Year of the World's Indigenous People, 1993 " …It is a test of our self-knowledge. Of how well we know the land we live in. How well we know our history. How well we recognise the fact that, complex as our contemporary identity is, it cannot be separated from Aboriginal Australia. How well we know what Aboriginal Australians know about Australia. Redfern is a good place to contemplate these things. Just a mile or two from the place where the first European settlers landed, in too many ways it tells us that their failure to bring much more than devastation and demoralisation to Aboriginal Australia continues to be our failure..." - Read the full speech 2008 National Sorry Day On the 13th of February 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made a formal "Apology to Australia's Indigenous Peoples" before the House of Representatives, Parliament House, Canberra: "We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians..." - Prime Minister Kevin Rudd Read and watch PM Rudd's 30 minute speech: Observed annually on 26 May, "National Sorry Day" remembers and acknowledges "The Stolen Generations": "The forcible removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families was part of the policy of Assimilation, which was based on the misguided assumption that the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people would be improved if they became part of white society." >>>more

National Native Title Tribunal
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2013 - 2015 Reconciliation Action Plan NNTT: The National Native Title Tribunal's Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) 2013 - 2015 sets out the organisation’s vision for reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. The RAP, which is continually updated, sets out the actions the NNTT will take to: build relationships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples engender respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and identity across the NNTT and wider community provide opportunities for the NNTTs Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff. The RAP also includes targets to measure outcomes and progress, which are reported annually to Reconciliation Australia. >>> more 2015 Academic Marcia Langton blasts Frank Brennan's recognition plan, Sydney Morning Herald, 2 June, 2015. By Michael Gordon Excerpt: Prominent Indigenous academic Marcia Langton has denounced the latest proposal for the recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the constitution as merely symbolic reform that sets the bar "too low" and predicted it will be opposed by Indigenous Australians. Professor Langton has branded the proposal by Jesuit priest Frank Brennan as "dismissive and disrespectful of decades of Indigenous advocacy for serious constitutional reform" and implored Australians to reject it. 2016 It's Our Country: Indigenous Arguments for Meaningful Constitutional Recognition and Reform, 2016, Edited by Megan Davis & Marcia Langton Excerpt: The idea of constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians has become a highly political and contentious issue. It is entangled in institutional processes that rarely allow the diversity of Indigenous opinion to be expressed. With a referendum on the agenda, it is now urgent that Indigenous people have a direct say in the form of recognition that constitutional change might achieve. ... a collection of essays by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander thinkers and leaders including Patrick Dodson, Noel Pearson, Dawn Casey, Nyunggai Warren Mundine and Mick Mansell. Each essay explores what recognition and constitutional reform might achieve—or not achieve—for Indigenous people. ... >>>more

Reconciliation: An Overview
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What We Reckon: Vale Gough OCMatters, 2014 (pdf) In the end, the best epitaph to Gough Whitlam’s life may be Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly’s song “From Little Things Big Things Grow”. Their paean to the former prime minister and to Vincent Lingiari describes the struggle for land rights by the indigenous people of Wave Hill station: Eight years went by, eight long years of waiting Till one day a tall stranger appeared in the land And he came with lawyers and he came with great ceremony And through Vincent's fingers poured a handful of sand From little things big things grow From little things big things grow Forty years later, that may be the true legacy of the social boilover that was the Whitlam government – the space it created for the cultures and communities that had been marginalised or excluded by the old Australian myths of Anzacs, mateship and the British empire. A culture that extended all the way from Anglo to Celtic had to grudgingly admit the existence of other groups with their own legitimate claims. Still, Whitlam didn’t stay long enough or go deep enough to shake the bedrock beneath the myths, and we haven’t done much better in the 40 years since. More than half of us are women, but men still run our boardrooms and our cabinet. Indigenous Australians have been here for 600 centuries to the settlers’ two and a half, but the latter still own the title to the land of the former. We have laws against discrimination because if we didn’t, then Anglo-Celtics would exclude minorities. We live in a society that’s been designed for the convenience of white male investors. As Grayson Perry wrote recently in an essay titled “The Rise and Fall of Default Man” (see Good Reads, page 9): “In people’s minds, what do professors look like? What do judges look like? What do leaders look like?” Other voices are heard, other perspectives are tolerated, but there’s no doubt about where the mainstream runs, or whose crops it irrigates. We have to reject this framing. Australia is the product of all the communities within its borders, and all have a role in the national evolution. We must not exclude any group from what we mean when we use the word “we”. From little things big things grow. Reconstructing the Australian story: Learning and Teaching for Reconciliation Claire Veronica Kelly. 2013, Ph.D. Dissertation, RMIT (pdf) Excerpt: This study examines the question of how teacher educators can support pre-service teachers to include Indigenous themes in their curriculum planning. In Australia for the last twenty years, bi-partisan educational policies from Commonwealth, State and Territory governments have expected that Universities will develop teacher education courses to promote ‘greater sensitivity towards Aboriginal issues and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students’; and that ‘schools will educate all young Australians to acknowledge the value of Indigenous cultures and possess the knowledge, skills and understanding to contribute to, and benefit from, reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. . . . However, my research demonstrates that for a significant number of pre-service teachers preparing to work in Victorian Primary and Secondary schools there is a continuing spectrum of resistance to the inclusion of Indigenous themes in school curricula. >>> more

Making Change Happen
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This is the story of an authentic Arnhem Land Aboriginal community embracing a young family from Melbourne--in other words, the assimilation of a white family into traditional Aboriginal society--all living side-by-side over long periods of time, sharing traditional Aboriginal customs, language, dances, music, and folklore, and celebrating life, --isolated from the outside world, hundreds of miles from paved roads and cities. This story presents a point of view that is pertinent today, by sharing intimate experiences that inspire the joy of discovering the unique riches of this vast land--Australia. [Preview: unfinished 2008 documentary film, produced by Lyrebird Media] 2014 Australian Arrente-Alyawarra elder speaks out: Rosie Kunoth-Monks' response to the question about whether or not things had improved for her people. 10 June 2014 Watch the interview on ABC Q&A Facebook Excerpt: Nothing at all…. It doesn’t matter if the government changes. A white Australian policy is alive and well in Australia, and it usually experiments on blacks in the Northern Territory, because we are not a state. Come up and live with me some time. Live my life and I’ll show you. . . . I have a culture. I am a cultured person (speaks in language).  I am not something that fell out of the sky for the pleasure of somebody putting another culture into this cultured being. John [Pilger] chose [to depict] what is an ongoing denial of me. I am not an Aboriginal, or indeed Indigenous. I am an Arrente, Alyawarra First Nations person, a sovereign person from this country (speaks in language). I didn’t come from overseas. I came from here… I am alive. I am here and now. And I speak my language. I practice my cultural essence of me. Don’t try and suppress me and don't call me a problem. I am not the problem. I have never left my country nor have I ceded any part of it. Nobody has entered into a treaty or talked to me about who I am. I am Arrente, Alyawarra female elder from this country. Please remember that. I am not the problem. walata tyamateetj means ‘carry knowledge’ in the Gunditjmara language of western Victoria. "walata tyamateetj" A guide to government records about Aboriginal people in Victoria. With an historical overview by Richard Broome (pdf) 92 pages 2014, Public Record Office Victoria and National Archives of Australia Forward Excerpt I am very proud and honoured to be associated with Public Record Office Victoria and the National Archives of Australia. When I first became a member of the Public Records Advisory Council (PRAC) I had no idea what to expect, and I certainly had no idea that I would still be working with them almost 20 years later! As far as I know, my appointment to PRAC was the first time that a Koorie person had been appointed to such a committee in Australia. The concern and eagerness to do something for the Koorie community started with Ross Gibbs, the former Keeper of Public Records, who set up a Koorie Taskforce to look at what resources Public Record Office Victoria had on Koorie issues and how to make these available to the Koorie community. The publication in 1993 of My Heart is Breaking, a guide to Aboriginal records held at Public Record Office Victoria and the National Archives of Australia, and the accompanying touring exhibition were very early achievements. The stories in My Heart is Breaking brought the past history of the traditional owners of this land to the present. I believe that there will be no Koorie family in Victoria that has not been touched by the events documented in the records listed in this book. My Heart is Breaking helped to bring about a better understanding and appreciation of one of the oldest continuing cultures in the world, and assisted in bridging a cultural gap that has been neglected for many years in the education system in Victoria. ... Download 92 page pdf

2017
Uluru Statement from the Heart
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"All stories start with our Law" 2017 Professor Megan Davis, member of the UN Referendum Council, reads out the Uluru Statement from the Heart on the floor of the First Nations Convention. Uluru Statement from the Heart (pdf) 439 words - The entire land and seascape is named, and the cultural memory of our old people is written here. Our Story Our First Nations are extraordinarily diverse cultures, living in an astounding array of environments, multi-lingual across many hundreds of languages and dialects. The continent was occupied by our people and the footprints of our ancestors traversed the entire landscape. Our songlines covered vast distances, uniting peoples in shared stories and religion. The entire land and seascape is named, and the cultural memory of our old people is written there. This rich diversity of our origins was eventually ruptured by colonisation. Violent dispossession and the struggle to survive a relentless inhumanity has marked our common history. The First Nations Regional Dialogues on constitutional reform bore witness to our shared stories. All stories start with our Law: Our Story <<<more

Part 5
In The News
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Further details under Earth Matters: Energy, Part 7, Uranium and Radiation Labor Party Prime Minister Anthony N. Albanese (b. 1963-), the 31st prime minister of Australia since 2022, a self-described member of the anti-nuclear movement “for more than four decades”, supported Australia signing and ratifying the UN's Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons: ratified in 2020 and entered into force in January 2022 Meanwhile, in keeping with Liberal & National parties' history, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton (b. 1970) has declared: "New nuclear technologies can be plugged into existing grids and work immediately." Reported in The Guardian, July 2023 Peter Dutton ramps up nuclear power push and claims Labor down ‘renewable rabbit hole’ Opposition leader to tell Institute of Public Affairs that domestic reactors are natural next step from Aukus pact Daniel Hurst Foreign affairs and defence correspondent The Guardian, 7 July 2023 Excerpt: The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has ramped up calls for nuclear power in Australia, casting the move as a way to avoid dependence on wind and solar technology from China and a natural next step from the Aukus pact. Dutton will make the comments on Friday at an event organised by the Institute of Public Affairs, a Liberal-aligned thinktank that has publicly opposed curbs on coal-fired power and has lobbied against the net zero by 2050 policy. He will use the speech in Sydney to call for a debate about removing the legislative ban on nuclear power in Australia, a step that was not taken during the nine years of Coalition government, in which he was a senior member. Dutton’s pitch comes just days before the Liberal National party in Queensland holds its state conference, where delegates are expected to propose several pro-nuclear resolutions... Selected reports: October, 2023 27 October Paul Keating says voice referendum was ‘wrong fight’ and has ‘ruined the game’ for a treaty By Lenore Taylor, Fri 27 Oct 2023 Exclusive: Former PM accuses John Howard and Tony Abbott of ‘outrageously and wilfully misinterpreting’ result in attempt to return to ‘great assimilation project’ Excerpt: Indigenous Australians were always “fighting the wrong fight” with a voice to parliament, the former prime minister Paul Keating has said, and the failure of the referendum has now “ruined the game” for a treaty that could have properly acknowledged prior Indigenous ownership and dispossession. In an interview with Guardian Australia, Keating accused the former Liberal prime ministers John Howard and Tony Abbott, and the historian Geoffrey Blainey, of “outrageously and wilfully misinterpreting” the referendum result in an attempt to return to “the great assimilation project”. 12 October Voice referendum: factchecking the seven biggest pieces of misinformation pushed by the no side By Amy Remeikis and Josh Butler Thu 12 Oct 2023, The Guardian In a brutal campaign, the same debunked claims from the no camp have popped up time and time again. ... 11 October ‘No alternative’ to voice, Pat Dodson says in last-ditch appeal ahead of referendum By Paul Karp Chief political correspondent, Wed. 11 Oct 2023, The Guardian Long at forefront of reconciliation, Labor senator warns of ‘draconian agenda’ of Coalition and increased sense of national ‘shame’ if no vote wins. Excerpt: Senator Pat Dodson has warned there is "no alternative" if the Indigenous voice referendum is defeated on Saturday, saying that would be a "very sad outcome" that would leave a "legacy of lies" denying recognition of First Australians" status. Dodson, the government's special invoy for reconcilliation and implementation of the Uluru statement from the heart, also warned of the Coalition's "draconian" agenda toward Indigenous Australians and an increased sense of national "shame" if the no vote wins the 14 October referendum. September, 2023 17 September Jack Latimore, the Indigenous affairs journalist at The Age, is a Birpai man with family ties to Thungutti and Gumbaynggirr nations. ~ ‘Yes to a better Australia' ... Jack Latmore, Sept 17, 2023, The Age ~ Fake letter scaremongering about Indigenous land claims sparks outrage Jack Latmore, Sept 12, 2023, The Age 8 September 2023 Voice legislation does not authorise a land grab, David Williams, Sept. 8, 2023, AAP Excerpt: Social media users are sharing an image of government legislation, claiming it shows the Indigenous voice will have the power to seize private property and assets. This is false. The legislation – the First Nations Voice Act 2023 – is part of South Australia’s First Nations Voice and has nothing to do with the federal voice set to go to a referendum on October 14. Neither the SA Voice nor the proposed federal voice will have any power to seize lands or property. Experts and the SA government told AAP FactCheck the section of legislation in the posts merely gives the SA Voice the ability to buy and sell property like any person or body corporate to carry out its functions... 7 September 2023 The New Daily, Sep 7, 2023 Nail in the coffin: Why Australia has run out of luck By Dr Allan Patience, honorary fellow in political science in the University of Melbourne Excerpt Once an early experiment in democracy, Australia has declined into a quagmire of unrepresentative governments at state and federal levels. Power games are played obsessively by most members of a narrowly-recruited and self-serving political class whose only interest seems to be staying in power. Politics is not a vocation for these leeches on the Australian body politic, it has become their business. It’s time to face the fact that the Australian political system has become an unholy mess. Our parliaments have become ring-fenced habitats for mostly egotistical male MPs and fewer women MPs, most of whom seem determined to ape their male counterparts. These people exude a sense of entitlement beyond anything they have the right to expect. And all this is occurring as the country faces unprecedented challenges, at home and abroad. As many experts have been warning, citizens – especially younger citizens – are losing faith in our fragile democratic institutions. This is painfully evident in the unholy mess that campaigning about the Voice to Parliament has become. It highlights everything that is terribly wrong about Australian politics. Let us be absolutely clear. The referendum is about nothing less than the civil rights of Indigenous Australians who have been denied those rights for more than 200 years of white settler colonialism. Seriously addressing Indigenous people’s civil rights is the most significant issue ever to come before the Australian people. The contemptible politics driving the No campaign is a mishmash of opportunism, racism, narrow mindedness and sheer nastiness. There is not a shred of concern for the political health of the country as a whole, not the slightest concern about how the No campaign is undermining a fair go for the very people who have been denied it for so long. The outcome of the referendum will demonstrate whether or not we, as a nation, have a moral compass. If it fails, the consequence will be a bitterly divided country, destroying any chance for a consensus on how the nation can move forward. We’ll end up as a country divided, angry, and full of hubris and self-importance – a country which our talented, intelligent and creative young people will not want to be part of. Failure will also mean that the world will judge us harshly. Some crucial trading partners could well impose sanctions on us, just like the sanctions that crippled the economy of white South Africa during the apartheid era. This would be disastrous for the country’s wheat, barley, wine, seafood, and iron ore exporters for example. And any pretence that we are a nation that respects and upholds human rights will be scoffed at, especially by those countries we’ve had the temerity to criticise for their poor human rights records. Both the Labor and the Liberal parties fail to see that Australia has run out of luck. Politics simply means power to them, not the security and wellbeing of all Australians ... August 2023 ‘Gas corps should be sweating’: CBA’s new fossil fuel lending rules by James Eyers and Lucas Baird Australian Financial Review, August 10, 2023 Excerpt: Commonwealth Bank is lifting the bar on oil and gas producers’ access to financing, requiring fossil fuel producers to provide detailed plans that disclose carbon emissions through the supply chain. In an updated policy published alongside its annual results on Wednesday, CBA said customers who derive 15 per cent or more of their revenue from the sale of oil, gas or metallurgical coal must produce a transition plan, audited by a third party, to get a new loan after 2025. February 2023 ‘killed by Natives’. The stories – and violent reprisals – behind some of Australia’s settler memorials Published: February 24, 2023, The Conversation: Friday Essay Across Australia, there are memorials to white settlers who were ‘killed by Natives’. They may be monuments, gravestones or even place names. But as Bronwyn Carlson and Terri Farrelly write [Friday essay], these memorials – with their representations of savage, unpredictable ‘Natives’ – only tell one side of the story. Typically, there is no account of what led up to the incident being commemorated, and no context to describe what actions by settlers prompted the Aboriginal people to attack. Nor is there mention of the violent, retaliatory massacres that often followed. A memorial in Queensland, for instance, marks the 1857 killing of 11 white settlers by the Iman people of the region. The Iman had previously suffered numerous attacks by settlers, including poisonings and shootings. In a series of bloody killing sprees that followed, at least 300 Iman people were killed. Such memorials, write Carlson and Farrelly, have in some cases gained social significance for Aboriginal communities – serving as a record of Aboriginal resistance. Suzy Freeman-Greene Books + Ideas Editor June 2022 Nuclear test survivors' plea for Australia to sign treaty, as they speak at UN meeting ABC North and West SA, By Bethanie Alderson, Mon 20 Jun 2022 Three generations of First Nations survivors of historic nuclear tests have told the United Nations that Australia must do more to address the devastating impact the tests have had on their families.  Key points: - Three First Nations survivors of nuclear testing share their stories at a United Nations meeting - They are calling on the Australian government to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons - The survivors say they are facing intergenerational trauma from nuclear tests carried out in the 1950s in outback South Australia' June 2022 Labor urged to scrap nuclear dump The West Australian, Perth Now, June 1, 2022 Traditional owners have called on the new federal Labor government to scrap plans for a nuclear waste dump in South Australia.... May 2022 Proposed National Radioactive Waste Facility: Implications and Options for SA Conservation Council South Australia After a controversial process that has torn apart the previously close-knit Kimba community, Federal Resources Minister Keith Pitt (Liberal National Party – Qld) has formally declared the Napandee area near Kimba in the Eyre Peninsula grain belt as the proposed site for Australia’s first dedicated national radioactive waste facility - the National Radioactive Waste Management Facility (NRWMF). Download the full (updated) report here (pdf) ... the Barngarla People as they attended the Kimba Radioactive Waste Facility Judicial Review in Federal Court. “There were serious failings when the National Party selected Napandee... they included denying the First Peoples the right to vote, not conducting a proper heritage survey of the area, trying to legislate away judicial review, breaching UNDRIP and abandoning the test of broad community support at the last minute... We again call upon the new Labor Minister to quash the declaration. We do not want to spend the next two years in Court against the Labor Government. They know what the National Party did and they should do the right thing and withdraw the declaration.” - Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation Press Statement March, 2021 Changes to Native Title legislation affecting PBCs The NIAA has published three information products for Prescribed Bodies Corporate (PBCs) on recent legislative amendments to the Native Title Act and Regulations. February 2021 The Native Title Legislation Amendment Act 2021 An Act to amend the law relating to native title, and for related purposes The Act: changes the Native Title Act 1993 and the Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act 2006 Changes made by the Amendment Act include: – changes to how native title applicants can act and make decisions, and their relationship to the broader native title claim group – allowing historical extinguishment of native title in areas of national and state parks to be disregarded where the relevant parties agree, and – improving the accountability, transparency and governance of Registered Native Title Bodies Corporate (RNTBCs, also commonly known as Prescribed Bodies Corporate or PBCs), with a particular focus on membership and improved dispute resolution pathways. >>>more August 2019 Why do different cultures see such similar meanings in the constellations? By Duane Hamacher, Daniel Little, Charles Kemp, Simon Cropper Friday, Aug 16, 2019, The Conversation, Melbourne University Excerpt: . . . around the world and throughout history, we find remarkably similar constellations defined by disparate cultures, as well as strikingly similar narratives describing the relationships between them. For example, the constellation Orion is described by the Ancient Greeks as a man pursuing the seven sisters of the Pleiades star cluster. This same constellation is Baiame in Wiradjuri traditions: a man pursuing the Mulayndynang (Pleiades star cluster). In the traditions of the Great Victoria Desert, Orion is Nyeeruna, a man chasing the seven Yugarilya sisters. These and other common patterns, as well as the remarkably complex narratives describing them, link the cultures of early Aboriginal Australians and the ancient Greeks, despite them being separated by thousands of years and miles. >>>more May 2019 The National Indigenous Australians Agency was established by an Executive Order signed by the Governor-General on 29 May 2019. Read the full list of responsibilities in the Executive Order The Executive order gives the NIAA a number of functions, including: to lead and coordinate Commonwealth policy development, program design and implementation and service delivery for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples; to provide advice to the Prime Minister and the Minister for Indigenous Australians on whole-of-government priorities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples; to lead and coordinate the development and implementation of Australia’s Closing the Gap targets in partnership with Indigenous Australians; and to lead Commonwealth activities to promote reconciliation. March 2018 ABC News Fact Check: Were Indigenous Australians classified under a flora and fauna act until the 1967 referendum? Excerpt: Aboriginal people in Australia have never been covered by a flora and fauna act, either under federal or state law. ... The hugely successful referendum was thereby imbued with a symbolism that further enriched the conditions for the myth to take root; that before the constitution was amended, Indigenous Australians were classified according to a flora and fauna act — a completely incorrect conclusion. . . Professor Marcia Langton, one of Australia's most respected Indigenous academics, told Fact Check that the so-called flora and fauna act was first mentioned by pioneer Aboriginal filmmaker Lester Bostock during a council meeting in Canberra in the 1970s. "Lester Bostock (now deceased) gave a regular speech about how we were classified under the 'flora and fauna act'," Professor Langton wrote in an email. "I thought at the time, and so did many others, that he meant this in a metaphorical way. I had no idea that this would grow into the urban myth that it is today." However, she added: "We were not classified under the 'flora and fauna act' but we were treated as animals." >>>more January 2016 ABC News by Avani Dias No support for US military base in NT from Chief Minister Adam Giles 25 January, 2016 Excerpt: Northern Territory Chief Minister Adam Giles says he does not support a United States military base in the Territory, after a US report highlighted northern Australia's importance for America's strategy in Asia. The report commissioned by the Pentagon identified northern Australia as a refuge for American forces in the event of military conflict in Asia. "To help the United States operate effectively in a crisis, Canberra will have to work with Washington to expand the capacity of northern Australian bases, including its network of bare bases," the report said. The report - Asia-Pacific Rebalance 2025, Capabilities, Presence and Partnerships - was prepared by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Mr Giles supported strengthening the relationship with the US and other allies but said it had to be on Australian bases. May 2015 Australian Parliament report on the 1967 Referendum Reviewing the history, 25 May 2015, Matthew Thomas states, ... Australians voted overwhelmingly to amend the Constitution to allow the Commonwealth to make laws for Aboriginal people and include them in the census. The referendum put the following question to the Australian people: Do you approve the proposed law for the alteration of the Constitution entitled 'An Act to alter the Constitution so as to omit certain words relating to the people of the Aboriginal race in any state so that Aboriginals are to be counted in reckoning the population'? >>>more

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