tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/democracy-futures-indigenous-politics-15110/articlesDemocracy Futures: Indigenous Politics – The Conversation2017-10-31T00:54:12Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/861402017-10-31T00:54:12Z2017-10-31T00:54:12ZAustralia’s hidden history of slavery: the government divides to conquer<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191380/original/file-20171023-1748-lijr42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Sea Islanders working in a Townsville cane field in 1907.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/citylibrariestownsville/9712709137/in/photolist-i3jaXC-CvK26A-Cy462x-BAwEcb-BAxenE-Cy3s3x-BZxgYD-fNhb2g-fNhaYZ-fNhb5p-fNyMGC-fNhb3n-fNhb12-h9XwUJ-fNhb48-fNyMFd-fNyMHQ-h9XxA5-fNyMKj">CityLibraries Townsville/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article is the fourth in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/black-lives-matter-everywhere-44608">Black Lives Matter Everywhere</a> series, a collaboration between The Conversation, the <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/">Sydney Democracy Network</a> and the <a href="http://sydneypeacefoundation.org.au/">Sydney Peace Foundation</a>. To mark the awarding of the <a href="http://sydneypeacefoundation.org.au/peace-prize-recipients/black-lives-matter/">2017 Sydney Peace Prize</a> to the Black Lives Matter Global Network, the authors reflect on the roots of and responses to a movement that has re-ignited a global conversation about racism. The prize will be presented on November 2 (<a href="https://events.ticketbooth.com.au/events/22459">tickets here</a>).</em></p>
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<p>My grandfather was Moses Topay Enares. He was only 12 years old when he was coerced onto a ship, put in the hold and fed stodge, a flour-like substance, until he arrived in Queensland.</p>
<p>His wife, who recorded and retold his story, tells of him being taken from the beach off the island of Tanna, Vanuatu. Moses passed on the Northern Rivers in New South Wales in 1961. He never saw his family from Tanna again.</p>
<p>Black Lives Matter is an inspired world movement of consciousness that gives voice to the resilience and self-determination of people of colour in their continued fight for freedom and social justice. This fight is very relevant to Australian South Sea Islanders (ASSI). We are the descendants of some 62,500 people who were <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-17/blackbirding-australias-history-of-kidnapping-pacific-islanders/8860754">blackbirded</a> from the 80 islands of Vanuatu and Solomons to NSW in 1847, with an influx to Queensland under the “<a href="http://www.amw.org.au/content/queensland-south-sea-island-indentured-labourer-records-1863-1908">indentured labour</a>” trade.</p>
<p>Several words are used to depict the history of my people: indenture, slavery, kidnapping, blackbirding and Kanaka. But ASSI communities will tell any inquirer that we object to the use of the term “indenture” to describe what happened to our people when they were first brought to Australia. It’s a weak word that does not express the real truth of the physical and cultural theft of human beings.</p>
<p>We identify as Sugar Slaves, and we are confident and firm about correcting the “official” versions of history.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191327/original/file-20171023-26676-kjd0t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191327/original/file-20171023-26676-kjd0t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191327/original/file-20171023-26676-kjd0t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191327/original/file-20171023-26676-kjd0t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191327/original/file-20171023-26676-kjd0t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191327/original/file-20171023-26676-kjd0t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191327/original/file-20171023-26676-kjd0t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191327/original/file-20171023-26676-kjd0t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">As president of ASSI-PJ since 2009, Emelda Davis’s work has helped revive the call for recognition of her people.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ASSI-PJ</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-17/blackbirding-australias-history-of-kidnapping-pacific-islanders/8860754">Blackbirding</a>” comes from the African slave trade and truly expresses the violence of what happened. There were 870 voyages back and forth to the islands that brought my people to Australia. Some were kidnapped, but it is also undeniable that our warriors chose to return more than once. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, the treatment of the Islanders was atrocious, exploitative and akin to slavery. When plantation owners went bankrupt, the workers were transferred as an asset with the sold property.</p>
<p>The grandfather of Gordon Johnson, a second-generation descendant of the blackbirding trade, was kidnapped from Malaita in the Solomon Islands and brought to Queensland to cut cane. Gordon says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>My grandfather was a respected chief, he had wives and a lot of land when he was stolen. His family thought he was dead for almost ten years. One day my grandfather got back to his island only to find that his right to land and his wives had all been taken. His family thought he was a ghost, so he was banished and travelled to Vanuatu in hope of starting a new life, but was blackbirded from Vanuatu back to Australia.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Gordon is now 67 and has found the courage to share his experience years after the trade was abolished. As a 13-year-old in 1963, he had no option but to work alongside his father in the cane fields on Howard Farm, Bundaberg.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The owner used to come round and check up on us while we were cutting and he used to flog me all over that field. He said I wasn’t cuttin’ proper. My father would have to sit back and watch ’cause he was warned that if he stepped in he would get a floggin’ too and our family would be kicked off the farm. Ten of us lived in a one-room hut.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>The full truth needs to be told</h2>
<p>Thousands upon thousands of men, along with a small percentage of women and children, were blackbirded to work under the harshest of conditions in the pastoral, maritime and sugar industries.</p>
<p>Blackbirding occurred not only in the cane fields, but also in the shipping industry. South Sea Islanders worked as seafarers and deckhands across the many ports of this nation.</p>
<p>In 1847, more than a decade after slavery was officially abolished throughout the British Empire, politician and entrepreneur <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/blackbirding-shame-yet-to-be-acknowledged-in-australia-20150603-ghfn9c.html">Benjamin Boyd</a> began the illegal blackbirding of 119 Islanders to work on his whaling and pastoral ventures in Eden and the Riverina in NSW. For Boyd it was a business proposition – one that has been documented as a human disaster.</p>
<p>Today, the <a href="https://newmatilda.com/2017/09/11/australias-slave-past-the-bitter-truth-about-our-sugar-trade/">bitter truth</a> about our sugar trade is commemorated by Australian South Sea Islanders in NSW marking 170 years since our forefathers escaped from Boyd and walked back to Sydney. By various means about half managed to be shipped home, which resulted in many Tanna men drowning in Sydney Harbour. The others died.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/I4_zbkffAY4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Many Australian South Sea Islanders are descendants of the Pacific Islands blackbirding trade.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Earlier this year Stan Grant called for the inscription on Captain Cook’s statue to reflect the <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/nitv-news/article/2017/08/22/correct-captain-cook-history-says-stan-grant">truth</a>. </p>
<p>In fact, the founding fathers of other townships, including entrepreneur Robert Towns <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/newsradio/content/s4723163.htm">(Townsville)</a> and blackbirder John Mackay (Mackay), were part of a lucrative slave trade stretched to its fullest capacity for 40 years (1863-1903), regardless of illegalities and high death rates.</p>
<p>These cities are proud of their founders, but as with the case of Cook, a greater understanding and a broader discussion are needed. The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/aug/24/full-truth-needs-to-be-told-descendants-of-blackbirded-south-sea-islanders-want-memorials-amended">full truth</a> needs to be told.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.assipj.com.au/assipj-board/">Shireen Malamoo</a> identifies as an Aboriginal/Kanak Woman. “Kanak” is Hawaiian for “bushman”, a word the overseers used in a derogatory way for the Islanders. Shireen is the granddaughter of a Sugar Slave taken from the island of Tongoa in Vanuatu and a descendant of the Birrigubba traditional owners from Plantation Creek on the Burdekin River in Ayr, north Queensland. She says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Slavery affects people of colour globally and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/07/if-black-lives-really-matter-in-australia-its-time-we-owned-up-to-our-history">Australia’s version of slavery</a> is based on the stealing of our African brothers and sisters across the Atlantic. In Australia, they attempt to hide the truth through the political manipulation of policy into the legal framework coined as “indentured labour”. Our warriors were paid a pittance for their work and bonded to completion of an unknown three-year contract with no idea what they were in for, let alone knowing if they would live or die.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Some <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/anniversary-recalls-dark-past-of-south-sea-islander-migration/4885264">15,000</a> Sugar Slaves lost their lives to common diseases. This toll equated to almost 30% of the trade. Despite authorities knowing about this, the trade flourished. </p>
<p>In 1901, the new Commonwealth government, as part of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-politics-explainer-the-white-australia-policy-74084">White Australia Policy</a>, ordered the deportation of the entire Islander community, who were now denigrated as “aliens”. This was part of Australia’s ethnic cleansing.</p>
<p>Many Islanders legally belonged as British subjects and should not have been unlawfully deported. The 1906 High Court <a href="https://auspublaw.org/2016/10/still-paying-for-the-laws-failure/">judgment</a> authorising their expulsion was a self-interested abuse of the rule of law that sought to “create” a White Australian population.</p>
<p>So, four decades later, the islands and families who had been traumatised by the kidnapping of their fathers, husbands and sons witnessed the return of these peoples, distressed and disorientated, having been deported en masse from Australia.</p>
<p>It was a travesty, with cases of cultural warfare and further displacement as the island societies they once knew were no more, and were now foreign to the returning labourers and their families.</p>
<h2>Fighting for the right to live</h2>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Canning">Ken Canning</a> is a Murri activist, writer and poet, whose people are from the Kunja Clan of the Bidjara Nation in southwest Queensland. He says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>While different groups are campaigning on many important issues, the same issues will become meaningless if we don’t fight for the right to live.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>My people did not just take the abuse they received. They were activists as well, making the most of the new situation into which they were forced. Historians call this agency, or taking control of your life even in adverse circumstances.</p>
<p>More recently, intrinsic <a href="http://www.assipj.com.au/australian-south-sea-islander-historical-chronology/">agency</a> by ASSI descendants is seen through our work in solidarity with Indigenous peoples fighting for the right to live full and fruitful lives as our basic human right.</p>
<p>My people have a complex identity that affirms the consequence of colonialism’s truth and confronts the injustices inflicted upon two very different Black cultures – Indigenous Australian and immigrant Melanesian. We have produced several exceptional and stoic leaders, such as <a href="http://peopleaustralia.anu.edu.au/biography/bandler-ida-lessing-faith-15982">Faith Bandler</a>, <a href="http://www.assipj.com.au/assipj-board/">Bonita Mabo</a>, <a href="http://www.law.unsw.edu.au/news/2010/08/honouring-judge-bob-bellear-australias-1st-aboriginal-judge-and-unsw-law-alumnus">Bob Bellear</a>, <a href="http://www.robertasykesfoundation.com/shireen-malamoo.html">Shireen Malamoo</a> and <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-21/dr-evelyn-scott-indigenous-rights-campaigner-dies-aged-81/8967192">Evelyn Scott</a>.</p>
<p>Because of our history of forced migration to a foreign land and our marginalised cultural identity, ASSI descendants today must strive to restore our right to sovereignty. </p>
<p>Our ancestry is now mixed with Indigenous Australians and we support the call for respect and appreciation of the <a href="http://www.history.com/news/dna-study-finds-aboriginal-australians-worlds-oldest-civilization">oldest living civilisation</a>. But we also want to restore our connections with our islands of origin, and to ensure that future generations of our people in Australia are treated with dignity as citizens.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191339/original/file-20171023-9077-i36kg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191339/original/file-20171023-9077-i36kg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191339/original/file-20171023-9077-i36kg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191339/original/file-20171023-9077-i36kg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191339/original/file-20171023-9077-i36kg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191339/original/file-20171023-9077-i36kg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191339/original/file-20171023-9077-i36kg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">ASSI-PJ with Tanya Plibersek on Recognition Day in 2012.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ASSI-PJ</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As part of <a href="http://www.assipj.com.au/">our</a> advocacy work, the Australian Bureau of Statistics has included Australian South Sea Islanders in its statistical gathering. The 2016 <a href="http://www.assipj.com.au/assipj-news-and-events/page/6/">Census</a> recorded a 133% increase in participation from 2011, giving a demographic guesstimate of some 70,000 descendants nationally. </p>
<p>This joint government and community endeavour has led to Australian South Sea Islanders being given a place on many forms, including those used in hospitals and by Centrelink.</p>
<p>Despite these successes, ASSI communities continue to suffer a great decline due to a lack of defined policy for supportive state and national action. Especially needed are initiatives that inspire economic stability and broader community engagement in grassroots capacity-building programs. Our demographic remains marginalised, suffering the same disadvantage found in Indigenous Australia.</p>
<h2>Queensland divides to conquer</h2>
<p>On March 22 this year, the Australian government responded to the plight of ASSI by accepting the <a href="https://www.dss.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/03_2017/australian_government_response_to_revisiting_recognition_report_on_the_roundtable_with_australian_south_sea_islanders_accessible.pdf">recommendations</a> of a House of Representatives standing committee that they be reinstated as a specific target group identified under the Multicultural and Equity Policy.</p>
<p>The intention was to co-ordinate assistance by all three tiers of government. It was the most significant Commonwealth investigation into ASSI since <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/obituaries/faith-bandler-helped-change-a-nations-views-on-human-rights-and-social-justice-20150213-13epkb.html">Bandler</a> persuaded Gough Whitlam to establish an inter-departmental committee in the 1970s.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, no-one bothered to tell the National ASSI Association Roundtable. We found out indirectly in late October. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the Queensland government has already begun consultations with ASSI in the state, once more dividing to conquer. Lured by offers of local-level funding, regional ASSI organisations failed to work with the national body they inaugurated. </p>
<p>Does the Queensland government have good intentions? What are its real motivations? A senior government official was evasive when contacted.</p>
<p><a href="http://researchers.uq.edu.au/researcher/345">Clive Moore</a>, based on 40 years’ involvement with the ASSI community and a deep knowledge of our history, commented:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Queensland government once more is manipulating ASSI, dividing them, offering them scraps. There is also an election looming and they want to shore up marginal seats.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The government realises the likelihood of class action being taken over its disgraceful behaviour in the 19th century, when the state seized the wages of the 15,000 dead ASSI to pay for the administration of the Sugar Slave trade and ultimately the forced deportations in the 1900s.</p>
<p>In today’s money the Queensland and Australian governments have misappropriated tens of millions of dollars, in the same way as Aboriginal wages were misappropriated. Of this Moore says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Queensland’s government is protecting itself, not helping the modern ASSI generations. It is one Australia-wide community, and working within state borders is a deliberate impediment and not what the Commonwealth is seeking.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Today Australia is home to some 350,000 Pacific Islanders, recent and historical, who are achieving a cultural renaissance through reconnection and kinship. But the battle is hard, with recent seemingly positive initiatives exposing the lack of communication between the government and our people, as well as the provincialism of the states and the wider impediments put in the way of justice. </p>
<p>Real justice is an opportunity for our nation’s healing – and for a national action plan that sees community groups come to the table in truthful, meaningful and long-term dialogue with the federal and state governments of Australia.</p>
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<p><em>You can read other articles in the series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/black-lives-matter-everywhere-44608">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86140/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>(Waskam) Emelda Davis is the president of voluntary not-for-profit organisation Australian South Sea Islanders (Port Jackson). Emelda is a Masters of Arts (Research) candidate UTS-FASS: ARC Scholarship recipient and the 2017 Rotary 'Inspirational Women of the Year' recipient. <a href="http://www.assipj.com.au">www.assipj.com.au</a></span></em></p>Blackbirding is one of many shared Australian histories. Australian South Sea Islanders want to encourage broader community goodwill as we work towards social justice for a forgotten people.(Waskam) Emelda Davis, Australian South Sea Islanders – Chair, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/851682017-10-16T01:03:05Z2017-10-16T01:03:05ZWe just Black matter: Australia’s indifference to Aboriginal lives and land<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188696/original/file-20171004-24230-15vzbqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'We refuse to appeal to the benevolence of White folk for our lives to matter. We remind them every day that we are still here.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/coreyoakley/16916996630/">Corey Oakley/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article is the second in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/black-lives-matter-everywhere-44608">Black Lives Matter Everywhere</a> series, a collaboration between The Conversation, the <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/">Sydney Democracy Network</a> and the <a href="http://sydneypeacefoundation.org.au/">Sydney Peace Foundation</a>. To mark the awarding of the <a href="http://sydneypeacefoundation.org.au/peace-prize-recipients/black-lives-matter/">2017 Sydney Peace Prize</a> to the Black Lives Matter Global Network, the authors reflect on the roots of and responses to a movement that has re-ignited a global conversation about racism. The 2017 Sydney Peace Prize will be presented on November 2 (<a href="https://events.ticketbooth.com.au/events/22459">tickets here</a>).</em></p>
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<blockquote>
<p>We say “Black Lives Matter” but shit, the fact that matter is, we just Black matter to them, this shit keep happening.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In a uniquely Aboriginal articulation of the global Black Lives Matter movement, Batdjala rapper <a href="http://badapplesmusic.com.au/artist/birdz/">Birdz</a> sings not of <a href="http://blacklivesmatter.com/category/tamir-rice/">Rice</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2014/dec/04/i-cant-breathe-eric-garner-chokehold-death-video">Garner</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-accumulated-injustices-of-the-trayvon-martin-case-16061">Martin</a> or <a href="https://theconversation.com/imagining-a-better-outcome-for-sandra-bland-45999">Bland</a>. Instead he sings of <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/11/19/no-justice-decade-horrific-palm-island-death-custody">Mulrunji</a>, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-24/elijah-doughty-protest-in-sydney/8738884">Elijah</a>, <a href="http://ia.anu.edu.au/biography/yock-daniel-alfred-18056">Yock</a>, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-14/tj-hickey-death-tenth-anniversary-march/5258958">Hickey</a> and the <a href="https://www.themonthly.com.au/monthly-essays-malcolm-knox-mission-bowraville-murders-2786">Bowraville children</a> – each of whom died in seemingly different circumstances. </p>
<p>What ties them together, however, is the indifference to their deaths and the apparent disposability of Black lives in Australia.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Birdz performs his song Black Lives Matter for NAIDOC Week live on triple j.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Much of the media attention in Australia surrounding the US-led <a href="http://blacklivesmatter.com/">Black Lives Matter</a> movement has focused on police brutality and the murder of young African-American men on public streets, captured on smartphones and dashboard cameras. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the murders of Aboriginal people in Australia have been less visible. If mentioned at all, Aboriginal deaths at the hands of the state are variously framed as “suspicious”, “unknown”, “accidental” or “inevitable”, despite the presence of CCTV footage, protests, perpetrators, witnesses, coronial inquiries and a <a href="https://theconversation.com/deaths-in-custody-25-years-after-the-royal-commission-weve-gone-backwards-57109">royal commission</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p><em><strong>Further reading: <a href="https://theconversation.com/deaths-in-custody-25-years-after-the-royal-commission-weve-gone-backwards-57109">Deaths in custody: 25 years after the royal commission, we’ve gone backwards</a></strong></em></p>
<hr>
<p>Where murder is <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-21/elijah-doughty-trial-man-found-not-guilty-of-manslaughter/8729122">not even considered manslaughter</a>, where Black witnesses are <a href="http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/crime-and-misconduct-commission-agrees-to-oversee-investigations-into-unnatural-deaths-in-custody/news-story/7371de31449231263e3b387baee87121?sv=41b8e2b939a15d4290545ccdf2beaa1e">deemed “unreliable”</a>, where royal commission recommendations <a href="https://theconversation.com/deaths-in-custody-25-years-after-the-royal-commission-weve-gone-backwards-57109">aren’t implemented</a>, where coroners refuse to exercise their power to <a href="http://southburnett.com.au/news2/2013/05/curtain-falls-on-a-tragic-saga/">make recommendations</a>, and where White murderers of Black children enjoy the privilege of being <a href="http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/elijah-doughtys-death-in-kalgoorlie-may-yet-result-in-murder-charge-20160901-gr65uh.html">unnamed for their own protection</a>, it is blatantly clear whose lives really matter in Australia.</p>
<p>And there really is nothing mysterious about the deaths of Aboriginal people in Australia, either.</p>
<p>The settlers have long insisted that our death was destined, that our race was doomed, and that we, as a people, were vanishing. Our disappearance was inevitable because it was necessary to sustain <a href="http://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/orgs/car/docrec/policy/brief/terran.htm"><em>terra nullius</em></a>, the foundational myth of Australia. Black deaths rationalised White invasion and land expansion in Australia.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188697/original/file-20171004-24219-1770zje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188697/original/file-20171004-24219-1770zje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188697/original/file-20171004-24219-1770zje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188697/original/file-20171004-24219-1770zje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188697/original/file-20171004-24219-1770zje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188697/original/file-20171004-24219-1770zje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188697/original/file-20171004-24219-1770zje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188697/original/file-20171004-24219-1770zje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A print ad for GenerationOne that was released in March 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">GenerationOne/Coloribus</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a little over 100 years of White presence, they did not feel it was necessary to include us in their Constitution. Having been so successful in their work, they were anticipating our imminent departure – not to another land, but rather to be buried in our own lands. </p>
<p>In our dying, rather than in our living, our bodies mattered most to the colonial project.</p>
<h2>Black lives matter: in death and deviance</h2>
<p>White indifference to Black suffering has a long tradition in Australia. It remains ever-present, even in the supposedly benevolent contemporary policy agendas of <a href="http://www.indigenous.gov.au/indigenous-advancement-strategy">“Indigenous Advancement”</a> and “<a href="https://theconversation.com/closing-the-gap-is-failing-and-needs-a-radical-overhaul-72961">Closing the Gap</a>”.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.indigenous.gov.au/indigenous-advancement-strategy">We are told</a> by the Australian government:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Australian government made Indigenous affairs a significant national priority and has set three clear priorities to make sure efforts are effectively targeted – getting children to school, adults into work and building safer communities.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Clearly, what is actually targeted here are Black lives and the unsafe Black body – which, we are told, are incapable of working or attending school. We see the gaze transfixed not on the systems that create disadvantage, but on remedying the behaviours of Black people through compliance to systems that have always failed us – and, let’s be honest, have deliberately excluded us.</p>
<p>Focusing on Black lives in this instance both lays blame on, and makes claims of, Black deviance from White norms, values, standards and expectations. The deviation from Black lives to White lives sanctions a “new” targeting of Black lives by the state, and necessitates the continuation of White control over us and our lands.</p>
<p>Black deviance (statistical or otherwise) has been a useful narrative device for the settlers. </p>
<p>Black deviance supports claims of White benevolence, in which White people are simultaneously positioned as our aspirational goal and saviours. It suggests to us that Black lives matter to them. Yet in emphasising our deviance, the sins of a system that White people uphold and benefit from remains unnamed and unnoticed.</p>
<p>Only last month we witnessed the routine deployment of Black deviance to sustain White virtue in the Queensland Department of Education and Training’s own marketing. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"905253464132878336"}"></div></p>
<p>The Black lives we see are not her students, but they need not be. Black lives only matter when they prop up claims of White intellectual and moral superiority, and it is in a state of deviance that our bodies, that our troublesome children and their neglectful parents, are suddenly hyper-visible.</p>
<p>But Black deviance doesn’t just make settlers look good: it rationalises them taking greater control over the lives and lands of Aboriginal people. Let’s not forget that it was via <a href="https://newmatilda.com/2017/06/23/bad-aunty-seven-years-how-abc-lateline-sparked-racist-nt-intervention/">mythologies of Black deviance</a> that the <a href="https://theconversation.com/ten-years-on-its-time-we-learned-the-lessons-from-the-failed-northern-territory-intervention-79198">Northern Territory Emergency Response</a> (otherwise known as the Intervention) was introduced and the Racial Discrimination Act suspended. </p>
<p>Despite the Intervention’s inherently racist nature, it was framed as a benevolent act to Black women and children. Through the narratives of Black deviance and allegedly neglectful #IndigenousDads, attention was shifted away from the actual abuse of Aboriginal children within the youth justice system in the Northern Territory.</p>
<hr>
<p><em><strong>Further reading: <a href="https://theconversation.com/ten-years-on-its-time-we-learned-the-lessons-from-the-failed-northern-territory-intervention-79198">Ten years on, it’s time we learned the lessons from the failed Northern Territory Intervention</a></strong></em></p>
<hr>
<p>Black deviance has worked well for the Australian health system too, in rationalising the enduring and appalling <a href="https://theconversation.com/northern-australia-syphilis-outbreak-is-about-government-neglect-not-child-abuse-44597">health inequalities</a> that Indigenous peoples suffer. Much like the education system, the health system asserts a public <a href="https://theconversation.com/acknowledge-the-brutal-history-of-indigenous-health-care-for-healing-64295">moral stance</a> of benevolence to avoid scrutiny over its ongoing refusal to care properly for Aboriginal people.</p>
<p>The coronial inquiry into the tragic death of Ms Dhu in police custody <a href="http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/ms-dhus-family-get-11m-exgratia-payment-20170920-gyl2fh.html">ruled that</a> it was also medical staff who “disregarded her welfare and right to treatment during her three visits to hospital in as many days”. </p>
<p>The failure of the health system to provide care to Aboriginal people is nothing new. And access to basic health care has been a <a href="https://issuu.com/uqpochecentre/docs/community_control_monograph_iuih_1">long and hard-fought battle</a> led by Indigenous activists across Australia over many decades. It was not until 1989, after two centuries of invasion, that the first National Aboriginal Health Strategy was devised.</p>
<p>Since 2013, the current <a href="http://www.health.gov.au/internet/publications/publishing.nsf/Content/oatsih-healthplan-toc">National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Plan</a> has had, as its vision, a health system free of racism for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. But a cursory glance at coronial inquiries into Aboriginal deaths in hospitals in recent years reveals any number of preventable deaths that came about through an indifference to Black lives and Black suffering. </p>
<p>From the <a href="https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/indigenous-hospital-deceased-never-aggressive-inquest-20160411-go3u8f.html">excessive use of restraints</a> to the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-22/death-of-disabled-aboriginal-woman-in-hospital-to-be-probed/8141118">refusal to provide appropriate health care</a>, the names of the deceased remain unknown to most Australians – as do the crimes of the healthcare professionals responsible, thanks to the health and justice systems that protect them.</p>
<p>Even in death, descriptions of Aboriginal victims at the hands of the state frequently focus on Black deviance as a mitigating factor.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188698/original/file-20171004-24219-1sh5mdg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188698/original/file-20171004-24219-1sh5mdg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188698/original/file-20171004-24219-1sh5mdg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188698/original/file-20171004-24219-1sh5mdg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188698/original/file-20171004-24219-1sh5mdg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188698/original/file-20171004-24219-1sh5mdg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188698/original/file-20171004-24219-1sh5mdg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Vernon Ah Kee/Milani Gallery</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Black deviance operates as an alibi for racism and White supremacy. Nowhere was this more evident than in the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, where Black deviance was successfully deployed to deflect attention away from the role of police brutality.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://changetherecord.org.au/resources/files/Chapter%2002_%20The%20Findings%20of%20the%20Commissioners%20as%20to%20the%20Deaths.pdf">inquiry found</a> that not one of the 99 Aboriginal deaths investigated was a result of “unlawful, deliberate killing of Aboriginal prisoners by police and prison officers”. </p>
<p>Instead, we were told that 37 of these deaths were attributable to disease, while 30 were self-inflicted hangings and 23 were caused by “other forms of trauma, especially head injuries”. Another nine were associated with dangerous alcohol and drug use.</p>
<p>Consequently, much of the attention around Black deaths in custody has focused on the apparently inevitable deaths of sick Aborigines rather than the violence of the state. But when police officers threaten Aboriginal men with <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015/10/29/sa-cop-racially-abuses-aboriginal-man">tying a noose around their neck</a> and publicly mock Aboriginal people <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2_z9W6WnIY">who have died in custody</a> as a result of alleged “self-inflicted hangings”, it is little wonder that Aboriginal people <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-25/tane-chatfields-family-demands-answers-over-death-in-custody/8986246">are sceptical</a>.</p>
<h2>Black lands matter</h2>
<p>White benevolence really does feel brutal for Blackfullas in this country. So, it is hardly surprising that the <a href="http://sydneypeacefoundation.org.au/peace-prize-recipients/black-lives-matter/">Black Lives Matter movement</a>, with its emphasis on countering racism and White supremacy, has a certain appeal for Blackfullas.</p>
<p>Co-founder Alicia Garza explains that the movement seeks to tackle the “deep-seated disease” of racism through a deeper conversation around citizenship:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We really need to be talking about this question of citizenship, which I think is huge. I feel like what Black folks are fighting for in this moment is what we’ve been fighting for the whole time - which isn’t citizenship, like papers, but it’s citizenship like dignity. Like humanity. Right? And access.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-8-KZ0RIN3w?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Alicia Garza, Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Opal Tometi, the women who created the hashtag that galvanised a movement , discuss Black Lives Matter.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite the promise of Black Lives Matter, it has not been taken up as a central political movement by Blackfullas in Australia. Perhaps it is because, as a people who are both Black and First Nations, we cannot embrace an emancipatory agenda that is silent about the significance of the relationship between Black lands and Black lives.</p>
<p>Blackfullas are not seeking a revitalised citizenship that recognises our dignity and humanity – we are insisting upon our sovereignty as First Nations peoples. </p>
<p>We refuse to talk about our lives independently of our land. We remind them every day that we are still here in this place – and it is their presence on our lands that poses the real problem, not our lives. </p>
<p>We refuse to appeal to the benevolence of the colonisers for our lives to matter, because we know that their existence on this continent remains legally predicated upon our non-existence.</p>
<p>That’s why I’m with Birdz on this one:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Shit. The fact that matter is, we just Black matter to them.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p><em>You can read the other articles in the series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/black-lives-matter-everywhere-44608">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85168/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chelsea Bond receives funding from The Lowitja Institute and the Department of Education and Training as an Australian Learning and Teaching Fellow and is an Affiliate Member of the UQ Poche Centre for Indigenous Health. </span></em></p>Despite the promise of Black Lives Matter, it has not been taken up as a central political movement by Indigenous Australians.Chelsea Watego, Senior Lecturer, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit (ATSIS Unit), The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/854492017-10-12T01:18:51Z2017-10-12T01:18:51ZBlack Lives Matter is a revolutionary peace movement<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189568/original/file-20171010-19989-ozew98.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'The call for Black lives to matter is fundamentally a call for peace. And peace must not be confused with the momentary quiet of submission.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mtumesoul/15401077114/in/album-72157660313134374/">Annette Bernhardt/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article is the first in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/black-lives-matter-everywhere-44608">Black Lives Matter Everywhere</a> series, a collaboration between The Conversation, the <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/">Sydney Democracy Network</a> and the <a href="http://sydneypeacefoundation.org.au/">Sydney Peace Foundation</a>. To mark the awarding of the <a href="http://sydneypeacefoundation.org.au/peace-prize-recipients/black-lives-matter/">2017 Sydney Peace Prize</a> to the Black Lives Matter Global Network, the authors reflect on the roots of and responses to a movement that has reignited a global conversation about racism. The 2017 Sydney Peace Prize will be presented on November 2 (<a href="https://events.ticketbooth.com.au/events/22459">tickets here</a>).</em></p>
<hr>
<blockquote>
<p>Black Lives Matter is working for a world where Black lives are no longer intentionally and systematically targeted for demise. <strong>– Black Lives Matter mission statement</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>On July 13, 2013, hundreds of thousands of people – mostly Black people – flooded the streets of US cities following the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/14/us/george-zimmerman-verdict-trayvon-martin.html">acquittal</a> of George Zimmerman, the neighbourhood watch volunteer who killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. </p>
<p>For weeks, we had been glued to our televisions as police and “friends” of Zimmerman tried to disparage the high schooler – to make the victim some kind of predator. But we had seen his face. We saw his eyes dance, his brown skin glisten, and his smile warm hearts. He was a child, a lovely, beautiful boy-child who looked like our own children. And Zimmerman had no right to steal his life, regardless of what a court says.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189513/original/file-20171010-17703-bt7dfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189513/original/file-20171010-17703-bt7dfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189513/original/file-20171010-17703-bt7dfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189513/original/file-20171010-17703-bt7dfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189513/original/file-20171010-17703-bt7dfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189513/original/file-20171010-17703-bt7dfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189513/original/file-20171010-17703-bt7dfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189513/original/file-20171010-17703-bt7dfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In 2012 Trayvon Martin was shot for ‘looking suspicious’. He was 17.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/fleshmanpix/6863999486">Michael Fleshman/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So, the verdict came down, and we erupted. Our spirits filled with the righteous indignation of generations past. Transgenerational memories came rushing back of <a href="https://www.biography.com/people/emmett-till-507515">Emmett Till</a>. </p>
<p>Trayvon was born to Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, but he was ours – all of ours.</p>
<p>Black bodies filled the streets, disrupting traffic, inhibiting White shoppers and making the normalcy of White American middle-class existence less certain. </p>
<p>As our ranks swelled and our presence became more intentionally targeted at White epicentres of escapism (including tourist attractions like Hollywood and Highland), we began to understand the power of disruption. In disrupting these spaces, we refused to allow our collective pain to be confined to Black communities. Others may not see their own children in the face of Trayvon, but they would not be permitted to dismiss us.</p>
<p>On the third day of protest, in the midst of our first freeway shutdown, a text message found its way to a few of us. It read like words from the Underground Railroad: “Meet at St. Elmo Village at 9pm” (a Black artist community in mid-city Los Angeles). </p>
<p>The message was from <a href="http://patrissecullors.com/bio/">Patrisse Cullors</a>, a young, powerful, emerging organiser in Black Los Angeles whose work had centred on ending sheriffs’ violence. Her text was passed onto other organisers by <a href="http://www.thandisizwe.net">Thandisizwe Chimurenga</a>, a Black independent journalist who had been most recently active in the struggle for justice for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Oscar_Grant">Oscar Grant</a>. </p>
<p>As the summer night settled in and demonstrators scurried from highways, dodging the police who came in with sticks, beanbag guns and tear gas, the mamas collected our young children, walked home and prepared to go back out that same night.</p>
<h2>A movement, not a moment</h2>
<p>I was late to the meeting. By the time I arrived, a few dozen folks, including about ten of my spirit-children/students were closing out discussions of what it means to build “a movement, not a moment”. </p>
<p>Many of us had been involved in what <a href="http://www.history.ucla.edu/faculty/brenda-stevenson">Brenda Stevenson</a> terms “episodic organising”, or demands for justice that are limited to a person or a moment in time. But what we came to embrace that night is that the murder of Trayvon Martin, Oscar Grant before him, <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jan/10/local/me-brown10">Devin Brown</a> before him, <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2002/dec/13/local/me-tyisha13">Tyisha Miller</a> before him, <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2000/jul/21/news/mn-56723">Margaret Mitchell</a> before her … and so many others, was not accidental. </p>
<p>Perhaps the names and specifics of each case unfolded independently, but the system of American policing was designed to produce these outcomes. The system is brutal, murderous and violent. Only by transforming the way that we vision justice can we realise peace. </p>
<p>So, we committed to building a new peace movement – one that was driven by the way that Trayvon had embedded his spirit in our collective souls and opened itself to the chorus of voices whose bodies had been stolen by the state before and after him.</p>
<p>All of this intuitive work had already happened prior to our gathering in the courtyard, and remains hugely important to the building of this movement. For a movement to grow, it must be organic, flowing from the hearts of the people.</p>
<p>Every transformative struggle for justice has been rooted in heart work. Attempts to insert causes into communities ring as false and ultimately fall flat. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lUzSZtI4-Oo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘What if it were my son, my brother?’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The work of organisers, with the most effective organisers being part of the communities that they seek to organise, is to tap in to the souls of the community, hear the collective outcries and distil the issues and cast them in the context of a larger vision. They work to harness the energy as the movement builds and seize the time as communities make demands and arrive at solutions. </p>
<p>Civil rights, Black Power and Black Lives Matter organiser Greg Akili says that organising is “getting people to move on their own behalf and in their own interest”. </p>
<p>As the intuitive work was happening in the streets, Patrisse was assembling with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/02/alicia-garza-on-the-beauty-and-the-burden-of-black-lives-matter">Alicia Garza</a> and <a href="http://opaltometi.com">Opal Tometi</a> to organise us, visioning beyond the moment and strategising how to build a new iteration of Black freedom struggle.</p>
<h2>No justice, no peace</h2>
<p>Our mission emerged organically. It was summed up in the words penned by Alicia: “Black lives matter”. We have a right to our lives. Our children have a right to live and walk freely, without being hunted by the state, agents of the state, or wannabe agents of the state. </p>
<p>This is not debatable. There are no two ways to see it. This is one of those very basic, fundamental truths. </p>
<p>Getting to freedom and getting to justice, however, is a much more challenging charge. We are heirs of struggles that are also black-and-white: calls to end chattel slavery and lynching, demands for basic civil rights and voting rights, and the constant call for the end to police brutality. </p>
<p>While a hawk’s-eye view of these demands offers very obvious conclusions, the complication becomes the entrenchment of systems that produce unjust outcomes. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/736-how-capitalism-underdeveloped-black-america">How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America</a>, Manning Marable offers that “the system exists not to develop, but to underdevelop Black people”, with each advancement for White society coming at the expense of Black freedom.</p>
<p>So, while there are clearly just outcomes, like ending slavery and lynching, ushering in civil rights and voting rights, ending police brutality and now demanding an end to state-sanctioned violence against Black people, such demands require a fundamental transformation of a system that preys on and benefits from Black suffering.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189570/original/file-20171010-17703-1m83209.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189570/original/file-20171010-17703-1m83209.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189570/original/file-20171010-17703-1m83209.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189570/original/file-20171010-17703-1m83209.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189570/original/file-20171010-17703-1m83209.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189570/original/file-20171010-17703-1m83209.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189570/original/file-20171010-17703-1m83209.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189570/original/file-20171010-17703-1m83209.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Recurrences of state-sanctioned violence against Black people are not accidental.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mtumesoul/15997561326/in/album-72157660313134374/">Annette Bernhardt/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While Black freedom movements, including Black Lives Matter, are clearly working for what is just, the disruption that they pose to current systems is often cast by that system as problematic, even violent. </p>
<p>Because systems are designed to protect themselves, they utilise their vast powers to contort the messages of those who seek to challenge them. They use the laws that they created, the media that they control and the social structures that they erected to present those who challenge them as essentially “enemy combatants”. </p>
<p>Examples of this date back to the hefty bounty put on the head of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Tubman">Harriet Tubman</a>, the bombing of the office of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_B._Wells">Ida B. Wells</a>, the 40 times that Martin Luther King was imprisoned, the assassinations of King and Malcolm X and the targeting, imprisonment and exile of members of the Black Panther Party, including <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huey_P._Newton">Huey P. Newton</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assata_Shakur">Assata Shakur</a>. Today, Black Lives Matter organisers and other Black freedom fighters are the new targets. </p>
<p>The call for Black lives to matter and for an end to state-sanctioned violence against Black people (and by extension all people) is fundamentally a call for peace. And peace must not be confused with the momentary quiet of submission. The kind of peace sought by Black Lives Matter results from justice. </p>
<p>Peace cannot be compelled or forced. It is earned when the people benefit from and see themselves as a part of the societies in which they are housed. Peace is not a tactic of struggle, it is an outcome. </p>
<p>As we struggle for a world where Black lives are no longer intentionally and systematically targeted for demise, it means that the systems that prey on us must be not simply reformed but re-imagined and transformed. </p>
<p>Peace calls for an end to incarceration and criminalisation in favour of real public safety solutions. Peace calls for the meeting of basic human needs, including safe housing, clean water, healthy food, and medical care. Peace calls for quality education as a universal right and the ability to engage fully in the arts, culture and spirituality.</p>
<p>Peace requires revolutionary vision – and Black Lives Matter is a peace movement.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>You can read the other articles in the series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/black-lives-matter-everywhere-44608">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85449/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Melina Abdullah does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The peace and justice Black Lives Matter seeks require a fundamental transformation of a system that preys on and benefits from Black suffering.Melina Abdullah, Professor and Chair of Pan-African Studies, California State University, Los AngelesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/637722016-10-02T23:39:15Z2016-10-02T23:39:15ZHow can Australia build on a century of struggle over Indigenous citizenship?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137675/original/image-20160914-4963-1raz55z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Australia needs to recapture the urgency felt in the early 20th century about achieving an honourable and just settlement with Indigenous people. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/takver/5372412960">Takver/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article is part of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/democracy-futures">Democracy Futures</a> series, a <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/democracy-futures/">joint global initiative</a> with the <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/">Sydney Democracy Network</a>. The project aims to stimulate fresh thinking about the many challenges facing democracies in the 21st century.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>The issues and discussions that surrounded Indigenous affairs in the early 20th century reverberate in Australia’s current political climate.</p>
<p>Amid regular press reports of legal injustice, police abuse and ill-treatment, inter-racial violence and unease (particularly in the Northern Territory), demands for royal commissions and periodic concern about the health and wellbeing of communities on the brink, there were appeals for constitutional change even then.</p>
<p>Concerned citizens and Indigenous leaders spoke of the crisis that was Indigenous affairs. <a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-history-wars-reignite-57065">The history wars</a> thus obscured a historic fact: there is a deep connection between past and present in Indigenous affairs in Australia.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/G8czHlPYXew?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">There is a great divide in how Australia’s history is perceived.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Expectations</h2>
<p>One of the key differences is the expectations between then and now. </p>
<p>Back then, a new century and a new national government injected a sense of possibility and responsibility into the Indigenous space. Now, despite hope, <a href="https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wa/a/32609263/police-frustrated-with-youth-crime-dysfunction-in-kalgoorlie/">fresh claims</a> of crisis and <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-30/indigenous-groups-call-for-urgent-talks-with-the/7797210">urgent calls</a> for the relationship between governments and Indigenous people to be reset, there is less of that optimism and even less of that sense of responsibility.</p>
<p>Recent allegations of human rights abuses in juvenile detention in the NT impelled the minister responsible <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-25/four-corners-evidence-of-kids-tear-gas-in-don-dale-prison/7656128">to claim</a> the territory government had learned from past mistakes.</p>
<p>It pays to avow the past. In 1927, a report of the royal commission established to investigate the <a href="http://www.australian-cultural-atlas.info/CAA/listing.php?id=235">Onmalmeri massacre</a> in Western Australia found two policemen were responsible for the deaths and subsequent burning of bodies of Aboriginal people. </p>
<p>Not long after, a group of concerned citizens made a request to the responsible minister for a royal commission into the status and condition of Indigenous people thought to be dying as a result of white civilisation. We – white settler-subjects – were the problem.</p>
<p>Two months later, under the terms of the <a href="http://digital.slv.vic.gov.au/view/action/singleViewer.do?dvs=1474436336239%7E457&locale=en_US&metadata_object_ratio=10&show_metadata=true&VIEWER_URL=/view/action/singleViewer.do?&preferred_usage_type=VIEW_MAIN&DELIVERY_RULE_ID=10&frameId=1&usePid1=true&usePid2=true">Royal Commission on the Constitution</a>, several citizens demanded constitutional change to enable the nationalisation of Indigenous policy. One said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We are deeply convinced that the question of the protection of the surviving Aborigines, and the amelioration of their present and future condition is greater and more urgent than is generally realised in Australia.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That was in 1927. One Indigenous rights advocate of these years, William Morley, referred to this being a case of national honour and character:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The humane treatment of the Aborigines would have a reflex action on the national character.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Moves toward activism</h2>
<p>In the first 30 or so years of the 20th century, it was not unusual to hear such public consternation and aspiration. </p>
<p>In particular, concerns about police brutality and legal injustice thundered across the interwar years as massacres and incarceration continued. Several cases of police brutality in the north hit the southern press.</p>
<p>Timing had something to do with this: a new century, a new Commonwealth and even a new world order. The League of Nations put the humane treatment of Indigenous peoples on the international agenda for the first time. </p>
<p>As leading advocate <a href="http://uwap.uwa.edu.au/products/just-relations-the-story-of-mary-bennetts-crusade-for-aboriginal-rights">Mary Bennett</a> proclaimed: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The point is that exploitation by white races of coloured races is becoming precarious, cannot continue much longer and must be replaced by justice and humanity … we really need the tonic of voluntarily dragging our dark practices into the light of day and asking the co-operation of any international judiciary like the Hague Tribunal. It would make the perpetration of evil-doing by white governments a little awkward, as they are themselves aware.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137692/original/image-20160914-4958-1ag9y2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137692/original/image-20160914-4958-1ag9y2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137692/original/image-20160914-4958-1ag9y2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137692/original/image-20160914-4958-1ag9y2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137692/original/image-20160914-4958-1ag9y2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137692/original/image-20160914-4958-1ag9y2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137692/original/image-20160914-4958-1ag9y2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">UWA Publishing</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Bennett capitalised on the moment to write her first human rights treatise. In <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Australian_Aboriginal_as_a_Human_Bei.html?id=HjwYAQAAMAAJ">The Australian Aboriginal As Human Being</a>, she wrote that the Aboriginal question was not ours alone but a world problem. As bad as things were, there was still time to forge an honourable settlement with the Aborigines in the NT and found a just relationship between them and the settlers. </p>
<p>That was in 1930. This was the most important business of the 20th century, Bennett argued. Beyond their own families and communities, legal equality, education, medical assistance and food were required.</p>
<p>This was at a time when those classified as full-descent Aboriginal people were numerous in the north. </p>
<p>But the national paranoia about those classified as mixed descent led to the wholesale dispersal of families and the removal of children – despite the fact that those classified as full-descent and living in remote, northern parts constituted the majority Aboriginal population into the postwar period. They are the ancestors of these same communities today, <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4714.0%7E2014-15%7EMain%20Features%7EPopulation%20context%7E2">the majority</a> of whom continue to live in remote parts of the north.</p>
<p>Bennett was the most persistent and noisy critic of Aboriginal family dispersal and child removal from the 1930s until her death in 1961. Yet it was the genocide of those classified full-descent that was a recurring refrain of her advocacy. It was largely for these people that the voices of discontent were raised in the first place. Their position was a national crisis needing urgent attention.</p>
<p>However, notwithstanding more than two decades of concerted agitation (including calls for forms of self-government), governments washed their hands of the issue. </p>
<p>By the eve of the second world war, Aboriginal lives hung precariously in the balance: become detribalised or die. Intervention was too costly.</p>
<p>For Bennett, what governments styled as “the destiny of the race” was Australia’s own “final solution” for Aboriginal people on the eve of the war – a policy of breed out and die out. </p>
<p>While intervention was necessary for mixed-descent communities, for the full-descent it was unnecessary and too costly. The concerned few worried that detribalisation in a discriminatory system and society spelt destabilisation. At the very least, ill-health. At worst, death.</p>
<p>For Bennett, non-intervention was too costly for Aboriginal people but also for “us”. In losing them we lost a people from whom we had much to learn: a civilisation that was grounded in a fundamentally humane code of spirituality, temperance, generosity and respect.</p>
<p>Even more importantly, we lost mates, partners, friends, companions and workers - people on whom we had depended to forge a place in this land. This history was the underbelly of the Australian achievement and it was worth celebrating and building, rather than destroying.</p>
<p>It was this sense of connectedness between the Aboriginal custodians of the land and ourselves as immigrants that propelled the broader sense of urgency in these years. </p>
<p>As David Jackson, member for the Tasmanian seat of Bass, reflected at the opening of the first national parliament in Canberra in 1927: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The nation … owed [an obligation] to the Aboriginal people of Australia.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>A new era?</h2>
<p>Despite the historical continuities, there are differences between the beginning of the 20th and 21st centuries. </p>
<p>Most noticeably, this sense of national responsibility is now missing. Until very recently, the language has been of irresponsibility – not of governments and their agents – but of Indigenous people themselves. There has certainly been <a href="https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/politics/northern-territory-emergency-response-intervention">intervention</a>, but would we call it humane?</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"773887421196881922"}"></div></p>
<p>Gone too is that sense of national honour. I’m not sure what the “national code of honour” was in 1927 when William Morley invoked it. Was it wrapped up in the idea of the Anzac spirit? If it was, then surely aspects of it applied to Indigenous-settler history and relations: sacrifice, stoicism, loyalty and endurance.</p>
<p>Certainly, the hundreds of Indigenous people who fought for Australia in both world wars thought it applied.</p>
<p>And in making claims about the role of the federal government in Indigenous affairs, all advocates of yesteryear were espousing a particular view of Australian democracy that placed the national government at the helm of a morally and politically mature and responsible nation.</p>
<p>If Bennett was right, it would seem governments are ill-equipped to deal with the ongoing survival, needs and rights of Indigenous communities in the north because they didn’t bargain on them still being there. Perhaps this is why they stumble on constitutional recognition. Hadn’t the mid-20th century policy shift militated against the possibility?</p>
<p>In the circumstances, Indigenous survival is testament to an incredibly resilient society and culture. In itself this is worth celebrating and building. </p>
<p>As Aboriginal leaders ask that the 45th parliament be the <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-turnbull-change-course-in-indigenous-affairs-64589">beginning of a new era</a> in Indigenous affairs, heeding the past seems more pertinent than ever. A start would be a nation that recaptures some of the urgency of the past, as well as some of its appreciation and respect for Indigenous humanity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63772/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alison Holland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There is a deep connection between past and present in Indigenous affairs in Australia.Alison Holland, Senior Lecturer in Australian History, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/317702014-09-18T06:31:13Z2014-09-18T06:31:13ZExplainer: what Indigenous constitutional recognition means<p>Constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australia has been on the national agenda for a long time, but is back in the headlines with the news that the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader hope to release <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-and-bill-shorten-meet-in-private-to-nut-out-indigenous-constitution-question-20140916-10hs69.html">draft proposals for a referendum question</a> within weeks. </p>
<p>That comes on the back of building political momentum for constitutional reform, including the consultation and report of the <a href="http://www.recognise.org.au/expert-panel-report">expert panel convened by the previous government</a>; the passage of the <a href="http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/C2013A00018">Act of Recognition</a>; the work of a <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Constitutional_Recognition_of_Aboriginal_and_Torres_Strait_Islander_Peoples">Joint Select Committee of Parliament</a>; and a new <a href="http://www.quarterlyessay.com/issue/rightful-place-race-recognition-and-more-complete-commonwealth">Quarterly Essay</a> on the topic by Noel Pearson, released this week.</p>
<p>So what does the Constitution say about race? How do we change it? And what are some of the proposals for what the Constitution might say in future, particularly when it comes to recognising Aboriginal and Torre Strait Islander people as the First Australians?</p>
<h2>What are the racial references in the Constitution now?</h2>
<p>There are two sections of the constitution that mention race. The first, section 25, says that the states can ban people from voting based on their race. The second, section 51(26), gives Parliament power to pass laws that discriminate against people based on their race. They state:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/coaca430/s25.html">Section 25</a>. For the purposes of the last section, if by the law of any State all persons of any race are disqualified from voting at elections for the more numerous House of the Parliament of the State, then, in reckoning the number of the people of the State or of the Commonwealth, persons of the race resident in that State shall not be counted. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is an antiquated, redundant and racist section, which reflects past discrimination against Indigenous peoples’ rights to vote.</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/coaca430/s51.html">Section 51(26)</a>. The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to […] the people of any race, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This section, the so-called <a href="http://www.ilc.unsw.edu.au/sites/ilc.unsw.edu.au/files/articles/ILB%207-25%20Castan.pdf">“races power”</a>, has been interpreted by the High Court to allow the federal parliament to make laws that discriminate adversely on the basis of race. Parliament only ever used the races power regarding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.</p>
<h2>What is the Constitution? And why do we need to go to the polls to change it?</h2>
<p>In Australia, the <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/Constitution">Constitution</a> was a product of the views of the times. </p>
<p>It wasn’t created out of revolution, the need for equality, or even a strong need to be “free” of the British Empire, but rather the desire to bring colonies together to unite as a “<a href="http://australia.gov.au/about-australia/our-government/australias-federation">Commonwealth</a>”. Indigenous Australians were explicitly excluded from the constitutional processes and from its text. </p>
<p>Our Constitution functions as a powerful symbolic statement of Australian identity. But more than that, it is the ultimate legal document in our legal system. It grants and limits parliamentary powers, and functions as the supreme legal authority.</p>
<p>The Constitution was designed with a lock to prevent hasty reform, found in <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/%7E/link.aspx?_id=630FA7763BE64933B172A7D7E1615ADA&_z=z">section 128</a> and <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp0203/03rp11#amending">explained in more detail here</a>. </p>
<p>To change the Constitution, we need the approval of a majority of voters, across a majority of states. This is what makes our Constitution so hard to reform.</p>
<p>The 1967 referendum is considered one of the most successful amendments to the Constitution, as it was passed with very high popular support across Australia. Although it was misunderstood as “giving Aborigines the vote”, it did permit the federal government to make laws for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, which up to then was not constitutionally permitted. But that referendum still did not resolve the issues of recognition of Indigenous Australians and their legal and constitutional protection. </p>
<p>The idea that our Constitution still has sections that anticipate and allow racially discriminatory laws now seems like an anomaly for a modern liberal western democracy. </p>
<p>The reality of section 51(26) is particularly odd, as the High Court has confirmed that this grant of power can mean the federal parliament can pass beneficial laws, or adverse laws, that discriminate on the basis of race. </p>
<p>So our Constitution has some serious exclusions: both by not acknowledging the place of Indigenous Australians in our nation, and by authorising discriminatory laws. The concept of “race” as the basis for discriminatory treatment is long discredited, yet it is there still, an artefact of constitutional history.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ziLq5rnsgIw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A message from the late Dr Yunupingu re-released with permission from his family.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What might go into the Constitution if Australians voted Yes to Indigenous recognition?</h2>
<p>The expert panel worked to develop recognition proposals and these underpin <a href="http://www.recognise.org.au/">the Recognise campaign</a>. In summary these are to:</p>
<p>• Remove Section 25, which recognises that the states can ban people from voting on the basis of their race;<br>
• Delete section 51(26), which can be used to pass laws that discriminate (adversely) on the basis of race;<br>
• Insert a new section 51A, to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and to preserve the Australian government’s ability to pass laws for the benefit of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;<br>
• Adopt a new section 116A, prohibiting governments from passing laws that discriminate on the basis of race; and<br>
• Insert a new section 127A, recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages were this country’s first tongues, while confirming that English is Australia’s national language. </p>
<p>Some of these are considered non-controversial, while others have met more resistance.</p>
<p>The racial non-discrimination clause is probably the most difficult, because it is said to leave too much open to judges to interpret. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/constitutional-recognition-alive-but-its-still-no-barbecue-stopper-29254">joint select committee</a> assessed these proposals and canvassed some options for addressing some of <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Constitutional_Recognition_of_Aboriginal_and_Torres_Strait_Islander_Peoples/Interim_Report/index">the perceived resistance to the expert panel proposals</a>.</p>
<p>Because bipartisan support is needed for a successful referendum, the political <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/indigenous/recognition-debate-needs-noel-pearson-to-convince-conservatives/story-fn9hm1pm-1227055817527">concerns about the wording of the proposal</a> are now being debated.</p>
<p>While it might be that some find the proposed “non-discrimination” clause an invitation to unwanted judicial activism, it should be understood that without substantive protection, Indigenous Australians may conclude the referendum is too weak to warrant their support.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/indigenous/noel-pearson-finds-way-to-salvage-referendum-advance-his-people/story-fn9hm1pm-1227053215962">Noel Pearson recently asked</a>: “If conservatives assert that a racial non-discrimination clause is not the answer then what is a better solution?”</p>
<p>He highlighted the valuable work of the expert panel and the continuing importance of protection from racial discrimination. So Pearson has suggested that the referendum guarantee “the Indigenous voice in Indigenous affairs”, which could include a number of reforms: some constitutional, some legislative and some procedural changes. There are explored more fully in Pearson’s <a href="http://www.quarterlyessay.com/issue/rightful-place-race-recognition-and-more-complete-commonwealth">Quarterly Essay</a> published this week.</p>
<p>The proposed wording for the referendum has not been released, but the news that Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-and-bill-shorten-meet-in-private-to-nut-out-indigenous-constitution-question-20140916-10hs69.html">are working together</a> is a sign the momentum for reform is continuing. We might see draft proposals by the end of September.</p>
<h2>Why should Australia change its Constitution?</h2>
<p>Although the legal debate over Indigenous recognition might seem complicated, the importance of the underlying movement is simple justice.</p>
<p>Merely “symbolic” recognition is not really recognition of the proper history of Indigenous Australia, nor of contemporary concerns. It will not provide legal protection from bad, unjust or disproportionate laws.</p>
<p>Weak forms of recognition, or making no change at all, just replicates the same mistakes of legal and political exclusion we have been making since 1770. We should get the Constitution right this time.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong><em>Further reading<br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/culture-not-colour-is-the-heart-of-aboriginal-identity-30102">Culture, not colour, is the heart of Aboriginal identity</a><br>
The rest of this week’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/abbott-in-arnhem-land">Abbott in Arnhem Land</a> series:<br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/birthing-on-country-could-deliver-healthier-babies-and-communities-31180">Birthing on Country could deliver healthier babies and communities</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/welcome-to-my-country-seeing-the-true-beauty-of-life-in-bawaka-31378">Welcome to my Country: seeing the true beauty of life in Bawaka</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/pm-for-aboriginal-affairs-abbott-faces-his-biggest-hearing-test-31021">‘PM for Aboriginal Affairs’ Abbott faces his biggest hearing test</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-7-up-the-revealing-study-tracking-babies-to-adults-27312">Australia’s 7 Up: the revealing study tracking babies to adults</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/well-connected-indigenous-kids-keen-to-tap-new-ways-to-save-lives-30964">Well-connected Indigenous kids keen to tap new ways to save lives</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-australias-rapid-rise-is-shifting-money-and-votes-26524">Indigenous Australia’s rapid rise is shifting money and votes</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-crowded-homes-can-lead-to-empty-schools-in-the-bush-30971">How crowded homes can lead to empty schools in the bush</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/would-you-risk-losing-your-home-for-a-few-weeks-of-work-30911">Would you risk losing your home for a few weeks of work?</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/listen-to-your-elders-inviting-aboriginal-parents-back-to-school-31300">Listen to your elders: inviting Aboriginal parents back to school</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-australians-need-a-licence-to-drive-but-also-to-work-31480">Indigenous Australians need a licence to drive, but also to work</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/keeping-indigenous-teens-in-school-by-reinventing-the-lessons-30960">Keeping Indigenous teens in school by reinventing the lessons</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-can-a-dna-test-reveal-if-youre-an-indigenous-australian-31767">Explainer: Can a DNA test reveal if you’re an Indigenous Australian?</a><br></em></strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/31770/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Melissa Castan receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>Constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australia has been on the national agenda for a long time, but is back in the headlines with the news that the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader hope to release…Melissa Castan, Senior Lecturer, and Deputy Director for the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/265242014-09-15T20:33:15Z2014-09-15T20:33:15ZIndigenous Australia’s rapid rise is shifting money and votes<p><em>Tony Abbott <a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/2014-06-23/visit-north-east-arnhem-land">is spending this week in North-East Arnhem Land</a>, part of his <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/abbott-calls-for-new-era-of-engagement-with-indigenous-australia-20130810-2rony.html">long-held hope</a> “to be not just the Prime Minister but the Prime Minister for Aboriginal Affairs”. We asked our experts: what stories does the PM need to hear while he’s in the Top End?</em></p>
<p>A dramatic change has been underway in Australia for some decades – yet few people know about it, or understand its far-reaching impacts.</p>
<p>Quite simply, official measurements show the number of First Australians has skyrocketed to far outstrip growth in any other sub-section of the national population. From 1981 to 2011, the number of Indigenous Australians increased by around 185% (compiled from Australian Bureau Statistics <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/3105.0.65.0012008?OpenDocument">here</a> and <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/allprimarymainfeatures/33970B13F1DF7F56CA257B3B00117AA2?opendocument">here</a>.)</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57303/original/mppt886h-1408972210.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57303/original/mppt886h-1408972210.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57303/original/mppt886h-1408972210.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57303/original/mppt886h-1408972210.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57303/original/mppt886h-1408972210.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57303/original/mppt886h-1408972210.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57303/original/mppt886h-1408972210.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57303/original/mppt886h-1408972210.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Where Indigenous Australians live.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.aihw.gov.au/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=60129543587">Healthy for Life Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services Report Card, 2013</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Contrary to the stereotypes, most of that population growth hasn’t been in the Top End or in remote areas. Instead, it has mainly occurred <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/3238.0Media%20Release02001%20to%202026?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=3238.0&issue=2001%20to%202026&num=&view=">in capital cities and the regions around these</a>, and especially in Sydney, Brisbane and their hinterlands. There is little doubt that trend will continue to <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/3238.0Media%20Release02001%20to%202026?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=3238.0&issue=2001%20to%202026&num=&view=">erode the share of Indigenous Australians living in remote parts</a> of the country. </p>
<p>So what’s driving all that growth? What are the consequences? And why might a new wave of Indigenous voters swing one way more than another?</p>
<h2>670,000 strong and rising</h2>
<p>An estimated <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/3101.0Main+Features1Dec%202013?OpenDocument">669,881 Australians</a> were of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander origin in 2011. By 2026, that number is expected to <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/3105.0.65.0012008?OpenDocument">exceed 900,000</a>.</p>
<p>The fast-growing Indigenous population is driven by a <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/3238.0Media%20Release02001%20to%202026?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=3238.0&issue=2001%20to%202026&num=&view=">number of factors</a>. These include higher levels of fertility than for other Australians and continued improvements in life expectancies. But there is more to it than just new Indigenous births outstripping deaths. The reasons for the rapid growth are more complex than that and are entwined with the historical oppression of the First Australians. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57331/original/qqyjxv68-1409017182.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57331/original/qqyjxv68-1409017182.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57331/original/qqyjxv68-1409017182.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57331/original/qqyjxv68-1409017182.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57331/original/qqyjxv68-1409017182.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57331/original/qqyjxv68-1409017182.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=676&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57331/original/qqyjxv68-1409017182.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=676&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57331/original/qqyjxv68-1409017182.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=676&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australia’s Indigenous population is younger than the national average: in 2011, 35.8% of the Indigenous population was aged less than 15, compared with 18.3% in the non-Indigenous population.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.aihw.gov.au/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=60129543587">Healthy for Life: Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services Report Card, 2013</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Census and other official data track who we are as a nation – including capturing Indigenous status. The Indigenous status question in the Census is based on self-identification. That means individuals can freely choose how they identify, and change this over time.</p>
<p>Although it is difficult to get a precise figure, much of the growth we have seen in the Indigenous population is from people who did not previously declare they were Indigenous doing so in later censuses.</p>
<p>As our society has begun to understand and seek to rectify past and present injustices, more people have become willing to declare they are Indigenous Australians. The land rights movement is one factor that has raised collective awareness of our Indigenous histories and cultures.</p>
<p>Estimates based on a survey conducted just four weeks after the 2011 Census suggested around 17% of Australians changed their Indigenous status. The majority of these switched from <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/2940.0">“non-Indigenous” or “not stated” to declaring themselves as Indigenous</a>.</p>
<p>Almost all of that affinity switching occurs in capital cities and their hinterlands, which is where <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/censushome.nsf/home/data?opendocument#from-banner=LN">most Indigenous Australians now live</a>. In every sense, the “new Indigenous” Australians living in our cities and suburbs are far removed from the most common media reporting of impoverished, remote First Australian communities.</p>
<p>Accentuating the trend, almost all (about 90%) of Indigenous Australians living in cities and married or in de facto relationships have a non-Indigenous partner. Offspring from these mixed partnerships are highly likely to be declared as Indigenous on the birth certificate, accelerating the growth of the Indigenous-identifying cohort.</p>
<p>The consequences of more Australians identifying as Indigenous are far-reaching.</p>
<h2>Shifting government funding</h2>
<p>With so many more people identifying as being of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent, one unintended consequence is that it’s shifting funding away from parts of Australia that are home to some of the poorest Indigenous communities.</p>
<p>In total numbers, <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/3238.02001%20to%202026?OpenDocument">New South Wales and Queensland lead the way</a> for being home to the most Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (208,476 and 188,954 respectively in 2011). That’s about three times more Indigenous Australians <em>each</em> than live in the Northern Territory. </p>
<p>But almost one in three people (30%) in the Northern Territory is Indigenous, still a far greater proportion than the national average of 3%. <a href="https://theconversation.com/state-of-the-states-northern-territory-17345">Around 80%-85% of the NT government’s revenue</a> comes from the Commonwealth, mostly as a general purpose grant from money raised by the Goods and Services Tax (GST). </p>
<p>States or territories with Indigenous population proportions above the Australian average receive a greater share of GST, for reasons explained in <a href="http://www.gstdistributionreview.gov.au/content/Content.aspx?doc=reports/finaloctober2012/10chap10.htm">this GST Distribution Review for Treasury</a>.</p>
<p>In the Northern Territory in particular, the total population living in very remote communities with poor socio-economic conditions is growing, yet the Territory’s share of the national Indigenous population is rapidly diminishing. As a direct result, in 2014 about A$110 million a year was lost from the GST-derived grants to the Northern Territory.</p>
<p>The NT’s ability to tackle issues of Indigenous well-being is <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Products/02D95BFBCDD976FBCA257CC900143A5B?opendocument">diminishing with every percentage point shift</a> for the Indigenous-identifying population residing in urban Australia.</p>
<h2>Shifting allegiances?</h2>
<p>The remote Aboriginal communities of the Northern Territory have shifted their votes twice in recent years. In the 2012 Territory election, these bush communities reversed three decades of voting Labor and <a href="https://theconversation.com/was-the-nt-election-outcome-a-shockwave-or-a-regional-ripple-9138">voted for Country Liberal politicians (all but one, Indigenous)</a>.</p>
<p>Then in the last federal election, the Aboriginal bush vote returned to Labor and <a href="https://theconversation.com/lingiari-unique-but-still-a-mirror-of-the-broader-contest-15518">saved the Labor MHR for Lingiari</a>. So remote community Aborigines are becoming more instrumental in their voting, as well as less predictable.</p>
<p>But there’s also an emerging national trend to watch: more affluent urban Indigenous voters, who may be more open to voting conservative than before.</p>
<h2>Religion, race, youth and politics</h2>
<p>If you look closely, most of the nationally measurable improvements in Indigenous employment and education outcomes are concentrated in a few major cities and their surrounding areas.</p>
<p>This has tantalising implications. For example, before World War II most Catholics voted Labor, mostly for historical reasons or because of occupational class-based identification.</p>
<p>When <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_Lynch">Phillip Lynch</a> became the <a href="http://www.afr.com/p/opinion/catholic_connection_weighs_on_abbott_bJRmFz4xMshh9MGtqvhPfO">first Catholic minister</a> in Malcolm Fraser’s conservative government, it was seen as unique. Now, the Prime Minister and <a href="https://www.sydneycatholic.org/news/latest_news/2009/20091110_44.shtml">Treasurer</a>, along with <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/coalition-celebrates-a-religious-easter-eight-of-19-cabinet-members-are-catholic-20140419-36xn4.html">nearly half of the other cabinet members</a>, are Catholic. As individuals and families have moved up the social ladder, Catholicism has become no longer a marker of pro-Labor voting. </p>
<p>Will this happen with young, upwardly mobile, Indigenous-identifying residents of the major cities? Is former Labor president Warren Mundine, now the Prime Minister’s top Indigenous adviser, a harbinger of such socio-political change?</p>
<p>Perhaps Ken Wyatt – Australia’s first Indigenous member of the House of Representatives, who won the Western Australian seat of Hasluck for the Liberals – will be the Phillip Lynch of our times. If this hypothesis is correct, then all the old assumptions of Indigenous politics could be overturned. </p>
<p>So when he starts planning his next week living and working with an Indigenous community next year the Prime Minister could reconsider going bush – and instead end up staying in the marginal seat heartland of <a href="http://profile.id.com.au/wsroc/population?WebID=200">western Sydney</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong><em>Further reading in this <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/abbott-in-arnhem-land">Abbott in Arnhem Land</a> series:<br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/birthing-on-country-could-deliver-healthier-babies-and-communities-31180">Birthing on Country could deliver healthier babies and communities</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/welcome-to-my-country-seeing-the-true-beauty-of-life-in-bawaka-31378">Welcome to my Country: seeing the true beauty of life in Bawaka</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/pm-for-aboriginal-affairs-abbott-faces-his-biggest-hearing-test-31021">‘PM for Aboriginal Affairs’ Abbott faces his biggest hearing test</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-7-up-the-revealing-study-tracking-babies-to-adults-27312">Australia’s 7 Up: the revealing study tracking babies to adults</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/well-connected-indigenous-kids-keen-to-tap-new-ways-to-save-lives-30964">Well-connected Indigenous kids keen to tap new ways to save lives</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-crowded-homes-can-lead-to-empty-schools-in-the-bush-30971">How crowded homes can lead to empty schools in the bush</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/would-you-risk-losing-your-home-for-a-few-weeks-of-work-30911">Would you risk losing your home for a few weeks of work?</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/listen-to-your-elders-inviting-aboriginal-parents-back-to-school-31300">Listen to your elders: inviting Aboriginal parents back to school</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-australians-need-a-licence-to-drive-but-also-to-work-31480">Indigenous Australians need a licence to drive, but also to work</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/keeping-indigenous-teens-in-school-by-reinventing-the-lessons-30960">Keeping Indigenous teens in school by reinventing the lessons</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-can-a-dna-test-reveal-if-youre-an-indigenous-australian-31767">Explainer: Can a DNA test reveal if you’re an Indigenous Australian?</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-indigenous-constitutional-recognition-means-31770">Explainer: what Indigenous constitutional recognition means</a></em></strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/26524/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Taylor receives grant funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rolf Gerritsen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Tony Abbott is spending this week in North-East Arnhem Land, part of his long-held hope “to be not just the Prime Minister but the Prime Minister for Aboriginal Affairs”. We asked our experts: what stories…Andrew Taylor, Principal Scientist, Charles Darwin UniversityRolf Gerritsen, Professorial Research Fellow, Northern Institute, Charles Darwin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/303082014-08-20T20:16:07Z2014-08-20T20:16:07ZFrustration rises over changes to the WA Aboriginal Heritage Act<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/56836/original/46qrthkf-1408494408.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Indigenous groups are concerned about proposed changes to the process for determining heritage sites in Western Australia, including the location of the Nyoongar Tent embassy.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Allen Stewart/Newspix</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In June, the Western Australian Government released draft amendments to the Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972. This is the legislation that determines what qualifies for heritage protection in the state – and what does not. The amendments have been met with increasing concern by Aboriginal people and scholars who see the <a href="http://www.daa.wa.gov.au/Documents/HeritageCulture/Aboriginal%20Heritage%20Legislative%20Changes/Aboriginal%20Heritage%20Amendment%20Bill%202014%20-%20public%20consultation%20draft.pdf">Aboriginal Heritage Amendment Bill 2014</a> as a threat to the objects and sites that it claims to protect.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.daa.wa.gov.au/PageFiles/1836/Discussion%20paper%20APRIL%202012v1.pdf">review</a> of the Aboriginal Heritage Act began in May 2011. This resulted in two rounds of public consultation. The <a href="http://www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au/Pages/StatementDetails.aspx?StatId=5761&listName=StatementsBarnett">first round</a> focused on the government’s intention to reform the legislation and <a href="http://www.daa.wa.gov.au/en/Heritage-and-Culture/Aboriginal-heritage/Aboriginal-Heritage-Legislative-Changes/Submissions-recieved/">the second round</a> concentrated on the draft amendments.</p>
<p>If the Bill becomes law after parliamentary debate expected later this year, the rights of people to engage with Aboriginal heritage can be ignored within government bureaucracy. Its obliviousness to Aboriginal heritage may become much more efficient.</p>
<p>One of the amendments authorises the chief executive officer of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs to issue a declaration that “there is no Aboriginal site on the land”. This declaration may be at “the CEO’s own initiative”. There is no administrative tribunal mechanism for reviewing the CEO’s decision. </p>
<p>On June 11, when the amendments were published, Aboriginal Affairs Minister Peter Collier <a href="http://www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au/Pages/StatementDetails.aspx?StatId=8395&listName=StatementsBarnett">said</a> that the changes were needed to keep pace with rapid economic development, particularly in mining and construction. Several resource companies have expressed support for the changes.</p>
<p>The Law Society of Western Australia, however, has <a href="http://www.daa.wa.gov.au/Documents/HeritageCulture/Aboriginal%20Heritage%20Legislative%20Changes/Submissions/Law%20Society_AHAB2014_20140731.pdf">criticised the bill</a> for not ensuring transparent reasoning of CEO determinations and for not guaranteeing Aboriginal people a voice in the decision-making process.</p>
<h2>Indigenous voices respond</h2>
<p>In an August 6 submission on the bill, filed during the government’s eight-week consultation period, Aboriginal MLA Ben Wyatt <a href="http://www.daa.wa.gov.au/Documents/HeritageCulture/Aboriginal%20Heritage%20Legislative%20Changes/Submissions/Ben%20Wyatt%20MLA_AHAB2014_20140806.pdf">wrote</a> that: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is extraordinary that the government’s proposed amendments actually contemplate a reduced involvement for Aboriginal people than the original Act drafted in 1972.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Bill fails to address the concerns articulated by many Aboriginal people during this consultation process. </p>
<p>In another submission, Aboriginal academic Blaze Kwaymullina and Aboriginal author Sally Morgan <a href="http://www.daa.wa.gov.au/PageFiles/1842/Aboriginal%20Heritage%20Act%20Submission1%20%282%29.pdf">wrote</a> that the government’s plan would “weaken a piece of legislation which is already failing to achieve the purpose of protecting Aboriginal heritage”. Indeed, the architects of the bill seem to have ignored the opinions of experts such as Professor Mick Dodson and Gary Toone of the Australian National University.</p>
<p>In Perth, Aboriginal community groups and land councils are up in arms. </p>
<p>Elders and Traditional Owners of the Swan River People native title claim group see the amendments as “a return to the days of the Chief Protector of the Native Welfare”. In a <a href="http://www.daa.wa.gov.au/Documents/HeritageCulture/Aboriginal%20Heritage%20Legislative%20Changes/Submissions/Swan%20River%20People_AHAB2014_20140804.pdf">submission</a> to government on August 5, the group said it would “be very damaging” for one person to decide “the fate of all Aboriginal people without asking what they want”. </p>
<p>This group and their ancestors have been struggling to protect their land and culture since the 1830s in the Perth metropolitan area. They worked hard to secure three of the six successful prosecutions under the 42-year-old Act.</p>
<h2>The problem with weakening the Act</h2>
<p>The Act has a poor record of protecting Aboriginal heritage. Only in rare cases has a determined group of Aboriginal people been able to use it to prevent damage to their heritage. With the proposed legislative change, even such slim hope may be lost.</p>
<p>Blaze Kwaymullina and Sally Morgan say that the government’s archaic approach to Aboriginal heritage “does not acknowledge Aboriginal culture as a living and ongoing concern, an approach sometimes described as ‘museum mentality’”. </p>
<p>Aboriginal heritage sites are places for contemporary Aboriginal politics. This was demonstrated in Perth in 2012 when <a href="http://www.nyoongartentembassy.com/matagarup-heritage.html">an Aboriginal tent embassy</a> was established at heritage site ID3589 on Heirisson Island to raise awareness of a state plan to radically extinguish native title to Nyoongar <em>boodjar</em> (country). </p>
<p>The Nyoongar Tent Embassy chose this location because it had been used to support Aboriginal demands in the past and because the state had recognised it as Aboriginal heritage. Despite the embassy’s engagement with state recognition of Aboriginal heritage, it was criminalised by senior politicians, bureaucrats, police and media workers.</p>
<p>Criminalisation worked because no official outside the Aboriginal community acknowledged that the embassy had been set up at a registered Aboriginal heritage site (see <a href="http://www.ctrl-z.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Setting-Up-the-Tent-Embassy-Kerr-Cox.pdf">Setting up the Nyoongar Tent Embassy: A Report on Perth Media</a>).</p>
<p>When asked in Budget Estimates about a series of increasingly violent police raids on the embassy, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs Peter Collier <a href="http://www.parliament.wa.gov.au/parliament/pquest.nsf/969994fcf861850d4825718d002fe7fb/10708fac49675eaa48257c05001ffa3d?OpenDocument">responded</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is no provision within the Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972. (sic) to investigate the legitimacy of people who were gathered at the Tent Embassy. The Department of Aboriginal Affairs did not receive a request to provide any advice to the Western Australian Police on any aspects of the Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>With the Bill not yet before parliament, there is still time to prevent a <em>carte blanche</em> authorisation of the CEO and disempowerment of Aboriginal people. </p>
<p><br>
<em>The image illustrating this article is the cover image of the authors’ book <a href="http://www.ctrl-z.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Setting-Up-the-Tent-Embassy-Kerr-Cox.pdf">Setting up the Nyoongar Tent Embassy: A Report on Perth Media</a>. This photograph was taken by Allen Stewart, reproduced with permission (Newspix).</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30308/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thor Kerr is affiliated with The Greens.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shaphan Cox does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In June, the Western Australian Government released draft amendments to the Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972. This is the legislation that determines what qualifies for heritage protection in the state – and…Thor Kerr, Lecturer in the School of Media, Culture and Creative Arts, Curtin UniversityShaphan Cox, Lecturer, Department of Planning and Geography, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/123282013-03-25T00:40:57Z2013-03-25T00:40:57ZFunding cuts threaten Indigenous independence in Queensland<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/20689/original/yd5fk7hv-1361926973.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Indigenous Queenslanders should be able to choose their own path.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Dave Hunt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/article/2013/02/18/375682_news.html">Funding cuts</a> announced to Queensland Aboriginal communities last month will of course affect the budgets of Aboriginal Shire Councils. But their impact will be felt much more further afield than just within council offices. Put simply, these cuts will reduce the autonomy of Aboriginal communities across the state.</p>
<p>This policy change plays into the ideas pushed by some prominent Indigenous people that welfare dependency is ruining Aboriginal communities. Marcia Langton’s 2012 <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/boyerlectures/2012-boyer-lectures/4305696">Boyer Lectures</a> are an example of this argument. </p>
<p>One commonly suggested solution to this “dependency” is <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/with-apologies-pm-home-ownership-is-the-key/story-e6frgd0x-1226578237398">home ownership</a>. If people own homes, they must earn enough income to pay mortgage, rates and insurance. So if we can encourage Aboriginal home ownership, then we can see greater employment rates and improvement in other statistics - right?</p>
<p>The problem with this is the persistent idea that Aboriginal people should be more “like us” and less like themselves. </p>
<h2>Aboriginal Shire Councils</h2>
<p>Queensland’s former Aboriginal reserves became formalised communities under <a href="http://www.derm.qld.gov.au/nativetitle/pdf/ilar/ilar_ala_leasing_manual.pdf">Deed of Grant in Trust</a> status in the late 1980s, “for the benefit of Aboriginal inhabitants or for Aboriginal purposes”. </p>
<p>The land was given communally to <a href="http://www.dlg.qld.gov.au/indigenous-councils/about-indigenous-councils.html">Aboriginal Community Councils</a> (now Aboriginal Shire Councils), rather than sold or gifted in blocks. Because the land is communally owned, Aboriginal councils don’t collect rates.</p>
<p>The Queensland government subsidised Aboriginal communities through the <a href="http://www.qlggc.qld.gov.au/financial-assistance-grant.shtml">state government financial assistance</a> program to make up the shortfall. In addition to jobs and social services, the Newman government is <a href="http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Macklin-concerned-QLD-cuts-will-affect-indigenous--pd20121003-YPSWB?OpenDocument">cutting this funding</a> to Aboriginal communities. The <a href="http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/article/2013/02/18/375682_news.html">reason</a> is to increase self-sufficiency and decrease Aboriginal dependency on handouts, according to local government Minister David Crisafulli. </p>
<p>However, the cuts will have the opposite effect.</p>
<h2>Autonomy and self-determination</h2>
<p>Since the 1970s, Australia has accepted the idea that Aboriginal communities have the <a href="http://www.humanrights.gov.au/social_justice/info_sheet.html">right to self-determination</a>. This stance was renewed when Kevin Rudd supported the <a href="http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/DRIPS_en.pdf">United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples</a>. </p>
<p>Anthropologist Robert Tonkinson writes about “<a href="http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/events/wentworth/docs/Tonkinson.pdf">self-determination</a>” in the 1970s. Previously, Aboriginal people had little control over their lives. Under
“self-determination” policies, they were expected to manage communities, but without training. </p>
<p>The cuts to the financial assistance are similar - funding is being cut, with no plans in place to enable real self-sufficiency.</p>
<p>Self-determination, from government perspectives, really means self-management. It is seen as a major break from the previous policy of assimilation - and it is a very different approach on many practical levels. </p>
<p>But the underlying principle is still that Aboriginal people should fit into white society. This was the rationale behind assimilation, behind self-determination in the 1970s and behind the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/indigenous/special_topics/the_intervention/">2007 Northern Territory Intervention</a>. And it is the rationale behind the current Queensland government funding cuts.</p>
<p>Aboriginal communities have different understandings of “self-determination”. For them, it means “<a href="http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/events/wentworth/docs/Tonkinson.pdf">freedom from paternalistic and authoritarian structures</a>” (in Tonkinson’s words). It means being able to choose their own path – whether that path heads towards economic independence or not. </p>
<h2>Playing the game</h2>
<p>In July 2012, American academic <a href="http://udallcenter.arizona.edu/personnel/scornell.php">Stephen Cornell</a> gave a public lecture in Sydney. He spoke of the meaning of self-determination for America’s First Nations peoples. </p>
<p>In America, he reported, tribes set the rules of the game. They determine the structure of their tribal governments. They decide whether or not to pursue economic self-sufficiency and profits.</p>
<p>In contrast, for Australian Aboriginal people, there is one game, and the rules are set by the government. Aboriginal groups are invited to play, but they have to follow the rules. </p>
<p>If Indigenous Australians exercise real autonomy, for example if they choose not to live up to the neoliberal dream of home ownership and capitalist productivity, they are labelled “dysfunctional”. Then they are kicked out of the game.</p>
<p>The Queensland government’s State Government Financial Assistance gave Aboriginal communities financial autonomy. Although they relied on this “government handout”, it gave communities the option to decide on their future.</p>
<p>Taking the funding away will have severe impacts on Aboriginal communities. They will lose jobs, programs, and services. But they will also lose this opportunity for real autonomy. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/12328/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Theresa Petray does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Funding cuts announced to Queensland Aboriginal communities last month will of course affect the budgets of Aboriginal Shire Councils. But their impact will be felt much more further afield than just within…Theresa Petray, Lecturer in Sociology & Anthropology, James Cook UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.