tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/treaty-28415/articlesTreaty – The Conversation2024-02-14T02:56:59Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2219742024-02-14T02:56:59Z2024-02-14T02:56:59ZCan more ethical histories be written about early colonial expeditions? A new project seeks to do just that<p><em>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of deceased people. The name of the Aboriginal man in this article was how he was referred to, and his relative has requested we honour this name.</em> </p>
<p>Truth-telling is at the heart of a new research project we are currently leading that re-examines the legacy of the Hann Expedition, which travelled Queensland’s Cape York Peninsula in 1872. </p>
<p>Our project seeks to rewrite this period of history – and others – to honour the voices and experiences of Aboriginal people whose contributions to colonial-era expeditions have long been overlooked. </p>
<p>The Hann Expedition began in Mt Surprise, Queensland, in April 1872, and made a loop across the peninsula before finishing at the Junction Creek Telegraph Station seven months later. The team consisted of six white men and an Aboriginal guide. The purpose was to map and record “unknown” parts of Queensland and determine whether the lands would be feasible for mining and pastoral development.</p>
<p>Apart from geological descriptions and mapping, the expedition is credited with recording and collecting specimens of at least 149 plants previously unknown to Western science. However, using records from the expedition, we <a href="https://www.publish.csiro.au/hr/hr20014">found</a> these species were likely only located with the help of the young Girramay man, Jerry, who was their guide. </p>
<p>Jerry was derogatorily referred to as “the blackboy”, and his important role in the expedition has never been fully acknowledged.</p>
<p>The importance of Aboriginal knowledge to the expedition compelled us to further examine the encounters the men had with other Aboriginal people along the route. This likely included Olkala, Kuku Yalanji, Lama Lama and Guugu Yimithirr people. </p>
<p>In one of these encounters, botanist Thomas Tate and Jerry found a young Aboriginal boy near a lagoon and took him back to their camp. The boy’s family immediately retrieved him and returned the next day, threatening the team with weapons. </p>
<p>In other encounters, the team unsuccessfully tried to communicate with Aboriginal people, seeking information that would be useful to their expedition.</p>
<p>Our research team also found a detailed map created by Norman Taylor, the expedition’s geologist, which includes observations about encounters with Aboriginal people, as well as environmental details not recorded elsewhere.</p>
<p>The original map had been held in the Queensland State Archives since at least the 1980s, but had not been connected to other materials from the expedition. Although a detailed analysis of the map has only just begun, it suggests local Aboriginal people helped the expedition navigate difficult terrain along their route, particularly along the coast.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-first-nations-ununiformed-warriors-qualify-for-the-australian-war-memorial-219109">Why First Nations 'ununiformed warriors' qualify for the Australian War Memorial</a>
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<h2>Descendants leading research</h2>
<p>Our work takes its lead from Indigenous scholars and practitioners, such as Rose Barrowcliffe, Fiona Foley, Julie Gough, Natalie Harkin, Shino Konishi, Jeanine Leane and Djon Mundine, <a href="https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/memory-place">and others</a>. Their work has been instrumental in critiquing the silencing of Aboriginal voices in colonial history. Wiradjuri scholar Jeanine Leane <a href="https://corditebooks.org.au/products/walk-back-over">calls this</a> a form of “cardboard incarceration”.</p>
<p>Our research team includes descendants of the 1872 expedition, such as the project lead and co-author, Peter Taylor (a descendant of Norman Taylor’s), and co-researcher and co-author Cameo Dalley (a great-granddaughter of Tate’s). </p>
<p>In addition, Nicole Huxley, a Gudjala leader, is a descendant of Jerry. Ms Huxley and her family wanted Jerry’s story to be told, in particular his role in keeping the expedition team alive at dangerous points in their travels. </p>
<p>As descendants, each of us has <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14484528.2021.1927493">inherited</a> different family narratives about what took place on the expedition, and whose contributions were central.</p>
<p>The Balkanu Cape York Development Corporation, which supports the land and development interests of Aboriginal people on Cape York, has also partnered with the project. Further funding will support our research and the involvement of Traditional Owners along the expedition route, including Olkala, Kuku Yalanji, Lama Lama and Guugu Yimithirr people.</p>
<p>As Gerhardt Pearson, the executive director of Balkanu, says:</p>
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<p>…following the Hann Expedition, the violence and dispersal of Indigenous people was so devastating, the memories and stories of this period still haunt many people. </p>
<p>The united commitment of the descendants and their detailed knowledge of this expedition will be incredibly valuable in working with Elders across the cape who still grieve about their own history.</p>
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<p>Part of this process involves what is referred to as “rematriation”, or the reunification of Indigenous people and their knowledges with Country. This can include Indigenous people taking over the management of collections of artefacts and other specimens from the colonial era. </p>
<p>In our project, this includes botanical collections now held in the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew (London), the National Herbarium of Victoria at the Royal Botanic Gardens (Melbourne), and the Queensland Herbarium. These institutions are keen to develop protocols for involving Indigenous communities in the interpretation and management of collections.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/50-years-after-evonne-goolagongs-australian-open-win-we-should-remember-her-achievements-and-the-racism-she-overcame-217684">50 years after Evonne Goolagong's Australian Open win, we should remember her achievements – and the racism she overcame</a>
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<h2>Why truth-telling is needed in Australia</h2>
<p>Truth-telling was a vital component of the <a href="https://ulurustatement.org/the-statement/view-the-statement/">Uluru Statement from the Heart</a> signed by over 200 Indigenous delegates from around Australia. However, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-failed-referendum-is-a-political-disaster-but-opportunity-exists-for-those-brave-and-willing-to-embrace-it-213755">failed referendum</a> on a Voice to Parliament last year arguably demonstrated an apathy towards such processes at a national level.</p>
<p>This project shifts focus to local and regional approaches to truth-telling and the importance of individuals and families in taking responsibility for their role in shaping history. This is even more important for those of us with ancestors responsible for the intergenerational trauma experienced by Aboriginal people. </p>
<p>For the white descendants involved in our project, this will require us to sit uncomfortably in the privilege we have inherited because of this violence and think meaningfully about what can be done in the present.</p>
<p>Selective memory can be a tool of colonisation, and this project goes directly to the responsibilities of the descendants of colonisers to challenge this.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221974/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicole Huxley is affiliated with North QLD Land Council, Jumbun Limited, Ngrragoonda RNTBC Aboriginal Corporation, Joint Coordinating Committee Member Qld - DSDSATSIP. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cameo Dalley and Peter Taylor do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Truth-telling is at the heart of a new project re-examining an expedition in Queensland’s Cape York Peninsula. This research aims to address the absence of Aboriginal voices in this history.Cameo Dalley, Senior Lecturer, The University of MelbourneNicole Huxley, Gudjala and Girramay leader, Indigenous KnowledgePeter Taylor, Associate Professor - Fenner School, Australian National University, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2151592023-10-24T19:19:25Z2023-10-24T19:19:25ZAfter the Voice referendum: how far along are First Nations treaty negotiations across the country?<p>The Uluru Statement from the Heart called for Voice, treaty and truth. On October 14, Australians <a href="https://theconversation.com/voice-to-parliament-referendum-has-been-heavily-defeated-nationally-and-in-all-states-213156">said “no” to the Voice to the Parliament</a>, choosing not to enshrine an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander advisory body in the Constitution. Many Indigenous Australians are devastated, seeing the result as a dismissal of their place and status on this continent. </p>
<p>But this is not the whole story. </p>
<p>The national focus on the Voice referendum has obscured <a href="https://insidestory.org.au/treaty-making-gathers-pace/">remarkable developments</a> at the state and territory level. </p>
<p>Every Australian jurisdiction, except Western Australia, has <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4605824">committed to talking treaty with First Nations peoples</a>. But what might the defeat of the referendum mean for treaty? </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-actually-is-a-treaty-what-could-it-mean-for-indigenous-people-200261">What actually is a treaty? What could it mean for Indigenous people?</a>
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<h2>What is a treaty?</h2>
<p>Treaty has been a longstanding aspiration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. However, the fact that no treaties were ever signed on this continent means many Australians have <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-actually-is-a-treaty-what-could-it-mean-for-indigenous-people-200261">little knowledge</a> about what a treaty is. </p>
<p>International law sets out a clear standard for what makes an agreement a treaty. A treaty must satisfy <a href="http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/SydLawRw/2018/1.html">three conditions</a>. </p>
<p>First, a treaty acknowledges Indigenous peoples are a distinct political community different to other Australians. Indigenous people are the only group of people in Australia who owned, occupied and governed the continent before colonisation. This recognition also acknowledges the historic and contemporary injustices that invasion has caused.</p>
<p>Second, a treaty is a political agreement reached by a fair process of negotiation between equals. <a href="https://www.atns.net.au/">Negotiation</a> helps ensure everyone’s (both Indigenous and non-Indigenous) interests can be considered. But securing a fair negotiation process can be difficult in practice, given the unequal power imbalances that exist between Indigenous people and the settler state. </p>
<p>Third, treaties involve both sides - in this instance, Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians - committing to promises that bind the parties in an ongoing relationship of mutual obligation and shared responsibility. Given a treaty is built on the recognition of Indigenous peoples’ inherent sovereignty, a treaty will provide for some degree of culturally appropriate self-government. What this looks like in practice will be worked out in negotiations. </p>
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<h2>Where are the State and Territory treaty processes at now?</h2>
<p>State governments across the country have agreed to begin treaty processes. Each has faced its own challenges and moved at different paces. </p>
<p>Victoria has made the most progress. In 2018, a representative body of Aboriginal Victorians was established. <a href="https://www.firstpeoplesvic.org/">The First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria</a> has worked in partnership with the government to develop the institutions necessary to pursue treaty negotiations. Together, they have created the country’s <a href="https://yoorrookjusticecommission.org.au/">first truth commission</a>, an independent <a href="https://www.firstpeoplesrelations.vic.gov.au/treaty-authority-establishment">treaty authority</a> to oversee negotiations, a self-determination fund to support Aboriginal Victorians and a <a href="https://www.firstpeoplesrelations.vic.gov.au/establishment-treaty-negotiation-framework-and-self-determination-fund">treaty negotiation framework</a>. Early next year in Victoria, the first formal treaty negotiations in this country are likely to begin.</p>
<p>Complications have emerged in the Northern Territory. The NT treaty commissioner delivered a <a href="https://treatynt.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/1117238/treaty-commission-final-report-2022.pdf">final report in 2022</a>, calling for a permanent, independent treaty and truth commission. The government <a href="https://aboriginalaffairs.nt.gov.au/our-priorities/treaty/nt-government-response-to-treaty-commissions-final-report">largely dismissed the report</a> in December 2022. While the government said it would provide more details soon, Aboriginal Territorians are still waiting for an announcement on what comes next.</p>
<p>South Australia was one of the first jurisdictions to commit to treaty in December 2016. However, the process was abandoned with a change of government in 2018. Since the election of the Malinauskas Labor government, treaty is back on the agenda. Earlier this year, South Australia passed a law to create a <a href="https://www.agd.sa.gov.au/first-nations-voice">Voice to the South Australian parliament</a>. It is expected a treaty process will soon follow, though details are scarce. </p>
<p>Progress has proven slow in the ACT and Tasmania.
The ACT government declared it was open to talking treaty <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/real-outcomes-needed-for-clan-groups-to-support-any-act-treaty-process/3nqi0heem">in 2018</a>. But a difficult consultation process put treaty on pause. Some First Nations people in the ACT have since <a href="https://the-riotact.com/traditional-owners-to-lodge-first-native-title-claim-in-25-years-over-act/564%20%20203">adopted a different focus</a>, seeking recognition of their native title.</p>
<p>In Tasmania, the government received the <a href="https://www.dpac.tas.gov.au/divisions/People_Performance_and_Governance/publications#:%7E:text=On%20Thursday%2C%2025%20November%202021,the%20second%20half%20of%202021.">Pathway to Truth-Telling and Treaty report</a> in 2021. Although the government accepted its recommendations, little progress has been made. An <a href="https://www.premier.tas.gov.au/site_resources_2015/additional_releases/next_steps_on_pathway_to_truth-telling_and_treaty">Aboriginal advisory group</a> is consulting with communities about pathways forward for truth-telling and treaty, but no timetable has been provided.</p>
<p>In other jurisdictions, the path is more complicated. New South Wales has yet to get started on a treaty, but the referendum result has worried the government. In March, the incoming Labor government <a href="https://www.nswlabor.org.au/labor_will_take_first_steps_on_pathway_to_treaty">announced</a> it would establish a three-person, independent treaty commission to lead consultations with First Nations communities across the state. That process was to begin after the referendum. Reports suggest it is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/19/nsw-to-review-treaty-consultation-plan-after-voice-referendum-defeat">now being reviewed</a>. </p>
<p>For several years, Queensland had <a href="https://www.qld.gov.au/firstnations/treaty">made steady progress</a> on treaty. In March, the <a href="https://www.legislation.qld.gov.au/view/html/asmade/act-2023-012">Path to Treaty Act</a> was passed by the Queensland parliament with bipartisan support. The act establishes a First Nation Treaty Institute and a truth-telling and healing inquiry. </p>
<p>In the wake of the referendum, however, the LNP opposition has stated it will <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/19/queensland-lnp-abandons-support-for-treaty-with-first-nations-people">abandon the process</a>. The Labor government has confirmed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/20/queensland-treaty-is-going-ahead-assures-interim-body-charged-with-implementing-it">it will push on</a>. The 2024 state election may determine whether a Queensland treaty process continues over the long term. </p>
<p>The federal government has committed to implementing the Uluru Statement from the Heart “<a href="https://www.niaa.gov.au/indigenous-affairs/uluru-statement-heart">in full</a>”. Although focused on the Voice referendum, the government provided $5.8 million to the National Indigenous Australians Agency last year to consider the development and design of a national treaty process. </p>
<p>The failed Voice referendum will likely lead the government to postpone. It will not, however, eliminate the need for a national process for treaty.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-anthony-albanese-had-good-motives-but-his-referendum-has-done-much-harm-215996">Grattan on Friday: Anthony Albanese had good motives but his referendum has done much harm</a>
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<h2>What happens next?</h2>
<p>The failed referendum casts a long shadow over the state and territory treaty processes. It is too simple, however, to suggest the result will necessarily lead to the collapse of treaty talks. The impact will be felt differently across the country.</p>
<p>The scale of the defeat in Queensland, for example, where <a href="https://tallyroom.aec.gov.au/ReferendumNationalResults-29581.htm">more than 68%</a> of voters rejected the proposed amendment, has put the treaty process in real jeopardy. </p>
<p>In other states, however, the situation may be different. The process is yet to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/23/nsw-treaty-indigenous-will-not-progress-until-after-state-election-chris-minns">really begin in NSW</a> and the slow and steady steps in Victoria have ensured a broad base of political support. This support <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/16/australian-states-to-push-ahead-with-voice-and-treaty-processes-in-absence-of-federal-body">did not evaporate on referendum night</a>. </p>
<p>It is worth remembering some states and territories commenced their treaty processes because, as former Victorian MP Gavin Jennings <a href="https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/images/stories/daily-hansard/Council_2018/Council_Daily_Extract_Thursday_21_June_2018_from_Book_9.pdf">said</a>, they were “not convinced that you can wait for a national process that has never ever delivered in relation to righting these wrongs”.</p>
<p>Many Australians will continue to support treaty regardless of the referendum.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215159/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The national focus on the Voice to Parliament referendum diverted attention from state-based Treaty processes currently happening across the country.Dani Linder, Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Queensland, The University of QueenslandHarry Hobbs, Associate professor, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2144222023-10-11T13:15:44Z2023-10-11T13:15:44ZNew treaty to protect the world’s oceans may hurt vulnerable African fisheries<p>Following two decades of fierce negotiations, over 60 countries recently signed a UN <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/dozens-nations-sign-un-ocean-treaty-implementation-still-awaits-2023-09-20/">Ocean Treaty</a> to conserve biodiversity on the high seas. </p>
<p>The “<a href="https://www.oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/facts/high-seas-governance.html">high seas</a>” are all ocean areas which aren’t under a specific country’s direct ownership or regulation. They make up <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05079-z">two-thirds</a> of Earth’s oceans, providing 90% of the habitat available for life. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/LTD/N23/177/28/PDF/N2317728.pdf?OpenElement">treaty</a> has been celebrated as <a href="https://oceans-and-fisheries.ec.europa.eu/news/historic-achievement-treaty-high-seas-adopted-2023-06-19_en#:%7E:text=Today%2C%20the%20Treaty%20of%20the,loss%20in%20the%20high%20seas.">historic</a>. It’s the first time that action will be taken against unregulated use of resources in this ungoverned space. </p>
<p>It’s <a href="https://unctad.org/news/90-fish-stocks-are-used-fisheries-subsidies-must-stop">estimated</a> that 90% of the world’s marine fish stocks are now fully exploited, overexploited or depleted. Although less than <a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/a-global-ban-on-fishing-on-the-high-seas-the-time-is-now#:%7E:text=Pauly%3A%20Well%2C%20it%20will%20be,outside%20of%20Exclusive%20Economic%20Zones.">10%</a> of the total global fish catch is from the high seas, the unregulated nature of fishing there has a <a href="https://wwfeu.awsassets.panda.org/downloads/wwftmt_unregulated_fishing_on_the_high_seas_of_the_indian_ocean_2020.pdf">harmful impact</a> on marine life. </p>
<p>The treaty consists of <a href="https://bbnj-mgr.fas.harvard.edu/bbnj-treaty#:%7E:text=On%2019%20June%202023%2C%20nearly%20200%20countries%20adopted,Preamble%2C%2012%20Parts%2C%2076%20Articles%2C%20and%202%20Annexes.">76 articles</a>. Their goals include the protection and sustainable management of the marine environment, preserving the integrity of ocean ecosystems – such as <a href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/coral-reefs/">coral reefs</a> – and conserving biological diversity. Once ratified, the treaty will allow the establishment of <a href="https://oceans-and-fisheries.ec.europa.eu/news/win-ocean-high-seas-treaty-signed-united-nations-2023-09-20_en">marine protected areas</a> in the high seas.</p>
<p>Though it doesn’t explicitly prohibit commercial fishing in the high seas, it includes language that may allow for their “sustainable use”. So, the establishment of a protected area in the high seas is expected to address unsustainable fishing activities in the space, but only if <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s44183-023-00013-x#:%7E:text=The%20new%20Treaty%20lays%20out,high%20seas%2C%20among%20other%20things.">fully implemented</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/african-marine-rules-favour-big-industry-leaving-small-scale-fishers-in-the-lurch-171829">African marine rules favour big industry, leaving small-scale fishers in the lurch</a>
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<p>Part of my expertise lies in maritime and natural resource governance in Africa, so I’ve been following this development. There are reasons to celebrate the <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/06/1137857">Oceans Treaty</a> for what it represents – an extra mechanism to protect our oceans and their resources. But my main concern – which <a href="https://www.cffacape.org/publications-blog/an-ambitious-high-seas-treaty-must-not-come-at-the-expense-of-coastal-fishing-communities">has also been flagged</a> by others – is that the treaty could drive distant water fleets (fishing outside their own territory) to fishing grounds closer to land. And many of the most lucrative grounds belong to African countries. </p>
<p>The treaty has been described as “<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s44183-023-00013-x#:%7E:text=The%20new%20Treaty%20lays%20out,high%20seas%2C%20among%20other%20things">extremely broad</a>” and lacking specifics. Clear regulations must be put in place by the treaty’s implementing agency. It’s not yet clear who that will be. The treaty calls for state parties to allow for the establishment of various committees and working groups, together with a Conference of the Parties to guide implementation. </p>
<p>I argue that clear regulations must ensure that fisheries subsidies to vessels that once relied on the high seas must be cut. Subsidies given to <a href="https://oceana.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/18/OceanaDWF_FinalReport.pdf">distant water vessels</a> can encourage the <a href="https://theconversation.com/eu-targets-fragile-west-african-fish-stocks-despite-protection-laws-125679">overexploitation</a> of vulnerable species.</p>
<h2>Attractive fishing grounds</h2>
<p>Having lost access to fish on the high seas, fleets will need new fishing grounds. African waters are an attractive target for various reasons.</p>
<p>Firstly, they’re <a href="https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/a0053a27595217fd04745ae65f88e092-0320012022/original/Coastal-and-Marine-Biodiversity-and-Ecosystems.pdf">rich</a> in <a href="https://wwf.panda.org/discover/knowledge_hub/where_we_work/west_africa_marine/">diverse</a> species.</p>
<p>Secondly, these waters are not properly monitored, which means countries can take advantage of them. Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing already costs Africa <a href="https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news23_e/fish_12jul23_e.htm">over US$2.3 billion</a> annually. </p>
<p>Thirdly, coastal African states <a href="https://theconversation.com/african-marine-rules-favour-big-industry-leaving-small-scale-fishers-in-the-lurch-171829">appear willing</a> to enter into new <a href="https://chinadialogueocean.net/en/fisheries/opinion-some-fishing-deals-in-west-africa-make-little-economic-sense/">agreements</a> with nations that fish outside their own borders. </p>
<p>This is worrying because it’s going to put Africa’s vulnerable fish stocks at risk. Distant-water vessels are already known to be exploitative. </p>
<h2>Who are these vessels?</h2>
<p>About <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2022/03/high-seas-treaty-must-reflect-critical-role-of-fish-in-marine-ecosystems">97% of high-seas fishing</a> is done by vessels flagged to high-income countries – the vast majority (<a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2022/03/high-seas-treaty-must-reflect-critical-role-of-fish-in-marine-ecosystems">86%</a>) are from China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Spain. </p>
<p>Vessels from some of these countries, such as <a href="https://adf-magazine.com/2023/03/six-west-african-countries-account-for-20-of-worlds-illegally-caught-fish/">China</a>, <a href="https://cimsec.org/looking-past-gulf-of-guinea-piracy-chinese-twins-ghanaian-fishing-and-domain-awareness/">South Korea</a> and <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/business/spanish-french-fleets-blacklisted-indian-ocean-illegal-fishing-3844968">Spain</a>, already have fisheries arrangements with countries in Africa. And they’re known to contribute to the <a href="https://qz.com/africa/1807878/eu-subsidies-boost-overfishing-in-west-africa-and-migration#:%7E:text=Countries%20like%20Spain%20in%20particular,artisanal%20fishermen%20in%20West%20Africa">overexploitation</a> of fish on the continent through legal and illegal fishing.</p>
<h2>Harmful subsidies</h2>
<p>These high-sea fishing vessels come from the <a href="https://oceana.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/18/OceanaDWF_FinalReport.pdf">top 10 countries</a> providing fisheries subsidies. </p>
<p>Fisheries subsidies are financial support given by governments to help the private sector, including <a href="https://oceana.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/18/OceanaDWF_FinalReport.pdf">distant-water vessels</a>, to catch more fish. Some of these subsidies have been shown to be <a href="https://theconversation.com/eu-targets-fragile-west-african-fish-stocks-despite-protection-laws-125679">harmful</a>, particularly to vulnerable species. </p>
<p>Harmful subsidies <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/trust/archive/winter-2023/a-global-deal-to-end-harmful-fisheries-subsidies">encourage</a> overfishing, as the money is spent on capacity-expanding activities such as artificially lowering fuel and vessel construction costs. This allows large vessels to catch more fish than is sustainable by fishing farther out to sea and for longer periods. Many industrial fleets <a href="https://unctad.org/news/too-large-be-missed-how-fleet-size-and-harmful-subsidies-undermine-fish-stocks-sustainability">wouldn’t be profitable</a> without these subsidies.</p>
<p>The treaty doesn’t clearly address subsidies, but they are the subject of the World Trade Organization’s 2022 <a href="https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/rulesneg_e/fish_e/fish_e.htm">Fisheries Subsidies Agreement</a>. This, however, has not come into force as two thirds of the signatories have not yet accepted the deal. Under the proposed agreement, signatory countries must commit to stop providing harmful subsidies.</p>
<p>If harmful subsidies aren’t effectively addressed, a ban on fishing on the high seas could end up contributing to increased fishing activities within the jurisdictions of coastal countries. </p>
<h2>What must happen</h2>
<p>Aside from the treaty being effectively implemented, several measures and strategies can be deployed to ensure African countries are protected.</p>
<p>There must be more support from the international community for regional fisheries bodies – such as the Fisheries Committee for the West Central Gulf of Guinea and <a href="http://www.corep-se.org/">Regional Fisheries Commission for the Gulf of Guinea</a> – for countries in west Africa. The regional bodies must be in a better position to guide member states on sustainable fisheries practices, enforce regulations where they exist or update regulations as needed.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fisheries-subsidies-fuel-ocean-depletion-and-hurt-coastal-communities-142260">Fisheries subsidies fuel ocean depletion and hurt coastal communities</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p>There must be increased support in monitoring fishing. Partners and non-governmental organisations <a href="https://www.tm-tracking.org/joint-analytical-cell">share data</a> from satellite technology and vessel tracking systems that helps coastal states monitor what goes on in their waters. The international community must provide further support so that coastal states can enforce existing regulations by sharing capacity, technological know-how and assets.</p>
<p>By combining these strategies and fostering international cooperation, it is possible to strike a balance between implementing the treaty and fishing sustainably in Africa’s oceans.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214422/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ifesinachi Okafor-Yarwood receives funding from the Scottish Funding Council through the University of St Andrews and the PEW Charitable Trust. </span></em></p>A new ocean treaty could redirect the unsustainable fishing practices that were happening on the high seas to coastal African nations.Ifesinachi Okafor-Yarwood, Lecturer, University of St AndrewsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2107992023-08-02T06:36:30Z2023-08-02T06:36:30ZPolitics with Michelle Grattan: ‘yes’ campaigner Thomas Mayo and ‘no’ advocate Derryn Hinch on the Voice<p>The Garma Festival is being held over the next few days in Arnhem Land. There will be a great deal of talk this year about the Voice. Anthony Albanese will speak on Saturday, but he won’t announce the date for the referendum. Peter Dutton isn’t attending.</p>
<p>Meanwhile in parliament this week the opposition has sought to turn the discussion of the Voice to the issue of treaty, also a feature of the Uluru Statement from the Heart. But the government wants to keep the debate strictly to the Voice, dodging questions about treaty where it can.</p>
<p>In this podcast Thomas Mayo, a signatory of the Uluru Statement and one of the leaders of the yes campaign, and Derryn Hinch, former prominent broadcaster and a former crossbench senator, join us to argue for the yes and no sides respectively. </p>
<p>Mayo has been travelling extensively through central Queensland (viewed as one of the toughest states to garner a yes vote) hosting forums about the referendum. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I went from Maroochydore and Caloundra to a whole lot of towns, including Cherbourg, an Aboriginal community and Eidsvold, up to Mackay. The experience was great, really positive - full crowds at each of the forums, some great questions and signing up a whole lot more volunteers.</p>
<p>There were people that were fully supportive and there was also a lot of people that were unsure. So people that were leaning either yes or no, that came along to learn more. We also had some people that were set in a position of saying no, but that was a great opportunity to have the discussion. They were able to listen to our history behind this and the good sense of it and what the actual proposition is and what will be changed in the Constitution. They were able to raise their concerns and reasons and they were respectfully listened to.</p>
<p>But I think the result was that anybody that wasn’t already set in their ways that weren’t entrenched in a position politically, came up to me later and said, we’ve decided to vote yes now.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Mayo’s history organising union campaigns and some past provocative comments have made him a target for no campaigners. But he looks on his past as only a positive, seeing much in common with both causes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think there’s there’s actually a lot in common, in that you are trying to unite people. This referendum is about unity. It’s about uniting on a common cause, which is to heal from our colonial past. It’s to empower people that are suffering and to create fairness. </p>
<p>My union background has helped in my ability to advocate. But mostly I think what motivates me is understanding that this is the right thing to do.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In contrast, Derryn Hinch sees the referendum as dangerous, divisive and unnecessary. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Look, let me say from from the get-go, I wish they could split the referendum into two bits. If they could give genuine, fruitful recognition to Indigenous Australians and our history in the Constitution, I would vote yes for that in two seconds time, and I think most of Australians would as well.</p>
<p>It’s the second half of having the Voice to Parliament. That worries me because they say they need the Voice – they already have 11 members of Parliament of Indigenous extraction! And if in fact they are spending all these umpteen [billions on] Aboriginal welfare and medical and other bodies, if they are spending $30 billion, there should not be one Aboriginal kid with glaucoma or drinking dirty water in the whole country.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Hinch says that even if the Voice were to be legislated instead of enshrined in the Constitution, he would still vote against it. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I just don’t like the way they’re doing it. I know they quote the Waitangi Treaty (which they have across the ditch in New Zealand) but as I understand it, in the late 1800s [it] was designed to stop warfare and British troops would defend New Zealand and defend the Maori, if anybody came from abroad. I was in New Zealand only last year and they are changing a lot of names to Maori names. I mean I supported them changing the name of Mount Egmont in my home town to Taranaki. I supported changing Ayers Rock to Uluru and yet I don’t support people being banned from climbing Uluru. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Hinch won’t be campaigning for a “no” vote, but he is making his views “very well known”. He says he feels “uncomfortable” being on the same side as certain politicians (such as Pauline Hanson), but notes he made his decision a long time ago. </p>
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<p>I made those decisions long before I even knew what other people would be in the no camp.</p>
<p>I don’t like misrepresentation by either the no people or the yes people.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210799/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan 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 this podcast, Thomas Mayo and Derryn Hinch discuss misinformation in the Voice to Parliament campaign.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2066132023-06-23T03:59:23Z2023-06-23T03:59:23ZBefore the Barunga Declaration, there was the Barunga Statement, and Hawke’s promise of Treaty<p><em>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names of deceased people.</em></p>
<p>This week at Parliament House during Barunga Festival, four NT Land Council representatives presented Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with the <a href="https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8243065/barunga-declaration-says-yes-vote-will-unite-country/">Barunga Declaration</a>. </p>
<p>Signed by the four NT Land Council representatives, the declaration calls on Australians to vote “yes” in the upcoming referendum for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. </p>
<p>NT Land Council representatives Dr Samuel Bush-Blanasi (Northern Land Council), Matthew Palmer (Central Land Council), Gibson Farmer Illortaminni (Tiwi Land Council) and Thomas Amagula (Anindilyakwa Land Council) brought the Barunga Declaration to Parliament House.</p>
<p>This is significant because the leaders of the Central and Northern land councils, artist Wenten Rubunjta and activist Galarrwuy Yunupingu presented then prime minister Bob Hawke with the <a href="https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/barunga-statement">Barunga Statement</a> in 1988. The statement called on Hawke to honour his <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/the-aboriginal-rights-treaty-that-never-came-cabinet-papers-19881989-20141218-129yhm.html">earlier promises</a> to deliver national land rights legislation and a treaty.</p>
<p>Hawke signed the statement and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/35-years-since-barunga-statement-what-has-changed/102456952">promised a treaty by 1990</a>.</p>
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<h2>Treaty ’88 and the Barunga Statement</h2>
<p>The Barunga Statement was the outcome of years of careful deliberation and discussion. Its presentation was carefully designed to capture symbols and painted representations significant to both desert and saltwater people. It was delivered from “the Indigenous owners and occupiers of Australia”, requesting the Australian government legislate for national land rights and begin treaty negotiations. </p>
<p>The statement also demanded compensation for land loss, protection of sacred sites, the return of ancestral remains, linguistic and cultural rights, and the rights enshrined in the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights">UN Declaration of Human Rights</a>. It also called for laws for a national elected Aboriginal body, and recognition of customary law by police and justice systems. It concluded by urging the Australian government to support international law-making upholding the rights of Indigenous peoples. </p>
<p>The Barunga Statement was presented during a time where there were increasing calls for a treaty. The Treaty ’88 campaign declared that Australia was invaded by a foreign power with no treaty. As Wiradjuri activist and writer Kevin Gilbert argued, in Australia, “<a href="https://www.reasoninrevolt.net.au/bib/PR0001615.htm">the thief is the judge</a>”. </p>
<p>In the 1970s, there were two major legal challenges – <a href="https://database.atns.net.au/agreement.asp?EntityID=1611">the Gove land rights judgement</a> and the <a href="https://database.atns.net.au/agreement.asp?EntityID=8717#:%7E:text=Mr%20Coe's%20proposed%20amendment%20asserted,the%20rest%20of%20Australia's%20inhabitants.">1979 Coe case</a>. These cases had reinscribed terra nullius by rejecting Indigenous peoples rights to land that existed outside the norms of European landholding. They ultimately denied Indigenous sovereignty to uphold Australian settler rights to land. </p>
<p>Fast forward to 1988, and Hawke’s government poured billions into the bicentenary celebrations (or a “<a href="https://deadlyvibe.com.au/2014/02/white-australias-black-history/">birthday for white people</a>”, as activist and Palawa man Michael Mansell called it). The opening to Hawke’s “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqkkG2dgpaQ">celebration of the nation</a>” was an Australia Day event in Sydney Harbour, featuring a re-enactment of the First Fleet. </p>
<p>This was met by protest “<a href="https://www.aboriginalaffairs.nsw.gov.au/media/website_pages/research-and-publications/completed-research-and-evaluation/does-the-media-fail-aboriginal-political-aspirations(ePDF)__.pdf">Don’t Celebrate ‘88</a>”, led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from across the continent. The <a href="https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/curated/bicentenary-1988">protest</a> began at dawn, and ran into the night.</p>
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<p>The demand for a treaty had been gaining momentum since the National Aboriginal Conference called for a Makarrata, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-10/makarrata-explainer-yolngu-word-more-than-synonym-for-treaty/8790452">a Yolngu word referring to the negotiation of peace after a dispute</a>, in 1979. But in 1983, a Senate committee rejected the idea that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people had sovereignty and could enter into a treaty with Australia. </p>
<p>Shortly after, Hawke dismantled the National Aboriginal Conference. A national land rights response was developed, but <a href="https://insidestory.org.au/untangling-a-new-era-for-land-rights/">a poorly conceived draft proposal from Hawke</a> was rejected by Aboriginal Land Councils in 1984. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-actually-is-a-treaty-what-could-it-mean-for-indigenous-people-200261">What actually is a treaty? What could it mean for Indigenous people?</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<h2>‘Treaty by 1990’</h2>
<p>Hawke progressed the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, a 25-member group charged with the task of raising awareness in the general public of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island cultures and history. </p>
<p>This council achieved significant traction over the next decade, leading to the <a href="https://digital-classroom.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/walk-reconciliation">walk for reconciliation</a> in 2000, which still stands as a moment demonstrating significant national sentiment in support of Indigenous rights.</p>
<p>However, others have highlighted the reconciliation movement’s departure from treaty. Playwright Wesley Enoch and actress Deborah Mailman’s play <a href="https://apt.org.au/product/the-7-stages-of-grieving-2/">7 Stages of Grieving</a> includes a poem emphasising instead the “wreck”, “con” and “silly” in reconciliation. </p>
<p>Hawke’s last official act as Prime Minister was to hang the Barunga Statement in Parliament House. Even though by 1991 little progress had been made towards the statement’s goals. The idea of a treaty had largely been replaced with the notion of “reconciliation”. </p>
<p>In 2006, Yunupingu called for the return of the Barunga Statement to Barunga. Yunupingu said governments had betrayed reconciliation, and he called for the statement to be traditionally buried. This would symbolise the burial of hopes for a treaty, <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/act/act-treaty-needed-to-right-past-wrongs-made-against-indigenous-people-20180613-p4zl5d.html">saying</a> </p>
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<p>Sovereignty became treaty, treaty became reconciliation and reconciliation turned into nothing. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Statement remains in Parliament House, despite Yunupingu’s request.</p>
<h2>To properly consider the Voice, we need to look to how we got here</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/nov/29/why-do-the-nationals-oppose-the-indigenous-voice-and-do-their-arguments-stand-up-to-scrutiny">Critics</a> of the Voice to Parliament often choose to focus on First Nations peoples’ struggles, the repeated experience of disadvantage – the persistent “gap”.</p>
<p>However, the Voice aims to address a key problem that recreates disadvantage: First Nations’ political power. First Nations peoples have long sought representation to seek particular rights to land, culture and heritage, language, self-determination and self-governance.</p>
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<p>As with the Uluru Statement from the Heart and now the Barunga Declaration, the Barunga Statement emerged during a time when Indigenous activists were seeking new mechanisms to secure a lasting political settlement between Indigenous nations and the Australian government.</p>
<p>The referendum for a Voice is the first of a three-part sequence of reforms, outlined in the 2017 <a href="https://ulurustatement.org/the-statement/view-the-statement/">Uluru Statement</a>, followed by treaty and truth-telling. Some <a href="https://www.qld.gov.au/firstnations/treaty/queensland-path-to-treaty">states</a> and territory governments are already advancing their own <a href="https://www.firstpeoplesvic.org/treaty/">treaty processes</a> or agreement-making processes. </p>
<p>The Barunga Statement experience tells us that political relations between Australian and Indigenous people can bring rising hope, optimism and near always disappointment as political will wanes. </p>
<p>The Uluru Statement from the Heart and the Barunga Declaration both demonstrate enduring aspirations for a worthwhile and meaningful political agreement between Indigenous people and government.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206613/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Archie Thomas receives funding from Aboriginal Affairs NSW. They are a member of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heidi Norman and Matthew Walsh do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>NT Land Councils have presented the Barunga declaration to Prime Minister Albanese, expressing support for the Voice to Parliament. The Barunga Statement in 1988 was an important part of this journey.Archie Thomas, Chancellor's Research Fellow, University of Technology SydneyHeidi Norman, Professor, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology SydneyMatthew Walsh, Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2060922023-06-08T20:07:15Z2023-06-08T20:07:15ZVoice, treaty, truth: compared to other settler nations, Australia is the exception, not the rule<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529694/original/file-20230602-19-8wjczk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C7%2C1288%2C836&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/DetailsReports/PhotoDetail.aspx?Barcode=11447034">National Archives of Australia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and/or images of deceased people.</em></p>
<p>For many non-Indigenous Australians, it might seem the Voice to Parliament – the first step in the Uluru Statement’s process of “voice, treaty, truth” – is a recent idea. Conservative voices have framed it as a dangerously untested prospect. </p>
<p>But as First Nations have always known, voice, treaty and truth carry long histories. They’ve long been at the centre of Indigenous rights campaigns in Australia. They’ve also existed in other settler nations like New Zealand and Canada where treaties were forged at the point of colonisation. </p>
<p>These histories remind us how long First Nations people have waited for political recognition in this country – and that, compared to other former colonial sites, Australia is the exception, not the rule.</p>
<h2>The Larrakia petition</h2>
<p>Calls for voice as political representation have been part of First Nations activism in Australia for at least a century.</p>
<p>In the 1970s, Australian Aboriginal civil and lands rights movements harnessed long-running <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1324869">campaigns</a> by Aboriginal activists calling for rights to treaty, land and political representation. </p>
<p>One famous example is the <a href="https://www.naa.gov.au/students-and-teachers/learning-resources/learning-resource-themes/first-australians/politics-and-advocacy/larrakia-petition-queen-land-rights">Larrakia petition to the queen</a>, organised in 1972 to coincide with Princess Margaret’s royal visit. It carried more than 1,000 signatures.</p>
<p>It drew the queen’s attention to the failure of the British Crown to sign treaties with Indigenous peoples in Australia, unlike in New Zealand and North America, and called for her assistance in achieving </p>
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<p>land rights and political representation, now. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Larrikia organisers waited patiently outside Government House in Darwin to hand the petition directly to Princess Margaret. When a police barricade prevented them and tore the petition, they taped it together and sent it directly to Buckingham Palace.</p>
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<h2>William Cooper’s petition</h2>
<p>Decades earlier, Yorta Yorta civil rights activist and co-founder of the Australian Aborigines’ League, <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/william-cooper-protests">William Cooper</a>, spent the mid-1930s collecting more than 1,800 signatures from Indigenous communities across Australia for a petition to the king.</p>
<p>It urged the Crown to safeguard the interests of Aboriginal people as the original heirs and successors of the land and called for Indigenous political representation in the federal parliament. </p>
<p>As with the Larrakia petition, Australian government officials prevented the delivery of Cooper’s petition.</p>
<p>Even so, it remains a powerful reminder of the longevity of First Nations campaigns for a parliamentary voice. It also reminds us how long Australia has resisted activating one.</p>
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<h2>In other countries, it has been different</h2>
<p>In Canada and New Zealand, the British Crown did make treaties with Indigenous peoples at the point of formal colonisation. In these countries, the right of political representation has not been contested in the same way.</p>
<p>That’s not to say these nations provide a direct model for Australia. Each country has its own history and political relationship between Indigenous peoples and government. And nobody’s suggesting treaties in other places fixed sovereignty disputes or guaranteed Indigenous rights.</p>
<p>But treaty rights dating back to the 1800s gave First Nations peoples in other settler colonial sites political leverage in a way Australia’s First Nations have been denied.</p>
<p>In Canada, First Nations treaty rights and rights of self-determination are enshrined in the Constitution. An elected <a href="https://www.afn.ca/">Assembly of First Nations</a> liaises with the federal government as the representative body.</p>
<p>In New Zealand, Māori have had dedicated parliamentary seats since the 1860s. Political representation is enshrined in the <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/zoomify/33905/maori-representation-act-1867">Māori Representation Act 1867</a>, which gave all Māori men the right to vote.</p>
<p>Colonial officials originally conceived the Māori Representation Act 1867 as a way to bring Māori into the <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/maori-and-the-vote/setting-up-seats">colonial political system</a> rather than as a vehicle for an independent political voice. </p>
<p>Despite its colonial underpinnings, it shows how a formal avenue of Indigenous political representation existed almost from the beginning of the colonial relationship in a setting where treaty existed.</p>
<p>This raises the longer history of treaty discussions in colonial Australia. </p>
<h2>Australia’s missed opportunities for treaty</h2>
<p>Australia was exceptional in Britain’s settler empire for having no formal history of treaty between Indigenous peoples and the Crown.</p>
<p>The doctrine of <a href="https://australian.museum/learn/first-nations/unsettled/recognising-invasions/terra-nullius/"><em>terra nullius</em></a>, or land belonging to no one, was how Britain claimed possession in 1788.</p>
<p>But that doctrine did not necessarily hold true in perpetuity, and the continuing absence of treaties in Australia was not inevitable. </p>
<p>By the 1800s, the mood of the Colonial Office (the British government department that managed colonies) had shifted. </p>
<p>In the early 1830s, Tasmania was coming through its devastating <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/the-black-line">land wars</a>. This experience motivated Tasmania’s Governor George Arthur to write to the Colonial Office in London. He suggested treaty arrangements should be made with Indigenous peoples in the territories of western and southern Australia to avoid a similar risk.</p>
<p>Arthur’s intervention dovetailed with a larger agenda for colonial reform after the abolition of slavery, and the British imperial government was receptive to his advice.</p>
<p>In 1835, the Colonial Office told South Australia’s colonisation commissioners that the Crown would not sanction British settlement there unless they could show they <a href="https://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/resources/transcripts/sa2_doc_1836.pdf">would</a> protect Aboriginal people’s</p>
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<p>earlier and preferable title.</p>
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<p>The colonisation commissioners committed to purchase Aboriginal lands on those conditions. But because colonial authorities decided “earlier and preferable title” did not exist according to the law of possession, these purchases didn’t happen.</p>
<p>The year 1835, then, was a turning point. Treaties might have been forged with Indigenous peoples in the new colony of South Australia, but they <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/7127305">were not</a>. </p>
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<p>Instead, the Crown tried to mitigate problems of frontier warfare by claiming Aboriginal people as British subjects who would receive equal protection under the law. </p>
<p>This became settled colonial policy across Australia, although it was almost never realised in practice.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-the-1800s-colonisers-attempted-to-listen-to-first-nations-people-it-didnt-stop-the-massacres-204538">In the 1800s, colonisers attempted to listen to First Nations people. It didn't stop the massacres</a>
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<h2>Truth: resetting the relationship, not just the record</h2>
<p>This brings us to the question of truth. When we speak about remembering past injustices – especially the history of colonial land wars – it’s often presented as uncovering a hidden or secret history.</p>
<p>But in 19th century Australia, the frontier wars were far from secret. Colonial authorities constantly debated the problem. Until the end of the 19th century (and later in northern Australia), it was one of the most persistent topics in official correspondence and the colonial press.</p>
<p>What’s missing from the colonial records are the voices and perspectives of the Indigenous communities who experienced the frontier wars. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-series/the-australian-wars">These histories</a>, however, have always had a strong presence in Indigenous intergenerational knowledge, as well as the intergenerational knowledge of settler-descended communities where these events occurred. </p>
<p>Legal scholars Gabrielle Appleby and Megan Davis <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1031461X.2018.1523838?journalCode=rahs20">have emphasised</a> that the value of truth is not just in resetting the historical record but in constructively resetting the relationship between First Nations and the rest of the nation. </p>
<p>The longer histories of voice, treaty and truth tell us the time for politically constructive reform is well overdue.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-voice-isnt-apartheid-or-a-veto-over-parliament-this-misinformation-is-undermining-democratic-debate-205474">The Voice isn't apartheid or a veto over parliament – this misinformation is undermining democratic debate</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206092/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amanda Nettelbeck receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>These histories remind us how long First Nations people have waited for political recognition in this country – and that, compared to other former colonial sites, Australia is the exception, not the rule.Amanda Nettelbeck, Professor of History, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2053842023-05-28T20:06:27Z2023-05-28T20:06:27ZFar from undermining democracy, The Voice will pluralise and enrich Australia’s democratic conversation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527618/original/file-20230523-23-trurlw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cheryl Axleby reads the Uluru Statement from the Heart outside South Australia’s Parliament in Adelaide on March 26, after SA becomes the first state to legislate for an Indigenous Voice.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Matt Turner/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Does the proposal for a Voice to Parliament prefigure a distinctive conception of democracy for Australia? A steady drumbeat of criticism to date has been that it will, instead, undermine our liberal democratic institutions.</p>
<p>One version of this concern is that an Indigenous Voice violates the principle of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/may/02/liberals-accused-of-flirting-with-far-right-fringe-after-sky-news-show-where-indigenous-voice-compared-to-apartheid">equal citizenship</a> and equality before the law. Another is that it introduces a divisive form of <a href="https://www.cis.org.au/commentary/opinion/voice-a-dagger-to-the-heart-of-liberalism/">racial politics</a> into our public life. Some claim it will have little impact on improving the lives of Indigenous people. Yet others say it will have <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7w7tgDccx0">too much power</a>. </p>
<p>A significant part of the debate has been carried out — so far, at least — in a negative tone, and even by some of its supporters. The focus has been on what the Voice won’t do and what its limits are, and less about what it can do. </p>
<p>Of course, the Yes campaign is only just beginning. And there have been powerful statements of support from different sections of the community. State governments, sporting codes, companies, and community organisations have expressed their support in various ways. </p>
<p>However, I want to place the proposal for a Voice into a broader context of democratic innovation and renewal. Taken in isolation, claims about whether the Voice should make “representations” only to Parliament, or also to “executive government”, can seem rather arcane and confusing. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-voice-isnt-apartheid-or-a-veto-over-parliament-this-misinformation-is-undermining-democratic-debate-205474">The Voice isn't apartheid or a veto over parliament – this misinformation is undermining democratic debate</a>
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<p>Concerns about judicial activism and the rule of law, detached from a broader account of how the interplay between law and politics works in a representative democracy, can be <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-happens-if-the-government-goes-against-the-advice-of-the-voice-to-parliament-200517">misleading</a>. We are not, for example, as a result of the Voice, on the verge of a massive transfer of power to the High Court, as just about every credible legal commentator has made clear. </p>
<p>The American democratic theorist <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dewey/">John Dewey</a> said that “the public is a collective called forth by experience of common problems”. </p>
<p>And the way that democratic societies deal with common problems is through public conversation — through what political theorists call “public reasoning”. </p>
<p>The Australian public is being called forth through the referendum process to address the unresolved status of Indigenous peoples in our body politic. We need a richer account of democracy within which to locate the proposal for a Voice to raise the quality of our debate about it. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527613/original/file-20230523-17381-3mo8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527613/original/file-20230523-17381-3mo8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527613/original/file-20230523-17381-3mo8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527613/original/file-20230523-17381-3mo8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527613/original/file-20230523-17381-3mo8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527613/original/file-20230523-17381-3mo8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527613/original/file-20230523-17381-3mo8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527613/original/file-20230523-17381-3mo8a.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"></a>
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<span class="caption">Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney and Australian Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus react after the introduction of the bill to establish an Aboriginal and Torres Strat Islander Voice in the House of Representatives.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lukas Coch/AAP</span></span>
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<h2>Distinctive qualities</h2>
<p>What is distinctive about the Voice is both its democratic pedigree and its democratic character. Although there are reasonable questions about how much more democratic it could have been, the emergence of the proposal for the Voice from community led dialogues across Australia lends it strong democratic credence. </p>
<p>And at the heart of it is a mechanism for improving the quality of decision making about matters that affect Indigenous peoples. </p>
<p>The desire to anchor the Voice in the constitution is intended both to protect it from being subject to the whims of electoral politics, and to mark the special place Indigenous peoples have in our history. </p>
<p>There is both a forward looking and remedial aspect to this form of recognition. Given the persistent gap in life prospects between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples over decades, we know our existing institutions are not working. But equally, given the complexity of these issues, and the ongoing legacies of colonial dispossession, we need to find ways to keep working through these challenges together. </p>
<p>The proposal is also unique globally. In Canada, <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/index.html">the Constitution Act of 1982</a> recognised “existing” Aboriginal treaty rights, resulting in a long march through the courts to figure out exactly what that means. In the United States, the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/enrd/timeline-event/federal-trust-doctrine-first-described-supreme-court">“domestic dependent</a> nation status of Indian nations, formulated by the Supreme Court in the 19th century, has meant, again, that the courts have led the conversation. In New Zealand, the establishment of the <a href="https://www.waitangitribunal.govt.nz/treaty-of-waitangi/">Waitangi Tribunal</a> (a commission of inquiry, chaired by a judge) and reserved parliamentary seats for Maori, has resulted in a very different kind of political process for resolving purported breaches of the treaty. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/history-and-myth-why-the-treaty-of-waitangi-remains-such-a-bloody-difficult-subject-202038">History and myth: why the Treaty of Waitangi remains such a ‘bloody difficult subject’</a>
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<p>The proposed Voice to Parliament, on the other hand, is seeking to anchor Indigenous perspectives in the constitution, but also at the heart of our democratic institutions. </p>
<p>So, what is the best way of conceiving of the kind of democracy that I think the Voice is calling for? </p>
<p>One of the fundamental values underpinning democracy is political equality. But what kind of political equality? The idea of equality appealed to by many critics of the Voice is too simplistic. Often, it’s a claim that equal treatment means the <em>same</em> treatment, in every circumstance. </p>
<p>But our legal and political institutions already make sense of equality in much richer ways. To treat someone equally requires that we answer at least two further questions: equal in what respect? And to what extent do their circumstances require further consideration in figuring out how to treat them equally?</p>
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<span class="caption">What is the best way of conceiving of the kind of democracy that the Voice is calling for?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lukas Koch/AAP</span></span>
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<p>There are two elements to what I’ll call <em>democratic</em> political equality. </p>
<p>The first are those rights that citizens need to protect them from the harms that both the state and society can do. These include the classic protections of freedom of assembly, of religion, of speech, of property and bodily integrity. </p>
<p>The second element, however, and too often neglected, is the positive freedoms associated with participation in public life. We can only ever truly secure our freedoms when we share equally in the power being exercised over us. Citizens need to have the opportunity to shape the laws to which they are subject; in short, they must be empowered. </p>
<p>Most importantly, as leading democratic theorists such as Jurgen Habermas and Danielle Allen have argued, these public and private freedoms are mutually dependent: you can’t fully realise one without the other. Thus democracy, on this reading, is instrumentally valuable — it protects us from harms and enables us to pursue our own interests. But it is also intrinsically valuable — it helps us lead better lives by empowering us to shape the society within which we live. </p>
<h2>‘Public reasoning’</h2>
<p>Another aspect underpinning the kind of democracy the Voice is calling for is what I referred to above as "public reasoning”. Put simply, in a democracy, you solve problems through public conversation. But the terms of these conversations — who participates and how, as well as the kinds of reasons one can or shouldn’t appeal to — matter. </p>
<p>It’s not that citizens engage as if they were in a philosophy seminar, or in a court of law. Rather, it’s that we agree to resolve our disagreements, or continue to live with them, as best we can, through dialogue. These conversations will often be difficult and frustrating, as well as incomplete and disorienting. But the spirit driving them, ultimately, must be one of mutual respect and persuasion, rather than the exercise of arbitrary power. </p>
<p>However, citizens are unequally positioned relative to each other in terms of how they can participate in these public conversations. Hence why the positive freedoms I mentioned above are so important to secure. </p>
<p>Some have more access to resources than others. Some are more eloquent or forceful than others. Majority cultures tend to shape public discussions and institutions in both explicit and implicit ways that can disadvantage minorities.</p>
<p>Thus, we need to design democratic institutions so that they are responsive to the deep pluralism of our society. We need to multiply the ways in which diverse citizens and groups can participate in public debate and policy making. This cuts against technocratic forms of rule, as well as rule by simply majority. </p>
<p>I think this is the best interpretation of what “making representations” to parliament and the executive in the draft constitutional amendment means and why it should be preserved. It’s about creating a mechanism for pluralising and enriching Australia’s democratic conversation. It’s not about identity politics. It’s not intended as a conversation stopper. </p>
<p>Finally, this way of conceiving of democracy should shape our conception of democratic citizenship. It’s not simply a legal status, and nor is it mainly about voting and obeying the law. Instead, citizenship becomes a richer, more capacious ideal. </p>
<p>According to this richer ideal, democratic citizenship also involves the development of forms of self-awareness and self-formation through a wide range of deliberations about our existing institutions. Our sense of common interests, for example, can expand as we encounter new claims, or re-interpretations of existing ones, that we were previously unaware of. Pluralising public reason creates room for democratic innovation. </p>
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<p>Deva Woodly, in her <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/reckoning-9780197603956?cc=au&lang=en&#">brilliant analysis</a> of the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement, uses the analogy of “swailing” — or what we know as the Aboriginal land management practice of “<a href="https://theconversation.com/painting-with-fire-how-northern-australia-developed-one-of-the-worlds-best-bushfire-management-programs-205113">cool burning</a>” — to analogise the kind of renewal that social movements generate for fragile democratic environments. </p>
<p>Woodly points out how these movements draw out the contradictions between ideals and political realities, and demonstrate that democracy is always an incomplete process. The social movements that have led to the Uluru statement — going back over decades — have provided a kind of democratic cool burning for Australian public discourse. </p>
<h2>Democratic all the way down</h2>
<p>In proposing a new mechanism for enhancing Indigenous voices in our political institutions, the Voice is appealing to the interdependence between public and private freedoms, as well as the value of government through public reasoning. </p>
<p>Note that framing the Voice in this way also offers us a means of assessing how best to design and implement the details, if the constitutional amendment is approved. </p>
<p>Democratic values cut in both directions. The way that local and regional Indigenous communities select and engage with their Voice representatives, as well as those in Canberra, will be critical. </p>
<p>The norms that govern those processes will need to reflect the broader democratic intent of the Voice. The <a href="https://ncq.org.au/resources/indigenous-voice-co-design-process-final-report-to-australian-government/#:%7E:text=The%20Indigenous%20Voice%20Co%2Ddesign,the%20Australian%20Government%20and%20Parliament.">final report</a> of the Indigenous co-design process is a good place to start for exploring these different possibilities. </p>
<p>Let’s return to some of the criticisms we began with: Is the Voice introducing division where there is unity, racial categories where there is neutrality, and inequality where there is equality? I think the answer is clearly no. </p>
<p>First, the social, economic, and political baseline we are starting from is radically unequal. Almost everyone agrees that the gap between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders’ wellbeing and that of the rest of the population is shameful. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/first-nations-people-in-the-nt-receive-just-16-of-the-medicare-funding-of-an-average-australian-183210">First Nations people in the NT receive just 16% of the Medicare funding of an average Australian</a>
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<p>Second, it’s not Indigenous people who have insisted on introducing racial categories into our politics, but rather successive Australian governments and the legal and political institutions that arose from settlement. It was the High Court, after all, that drew on the Racial Discrimination Act, among other sources, to remove long entrenched legal obstacles to the recognition of native title in <a href="https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/mabo-case">Mabo</a>. </p>
<p>And it was the Australian government that suspended the application of that act when it legislated the Northern Territory “<a href="https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/social-justice-report-2007-chapter-3-northern-territory-emergency-response-intervention">Intervention</a>” in 2007. </p>
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<span class="caption">A 2008 protest march in Sydney against the NT Intervention. The Australian government suspended the application of the Racial Discrimination Act when it legislated for the Intervention.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dean Lewins/AAP</span></span>
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<p>Race, in other words, has been a primary tool of the state over many years, not the social movements that have sought justice for Aboriginal people. The Voice isn’t a proposal for reintroducing racial categories into our civic identity, despite what <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-22/peter-dutton-says-indigenous-voice-will-re-racialise-the-country/102378700">Peter Dutton</a> recently claimed. In fact, quite the opposite: it is an attempt to reconfigure that identity so that it no longer reflects the racial injustices of the past (and the present). </p>
<p>This democratic framing can also help us think through a deep criticism of the Voice from the left. Some have argued that nothing less than a treaty, rather than a deliberative body, is required to fully disrupt the colonial edifice of the Australian state. The Voice, on this reading, is a form of entrapment; it naturalises settler law and the colonial political order. </p>
<p>However, if we see the constitutional recognition of an Indigenous Voice in democratic terms (and assuming it can indeed reflect the diverse voices of Indigenous peoples), then it offers a practical way of working through these profound questions. </p>
<p>The Uluru statement is, after all, rooted in a claim of continuing sovereignty. Nothing about the referendum process requires a repudiation of that.</p>
<p>However, the establishment of a constitutionally recognised deliberative body puts in place a mechanism for an ongoing conversation between peoples that could, over time, reconfigure these relations.</p>
<p>It offers a means for enlarging and deepening our public reasoning about not only the consequences of the past, but our collective aspirations for the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205384/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Duncan Ivison has received funding from the Australian Research Council for projects related to the themes of this article. </span></em></p>We need a richer account of democracy within which to locate the Voice, to lift the quality of public debate about it.Duncan Ivison, Professor of Political Philosophy, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2031572023-04-03T07:18:38Z2023-04-03T07:18:38ZLiberals to meet on Voice, with Julian Leeser favouring campaign freedom for senior figures<p>Opposition spokesman for Indigenous Australians Julian Leeser has delivered a detailed critique of the government’s Voice proposal, ahead of Wednesday’s special Liberal Party meeting to determine its stand. </p>
<p>Leeser, a long-time supporter of the Voice, also flagged he would like to see shadow ministers given the right to support either side at the referendum.</p>
<p>Asked about the republic referendum where senior Liberals were free to support the yes or no case, Leeser praised that approach. “I think the proposal during the republic referendum was good.” But he said he did not want to pre-empt the party room discussion. </p>
<p>Opposition leader Peter Dutton has hardened his rhetoric on the Voice proposal in recent weeks, and Liberal sources say there is a majority against it in the party room. The Nationals have already come out in opposition.</p>
<p>Leeser, addressing the National Press Club, argued that if there was a danger of the referendum failing, it should be withdrawn – something Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has emphatically ruled out.</p>
<p>“I wish the referendum was in a better place than it is,” Leeser said. But the government was “mucking it up” by not trying to find common ground and not trusting Australians with all the facts. </p>
<p>Leeser attacked the government’s approach for being “top down”, urged a “ground up” model, and called for an extensive change to the wording of the proposed insertion into the constitution. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/were-all-in-declares-an-emotional-albanese-as-he-launches-the-wording-for-the-voice-referendum-202435">'We're all in', declares an emotional Albanese as he launches the wording for the Voice referendum</a>
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<p>He said the opposition supported “local and regional voices”, saying that funding for these should be in the May budget. </p>
<p>“Any national voice must be deeply connected to the local and regional voices across Australia and it would have been better if the national voice was settled by reaching a bipartisan legislated consensus before we went to a referendum,” he said.</p>
<p>But the local and regional had “been forgotten by the government, ignored even in the Voice design principles released last week”. </p>
<p>Leeser also said one clause of the proposed constitutional change should be deleted. </p>
<p>The government’s proposed new section reads: </p>
<p><em>In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia</em></p>
<p><em>There shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice</em></p>
<p><em>The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples</em></p>
<p><em>The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.</em></p>
<p>Leeser said the second clause, covering representations, raised three questions: Who could the Voice talk to? What could it talk about? What did it mean to make representations? The answers to these questions were currently unclear, Leeser said. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-a-no-vote-in-the-voice-referendum-would-put-a-serious-dent-in-australias-image-abroad-201157">Grattan on Friday: A 'No' vote in the Voice referendum would put a serious dent in Australia's image abroad</a>
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<p>It wasn’t enough to say these questions would be dealt with later by legislation. “You can’t out-legislate the constitution,” he said. </p>
<p>“I raise these issues not only at a technical level, but a political one as well. Because this clause will be the rallying point for the no campaign. </p>
<p>"For those that want the referendum to succeed, it puts the broader constitutional question at risk.”</p>
<p>He also warned about the proposed reference to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples “as the First Peoples of Australia”. </p>
<p>This was “a symbolic statement that sets out an incontrovertible fact”. But it raised the question of what the term implied at law. “The Constitution is not a good place for historic or symbolic statements, however well-meaning, as those statements have a legal effect and will be subject to judicial interpretation in ways that we cannot imagine”. </p>
<p>Anthony Albanese accused the opposition of “an attempt to undermine the prospect of a successful referendum”. </p>
<p>Albanese, in his tribute following the death of highly-respected Indigenous leader Yunupingu, a former Australian of the Year, said that at the Garma festival last year, after he announced the details of the referendum, Yunupingu had asked him, “‘Are you serious this time?’ I replied: ‘Yes, we’re going to go for it.’</p>
<p>"When I spoke with him just over a week ago, I told him I was confident we would get there. This brought him some comfort, as did his totems of fire and baru, the saltwater crocodile, which watched over him in his final days,” Albanese said.</p>
<p>“We mourn with his people today. And we pay tribute to a lifetime of advocating for the rights of Aboriginal people in this country. </p>
<p>"He was a key focal point of the development of the Uluru Statement from the Heart. […] And when that happened in 2017, he spoke about lighting a fire. I think that today is a day that I certainly recommit myself to do everything we can to make sure that that referendum is carried at the end of this year.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203157/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan 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>Opposition leader Peter Dutton has hardened his rhetoric criticising the Voice proposal in recent weeksMichelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2002612023-04-02T20:03:52Z2023-04-02T20:03:52ZWhat actually is a treaty? What could it mean for Indigenous people?<p><em>This is the second article in our series explaining Voice, Treaty and Truth. Read the other articles in the series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/voice-treaty-truth-explainers-134797">here</a>.</em> </p>
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<p>The Uluru Statement from the Heart calls for Voice, Treaty and Truth. These aspirations are intended as a <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-a-first-nations-voice-should-come-before-treaty-192388">sequence of reforms</a>, that advance towards a just settlement with First Peoples. </p>
<p>The federal government is committed to holding a referendum later this year to put an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice in the Australian Constitution. The government has also agreed to implement the Uluru Statement “<a href="https://www.niaa.gov.au/indigenous-affairs/uluru-statement-heart#:%7E:text=The%20Australian%20Government%20has%20committed,Voice%20in%20the%20Australian%20Constitution">in full</a>”. </p>
<p>Following the referendum, it’s expected attention will shift towards a Makarrata Commission to “work on a national process of treaty-making and truth-telling”. In fact, <a href="https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/indigenous-treaty-on-the-agenda-before-voice-vote-20230221-p5cm6w">reports suggest</a> the government might move even faster. </p>
<p>For generations, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have called for a formal treaty or treaties to recognise their sovereignty “<a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/its-our-country-paperback-softback">and set out mutually agreed terms for our relationship with the Australian government</a>”. </p>
<p>But while Treaty has long been part of the political landscape, it is not well understood. Many Australians wonder what a Treaty is, what it would achieve, who it would be negotiated with, or for whom, and how. We’ll explore some of these questions here (in brief). </p>
<h2>Why does Australia not have a Treaty?</h2>
<p>When European colonial powers encountered Indigenous peoples, they often negotiated treaties. These agreements dealt with a range of matters, including trade and military alliances. They also set out rules to share the land and maintain peaceful relationships. </p>
<p>These colonial-era treaties were regularly broken. However, they recognised Indigenous peoples had the right to deal with land and exercised sovereignty over that land. </p>
<p>The British did not engage in treaty talks in Australia. They never sought to negotiate with the owners of this land. Instead, they claimed the land belonged to no one and took it for themselves. </p>
<p>Historians have debated why the British took this approach. <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/possession-paperback-softback">Some have argued</a> as a <a href="https://www.amazon.com.au/Recognizing-Aboriginal-Title-English-settler-Colonialism/dp/0802094430">penal colony with a substantial military force</a> there was no need to negotiate trading relationships with the original owners. Others have argued the racist attitudes of the day were influential. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512601/original/file-20230228-24-oxlann.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512601/original/file-20230228-24-oxlann.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512601/original/file-20230228-24-oxlann.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512601/original/file-20230228-24-oxlann.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512601/original/file-20230228-24-oxlann.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512601/original/file-20230228-24-oxlann.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512601/original/file-20230228-24-oxlann.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512601/original/file-20230228-24-oxlann.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=549&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">Nobody knows why the British didn’t negotiate a Treaty with the First Peoples, as was custom at the time. But Australia is now an outlier. ‘The Founding of Australia. By Capt. Arthur Phillip R.N. Sydney Cove, Jan. 26th 1788’, oil sketch painted in 1937, by Algernon Talmage.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Founding_of_Australia._By_Capt._Arthur_Phillip_R.N._Sydney_Cove,_Jan._26th_1788.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Whatever the reason, the result is Australia is an outlier. As a result, many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples believe the moral and legal basis of the nation is “<a href="https://www.ipaa.org.au/professor-mick-dodson-our-nation-sits-at-a-crossroads-enough-with-the-humbug/">a little legally shaky</a>”.</p>
<h2>What is a Treaty?</h2>
<p>The absence of a Treaty is one of the major challenges facing the Treaty debate in Australia. Without a history of treaty-making, the concept of what a treaty is or involves remains vague for many people, including <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07256868.2019.1675615">government</a>. </p>
<p>It means some people can argue a Treaty is dangerous or it would lead to the breakup of the nation. This makes little sense because a Treaty is <a href="https://search.informit.org/doi/abs/10.3316/agispt.20211109056535">a marriage not a divorce</a>. It’s about bringing communities together and building strong relationships based on self-determination. </p>
<p>Governments might argue they’re already engaged in treaty-making. There are many examples of bureaucracy adapting its policy formulation and delivery to reflect community aspirations for a greater say in the delivery of services. </p>
<p>Such “partnerships”, “co-design” and local decision-making with government are valuable. They mark an important shift in promoting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ participation in policy development and service delivery. But simply calling an agreement a “treaty” doesn’t make it a treaty.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1265060477282906113"}"></div></p>
<p>Australia has signed up to a range of <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2018/11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf">international legal instruments</a> that concern the rights of Indigenous peoples. These legal instruments set a clear standard for what makes an agreement a treaty. A treaty must satisfy <a href="http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/SydLawRw/2018/1.html">three conditions</a>. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>A treaty acknowledges Indigenous peoples are a distinct political community different to other Australians. This is because Indigenous peoples are the only group of Australians who owned, occupied, and governed the continent before colonisation. This recognition also acknowledges the historic and contemporary injustices that invasion has caused</p></li>
<li><p>A treaty is a political agreement reached by a fair process of negotiation between equals. <a href="https://www.atns.net.au/">Negotiation</a> helps ensure everyone’s interests can be considered. But securing a fair negotiation process can be difficult. In Victoria, the First Peoples Assembly and State government have agreed to a <a href="https://www.firstpeoplesvic.org/reports-resources/treaty-negotiation-framework/">Treaty Negotiation Framework</a> that sets out principles to guide Treaty talks</p></li>
<li><p>Treaties involve both sides committing to responsibilities, promises and principles that bind the parties in an ongoing relationship of mutual obligation and shared responsibility. Most importantly, while the outcomes of any negotiation will differ according to the parties, a treaty is built on the recognition of Indigenous peoples’ inherent sovereignty. As part of this, a treaty will provide for some degree of self-government. What this looks like in practice will be worked out in negotiations. </p></li>
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<p>A treaty will also include a range of other elements. It could include financial compensation, return of land, formal recognition of historic wrongs, and symbolic gestures of reconciliation, such as apologies.</p>
<p>Treaties are unique agreements. As Professor Megan Davis <a href="https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2018/july/1530367200/megan-davis/voice-treaty-truth#mtr">explains</a>, they are aimed at “settling fundamental grievances, and establishing binding frameworks of future engagement and dispute resolution”. </p>
<h2>Modern treaties are different from historic treaties</h2>
<p>There is a long history of treaty-making all over the world from which Australia can draw lessons. But it’s important to note modern treaties differ from those negotiated in colonial periods. They are more technical and legally complex. They are also negotiated against a long history of inequitable relationships. </p>
<p>They will also be subject to Australian law. While colonial-era treaties were international agreements between two sovereign communities, modern treaties will be subject to Australian law. </p>
<h2>Treaty is happening now</h2>
<p>Treaty is a <a href="https://federationpress.com.au/product/treaty-2/">longstanding aspiration</a> of First Peoples in Australia. It is only in recent years, however, <a href="https://insidestory.org.au/how-the-treaty-momentum-is-growing/">governments have decided to talk treaty</a>. </p>
<p>Progress has been slow, but important steps have been taken at the state and territory level. For instance, in February this year, the Queensland government introduced the Path to Treaty Bill 2023 into the state parliament. The bill will establish and finance an independent First Nations Treaty Institute to “<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-22/qld-treaty-truth-telling-inquiry-queensland-parliament/102008708">help prepare and support First Nations people for treaty negotiations with the state</a>”. </p>
<p>That same month, the South Australian government introduced a bill to establish a <a href="https://www.agd.sa.gov.au/aboriginal-affairs-and-reconciliation/first-nations-voice-to-the-south-australian-parliament/first-nations-voice-model">Voice to the Parliament</a>, with a treaty process to follow. </p>
<p>In Victoria, after several years of patient work, negotiations between the First Peoples Assembly and state government are expected to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/20/historic-deal-struck-to-see-victorian-treaty-negotiations-with-first-nations-groups-begin-next-year">begin by the end of the year</a>. Similar processes are underway in the Northern Territory, Tasmania and the ACT. </p>
<p>Every treaty process has its own challenges and complications and it’s too early to tell whether these processes will result in meaningful settlements. Nevertheless, they demonstrate two key things. </p>
<p>First, Treaty is a matter of political will, not legal impossibility. Second, looking towards the referendum later this year, the existence of treaty processes across the country suggests Australians may be willing to deal with the unfinished business of colonisation and its consequences.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200261/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Indigenous people have been calling for a treaty for generations. But what would it actually look like and what would it do?Harry Hobbs, Associate professor, University of Technology SydneyHeidi Norman, Professor, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology SydneyMatthew Walsh, Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1992852023-03-28T01:49:21Z2023-03-28T01:49:21ZThe First Nations Voice to parliament could get us to revisit conversations about Australia becoming a republic<p>Australia is preparing for a referendum to decide on the proposed <a href="https://humanrights.gov.au/sites/default/files/a_voice_to_parliament_and_constitutional_reform_-_australias_third_upr_2021.pdf">Voice to parliament</a> for First Nations people. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has stated the referendum is likely to happen sometime between <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/03/23/1165526944/australia-decides-on-the-referendum-question-to-create-greater-say-for-indigenou">October and December</a> this year.</p>
<p>If the Voice passes the referendum, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders will be represented by a dedicated body to advise parliamentarians on the <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/indigenous-australians/atsi-adolescent-youth-health-wellbeing-2018/contents/summary">challenges</a> faced by First Nations Australians.</p>
<p>At the same time, we are also seeing <a href="https://www.6pr.com.au/poll-reveals-royal-family-drama-is-spiking-support-for-australian-republic/">growing public support</a> for the idea of Australia becoming a republic. This, like instituting a First Nations Voice to parliament, would involve significantly amending our Constitution.</p>
<p>If the referendum for a First Nations Voice is successful, what lessons might it hold for future possible constitutional amendments, such as Australia turning away from the monarchy and embracing <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/why-voting-on-an-indigenous-voice-will-shape-prospects-of-republic-referendum-20220916-p5bijg.html">republic status</a>? </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-1881-maloga-petition-a-call-for-self-determination-and-a-key-moment-on-the-path-to-the-voice-197796">The 1881 Maloga petition: a call for self-determination and a key moment on the path to the Voice</a>
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<h2>Why we need the Voice</h2>
<p>By committing to a referendum and steering Australia on the path towards a First Nations Voice, the Albanese government has provided an opportunity to focus firmly on the needs of First Nations communities. </p>
<p>Significant issues need to be addressed, such as ongoing health and social inequities. First Nations Australians are <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/indigenous-australians/life-expectancy-and-mortality-of-aboriginal-and-to/summary">more likely</a> to die early than non-Indigenous Australians.</p>
<p>In addition, ongoing <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/indigenous-australians/life-expectancy-and-mortality-of-aboriginal-and-to/summary">systemic</a> harm <a href="https://healingfoundation.org.au/intergenerational-trauma/">across generations</a> continues to impact First Nations peoples and their families.</p>
<p>Even with the little detail we know so far of the Voice’s proposed design, the <a href="https://www.unsw.edu.au/news/2021/01/an-indigenous--voice--must-be-enshrined-in-our-constitution--her">ethical reasons</a> behind its implementation are enough for many people to have already given the proposal their backing. In my view, instituting the Voice would be a vital step towards reconciliation between First Nations peoples and Australians of settler backgrounds.</p>
<p>To achieve reconciliation, another pivotal step on this long journey would be to consider what began the centuries of <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/atwar/colonial">injustice and domination</a> of First Nations peoples: British invasion. </p>
<p>The British invasion of Australia disrupted at least <a href="https://digital.library.adelaide.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/2440/107043/2/hdl_107043.pdf">40,000 years</a> of cultures and traditions, and remaining part of that monarchy makes reconciliation between Australia’s First Peoples and its settler population much more difficult and unlikely.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/our-research-has-shown-indigenous-peoples-needs-cannot-be-understood-and-met-without-indigenous-voices-199286">Our research has shown Indigenous peoples' needs cannot be understood and met, without Indigenous voices</a>
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<h2>Australia’s allegiance to the Crown</h2>
<p>Last year’s accession of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63543019.amp">King Charles III</a> prompted <a href="https://www.2gb.com/debating-australias-future-should-australia-ditch-the-monarchy/">renewed debate</a> about whether and when Australia should end its allegiance to the British Crown.</p>
<p>Under Australia’s current constitutional arrangements, the Crown-appointed governor-general can decide whether a democratically elected prime minister remains in office. This is what led to the <a href="http://www.australianconstitutioncentre.org.au/separation-of-powers-ndash-well-may-we-say-ldquogod-save-the-queenrdquo.html">1975 crisis</a> in which Prime Minister Gough Whitlam <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/whitlam-dismissal">was sacked</a> by Governor-General Sir John Kerr.</p>
<p>In Australia, successive governments have done everything from <a href="https://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/item-sdid-99.html">removing the religious element</a> from Queen Elizabeth II’s regal title in 1973, to establishing principles that prevent undue interference in Australia’s <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2004A03181">legislative</a> or <a href="http://cefa.org.au/ccf/what-was-role-privy-council#:%7E:text=Historically%20the%20Privy%20Council%20was,appealed%20to%20the%20Privy%20Council.">judicial</a> processes. Despite this, the Crown’s presence and institutions remain ingrained in our governance and constitution.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1632698949369823233"}"></div></p>
<p>Consider also that First Nations MPs, upon entering parliament, have to swear their allegiance to the reigning British monarch. This is something many would find difficult and contrary to why they are entering political life.</p>
<h2>Would we ever have to choose between a Voice and a Republic?</h2>
<p>There has been a lot of disagreement about constitutional transformation, yet there is clear support for a Voice from <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/aug/12/the-peter-fitzsimons-interview-with-jacinta-price-that-sparked-a-week-long-culture-war">Australian republic advocates</a>. Naturally, thousands of Australians feel they are not being heard, and want a more direct voice to their government as well.</p>
<p>Australians demonstrated they’re unhappy with their politicians and their government in a <a href="https://www.roymorgan.com/products-and-tools/state-of-the-nation">State of the Nation survey in 2022</a>. Australians may be increasingly unhappy with their governments, yet <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp2223/Quick_Guides/ConstitutionalReferendumsAustralia">Australians do not often vote yes in a referendum</a>, which naturally raises concern for those who want the voice and a republic.</p>
<p>Although the State of the Nation survey demonstrated a lack of trust in politicians and our system of government, that alone is not enough to prompt people to vote for constitutional transformation. People need to see how a change will make life in Australia better for them. For a republic, the power is shifted from an elite family to the majority through an elected representative.</p>
<p>Republic supporters may be particularly apprehensive, having already <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-history-of-referendums-in-australia-is-riddled-with-failure-albanese-has-much-at-risk-and-much-to-gain-198799">fallen short of a victory</a> in the previous referendum in 1999. Could the voice referendum throw out the republic debate for another decade?</p>
<p>The Albanese government has made it clear the <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/republic-isn-t-on-the-radar-as-pm-names-voice-the-top-priority-20221214-p5c698.html">First Nations Voice must take priority</a>, but has fully committed to a republic referendum, and has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jun/01/minister-republic-twilight-queen-reign-good-opportunity-next-for-australia">appointed an assistant minister</a> to the project of shaping Australia’s sovereignty.</p>
<p>The Uluru Statement from the Heart states First Nations <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-we-mean-when-we-say-sovereignty-was-never-ceded-195205">sovereignty was never ceded</a> and that it coexists with the sovereignty of the Crown. </p>
<p>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are not challenging the Crown in the call for self-determination, but for coexistence alongside the Crown. Should that Crown cease to hold sovereignty over Australia, naturally, First Nations people will continue to coexist with whatever sovereignty takes its place.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/were-all-in-declares-an-emotional-albanese-as-he-launches-the-wording-for-the-voice-referendum-202435">'We're all in', declares an emotional Albanese as he launches the wording for the Voice referendum</a>
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<h2>How can we best move forward?</h2>
<p>Apart from caring for people, lands and waters, both the Voice to Parliament and the Australian Republic referenda have the potential to bring a more independent identity for our country. </p>
<p>This is especially important as we live in a time where <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-shut-down-far-right-extremism-in-australia-we-must-confront-the-ecosystem-of-hate-154269">far-right groups</a> and false information place Australia’s freedom and democracy at risk. </p>
<p>These steps are also important in addressing the burden of crisis and torment experienced by First Nations people since Britain’s invasion.</p>
<p>The question is no longer whether we should have a voice for First Nations Australia, but why we don’t have one already. Surely the same can be said of our nation’s independence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199285/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jesse J. Fleay is affiliated with Australian Labor Party. </span></em></p>In the lead-up to the Voice to parliament referendum, we’re seeing constitutional change is possible. If the Voice is successful, Australia could next consider separating us from the monarchy.Jesse J. Fleay, Republic Constitutional Scholar, Federalist, Co-Author of the Uluru Statement, University of Notre Dame AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1993062023-02-07T01:32:34Z2023-02-07T01:32:34ZPolitics with Michelle Grattan: Senator Malarndirri McCarthy on Alice Springs and the Voice<p>Alcohol bans are being reimposed on Northern Territory Indigenous communities, as the federal and territory governments grapple with intractable problems in Alice Springs and elsewhere in the NT.</p>
<p>The situation in Alice Springs and the surrounding communities has come into the national news at the same time as debate ramps up about this year’s referendum for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.</p>
<p>In this podcast, Michelle talks with Malarndirri McCarthy, Labor senator for the Northern Territory and Assistant Minister for Indigenous Australians. McCarthy is a former journalist and also served in the territory parliament, including as minister for children and families. </p>
<p>McCarthy argues for the bans, which the NT government previously described as “race-based”. “What we’ve witnessed over the last few weeks in particular are scenes that show us that the urgency that’s required does need a circuit breaker […] there is no doubt we do have issues with alcohol across the Northern Territory, but I’m also seeing it on our borders as well with Western Australia and also with Queensland.</p>
<p>"There’s a deeper issue here about what is the future for these Australians who require jobs, who require hope for what the future looks like, but also require a safe place for their children and families to grow up in.”</p>
<p>Asked her perspective, as a former minister for children, on the dilemma involved in deciding whether and when to remove Indigenous children at risk, McCarthy says: “One of the things I worked very closely on when I had the portfolio in the Northern Territory government as families minister was the absolute importance of the kinship structure. That when a child is in a dire situation with their mother, with their father, that they have other options within their family network […] It’s something I do. I look after three children in a very kinship environment. You know, an eight year old and twins who are nine.</p>
<p>"Of course, if a child is at risk, whatever that risk, they must be removed to be safe.”</p>
<p>Is this the right time for a referendum and how confident is she about its passing? “This is the right time, 2023, to embark on this journey. I know it’s going to be tough. It’s already started out that way […] but I do believe that in the goodness of our country. I have this deep abiding optimism that no matter how tough it gets, you know, I do essentially believe Australians are good people at heart and that we will get to the other side of this.”</p>
<p>“Treaty” was a theme of the recent Invasion Day protests. How quickly would the government pursue a treaty after it passed the Voice? “We’ve already begun conversations around a Makarrata Commission and what that may possibly look like, we’ve been engaging with state and territory ministers or premiers and chief ministers about the work they’re doing towards treaty in their respective jurisdictions.”</p>
<p>If the referendum succeeds, there has been a suggestion the Voice might not be operating until 2025. Pressed on the timetable McCarthy is blunt. “Well, it’s been a long time over the last ten years for this process, and I think people have been very patient and very particular about their research and about the work that they’ve done. I would think that 2025 would be better than 2035.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199306/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan 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 this podcast, Michelle talks with Malarndirri McCarthy, Labor Senator for the Northern Territory and Assistant Minister for Indigenous AustraliansMichelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1949452022-11-23T13:15:35Z2022-11-23T13:15:35ZThe Energy Charter Treaty lets fossil fuel firms sue governments – but its future is now in question<p>European governments are finally starting to abandon a treaty that could stop them taking much-needed climate action and that protects the interests of fossil fuel companies and investors.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.energycharter.org/">energy charter treaty</a> (ECT), which has been signed by <a href="https://www.energycharter.org/process/energy-charter-treaty-1994/energy-charter-treaty/signatories-contracting-parties/">53 European and Asian countries</a>, was drafted to protect energy firms in formerly Soviet countries from falling into state ownership and being subject to excessive regulation. </p>
<p>But the ECT has become outdated. The continued protection of fossil fuel investors – and the suing of governments for millions of euros – contradicts the efforts of European countries to curb their emissions in line with the 2015 <a href="https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/paris-agreement">Paris climate agreement</a>. The legitimacy of the treaty has also come under fire. </p>
<p>European states are therefore exiting the treaty. France <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/21/france-becomes-latest-country-to-leave-controversial-energy-charter-treaty">announced</a> earlier this year that it was to leave. Spain, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia and <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-to-leave-energy-charter-treaty/">Germany</a> have since followed. However, with former members bound by the treaty for 20 years after they leave, it could still hamper future climate action unless it is reformed.</p>
<p>International investment agreements protect and promote the investments made by companies from one state in a foreign territory. There are roughly <a href="https://www.oecd.org/investment/investment-policy/investment-treaties.htm#:%7E:text=Investment%20treaties%20are%20an%20important,investment%20provisions%20of%20trade%20agreements.">2,500</a> such agreements in force today.</p>
<p>Since coming into force in 1998, the ECT has provided the framework for energy cooperation across the European continent by providing the legal basis for open and competitive energy markets. Investors can claim compensation from sovereign states through a mechanism of international law called <a href="https://www.energycharter.org/fileadmin/DocumentsMedia/Legal/ECTC-en.pdf">investor-state dispute settlement</a> if governments breach the investment protections provided by the ECT. </p>
<p>The ECT has allowed energy and fossil fuel investors to receive vast sums of compensation. In 2021, <a href="https://www.iisd.org/itn/en/2022/07/04/tribunal-awards-damages-to-yukos-capital-finding-that-russia-expropriated-its-investment-while-two-arbitrators-partially-dissent-on-quantum/">Russia</a> was ordered to pay US$20.5 million (£17.4 million) in compensation to Yukos Capital, an oil company, for expropriation. </p>
<h2>Legal imbalance</h2>
<p>While investment protection agreements allow investors to sue sovereign states, the reverse is not possible. The investor-state dispute settlement mechanism was designed initially to <a href="https://investmentpolicy.unctad.org/investment-dispute-settlement">protect</a> the foreign investments of western companies from legal changes passed by unstable governments in developing countries. This imbalance of legal rights was thus accepted by western countries.</p>
<p>But as investors can now sue states for violating the terms of the ECT, Europe has increasingly become the target of international investment arbitration. <a href="https://investmentpolicy.unctad.org/investment-dispute-settlement/country/197/spain">Spain</a> has been subject to 45 disputes under the ECT and has paid more than €800 million (£673 million) in claims. </p>
<p>Europe’s divorce from investor-state dispute further intensified following the US$1.9 billion (£1.65 billion) <a href="https://isds.bilaterals.org/vattenfall-vs-germany-i-coal-fired">claim</a> made by Swedish energy firm Vattendal against Germany in 2009 over delays for permits to operate a coal-fired power plant in Hamburg. The claim triggered <a href="https://www.globaljustice.org.uk/resource/case-against-corporate-courts/">public campaigns</a> against the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism. </p>
<p>The European Court of Justice, which ensures that EU law is applied consistently across the EU, have since intervened on two occasions to challenge the compatibility of international investment arbitration with EU law. </p>
<p>Slovakia was ordered to pay €22.1 million (£19.2 million) in compensation to Dutch investor <a href="https://www.iisd.org/itn/en/2018/04/24/achmea-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-isds-in-and-with-europe-laurens-ankersmit/">Achmea</a> in 2018. However, the European Court of Justice found that the arbitral tribunal was “not part of the judicial system” of either country. Three years later, they ruled that an ECT based arbitration brought by Ukrainian electricity supplier <a href="http://arbitrationblog.kluwerarbitration.com/2021/09/07/cjeu-ruling-in-moldova-v-komstroy-the-end-of-intra-eu-investment-arbitration-under-the-energy-charter-treaty-and-a-restrictive-interpretation-of-the-notion-of-protected-investment/">Komstroy</a> against Moldova was contrary to EU law.</p>
<h2>Independent arbitrators?</h2>
<p>Claims made by investors under the ECT are settled via international arbitration. This is where independent experts – called arbitrators – make an official decision that ends a legal dispute without the need for it to be resolved in a national court. </p>
<p>International investment arbitration was initially regarded as an efficient technique for resolving disputes. But in recent years it has been scrutinised. This is particularly true for the ECT where the independence, impartiality and expertise of the arbitrators have been questioned. </p>
<p>Few of the arbitrators who sit in ECT hearings are public international law experts. But as arbitration is frequently used by companies to solve corporate disputes, there is a large pool of arbitrators with a <a href="https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/diaepcbinf2022d5_en.pdf">background in corporate law</a>. This could create <a href="https://uncitral.un.org/en/tribunalselection">bias</a> towards investors in dispute hearings.</p>
<p>Some of the arbitrators also play <a href="https://corporateeurope.org/en/international-trade/2012/11/profiting-injustice">different roles</a> in different cases. Investors have in some cases appointed arbitrators who have acted as legal advisers for them previously. This raises the question of whether arbitrators can separate these roles and act impartially. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two men shaking hands after coming to an agreement. A balanced scale is also on the table." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496559/original/file-20221121-14-n793sh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496559/original/file-20221121-14-n793sh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496559/original/file-20221121-14-n793sh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496559/original/file-20221121-14-n793sh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496559/original/file-20221121-14-n793sh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496559/original/file-20221121-14-n793sh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496559/original/file-20221121-14-n793sh.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">
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<span class="caption">Disputes are settled in private under the Energy Charter Treaty via international arbitration.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/tribunal-justice-lawyer-hands-shaking-client-1483361603">mojo cp/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<h2>Withdrawal symptoms</h2>
<p>Given these controversies, signatories to the ECT have proposed that it undergo <a href="https://www.energychartertreaty.org/modernisation-of-the-treaty/">reform</a>. The reform hinges around several key proposals.</p>
<p>The definition of what classifies as an investment and an investor is to be modified to protect the state against dubious disputes. Fossil fuel investments are to be excluded from legal protection by the Treaty and states are to be allowed to regulate energy firms in the interests of climate and public health policy objectives. Any arbitration within the EU that is deemed incompatible with EU law by the European Court of Justice are also to be discarded.</p>
<p>The proposed reforms have so far failed to convince countries to remain party to the ECT. The <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2022/703592/IPOL_STU(2022)703592_EN.pdf">European parliament</a> has also lobbied European countries to leave international investment dispute treaties and create their own system. </p>
<p>But there are legal hurdles that prevent the departure of EU countries from taking immediate effect. The ECT includes a <a href="https://www.energychartertreaty.org/provisions/part-viii-final-provisions/article-47-withdrawal/">“sunset clause”</a> which protects the interests of investors for 20 years following a state’s withdrawal. Should a country withdraw from the ECT in 2022, legal protections for existing and future foreign investments would remain valid and further claims can be made until 2042. </p>
<p>There are many uncertainties surrounding the future of the ECT. Yet it is clear that it requires modernisation. But the rush of withdrawals by the same states that drafted the ECT is indicative of the global shift in power relations. Developing countries are not the only targets of investment disputes and developed states are not the only global rule makers.</p>
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<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong><em>Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?</em></strong>
<br><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/imagine-57?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=Imagine&utm_content=DontHaveTimeTop">Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead.</a> Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/imagine-57?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=Imagine&utm_content=DontHaveTimeBottom">Join the 10,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.</a></em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194945/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leïla Choukroune 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 Energy Charter Treaty allows fossil fuel investors to sue governments over climate action – prompting EU countries to withdraw.Leïla Choukroune, Professor of International Law, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1923882022-10-20T19:05:06Z2022-10-20T19:05:06ZWhy a First Nations Voice should come before Treaty<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490585/original/file-20221019-23-m2unwb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://fromtheheart.com.au/explore-the-uluru-statement/">fromtheheart.com.au</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the advent of colonisation, the absence of an effective process for conducting dialogues between the broader community and First Nations people has been a festering sore at the heart of Australian society. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://australian.museum/learn/first-nations/unsettled/recognising-invasions/terra-nullius/">notorious doctrine</a> of <em>terra nullius</em> not only led to the denial of the legitimate rights of First Nations people, but also ensured they could never be heard. This malign strategy has produced centuries of unspeakable suffering, sickness and death. Many Australians feel the time has come to start to heal the wound. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://fromtheheart.com.au/">Uluru Statement from the Heart</a> advocates for a process of dialogue to set us on a path towards a new way of living together. The statement was agreed to in 2017 by a convention of more than 250 First Nations people after an inclusive and rigorous process of regional dialogues. It proposes a First Nations Voice to Parliament to guide a passage both to a new “coming together” and to the clear articulation of the long-suppressed truth. </p>
<p>As Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said when announcing the forthcoming referendum that seeks to incorporate these key proposals into the Australian Constitution, the statement is a generous offer to the entire Australian community. It does not harbour grudges and does not seek vengeance. It asks for a secure mechanism whereby the voices of First Nations people can at last be heard – by each other, by the parliament and by the wider Australian public. </p>
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<p>While support for the statement is widespread, some sections of the population – both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal – have dismissed the Voice as inconsequential, arguing the focus should instead be on establishing a “treaty”. They have argued a Voice will lead only to talk, whereas the real goal should be a law that guarantees the civil rights of First Nations peoples. </p>
<p>This argument fails to understand the potential power of the Voice. It can not only lay a foundation for a movement towards reconciliation and truth, but also act as a tool to craft novel solutions to the problems created by the unique circumstances of Australia’s history and culture. </p>
<p>In this connection, it is notable the statement does not actually use the term “treaty”. Instead, it proposes the distinctly Aboriginal concept of “Makarrata”, which refers to a process of learning from the past to create new ways of interacting with each other based on dialogue. Voice, Makarrata and Truth are inseparable, but Voice is the motor that drives all of them forward. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-power-of-yindyamarra-how-we-can-bring-respect-to-australian-democracy-192164">The power of yindyamarra: how we can bring respect to Australian democracy</a>
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<p>Establishing the Voice will lead to immediate, important outcomes. It will set the scene for addressing the centuries of injustice. It will create an effective process to address the intergenerational disadvantage many communities suffer. It will help overcome the historical exclusion of First Nations people from public forums. And crucially, it will offer an important symbolic gesture of acknowledgement and recognition that the days of <em>vox nullius</em> (“voicelessness”), the primary intention and consequence of <em>terra nullius</em>, are at last over. </p>
<p>It is, of course, unlikely that all First Nations people will speak with one voice – indeed, that would be undesirable. However, creation of a secure channel of communication will open up new ways for all members of the Australian community to negotiate their differences and discover novel solutions to our common challenges.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490586/original/file-20221019-20-mj689a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490586/original/file-20221019-20-mj689a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490586/original/file-20221019-20-mj689a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490586/original/file-20221019-20-mj689a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490586/original/file-20221019-20-mj689a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490586/original/file-20221019-20-mj689a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490586/original/file-20221019-20-mj689a.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">
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<span class="caption">Voice to Parliament offers Australian politics a powerful tool of negotiation and solution-finding.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lukas Coch/AAP</span></span>
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<p>First Nations people will therefore not be the only ones to gain from the Voice. A vibrant, living platform for vigorous dialogue that addresses fundamental political issues will also benefit the wider society. It will help revive the ailing public sphere in Australia, restoring trust in institutions that have been degraded and depleted as a result of a deeply-established focus on personal ambition, vested interests and loss of shared ethical vision. </p>
<p>While some form of treaty will undoubtedly remain an important goal, the joint concepts of Voice, Makarrata and Truth are deeper, and more complex and enduring. </p>
<p>On its own, a treaty would operate only as an element within the system of colonially-derived law. This means it would utilise concepts within a system of thought that few would argue has served our country well in relation to the treatment of First Nations people, let alone of refugees and other vulnerable minorities. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-defeat-of-the-voice-would-be-a-body-blow-for-achieving-a-republic-190747">Grattan on Friday: Defeat of the Voice would be a body blow for achieving a republic</a>
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<p>The statement provides an approach to a consensus process that goes much further than this. Drawing on the creative resources of dialogue so fundamental to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, it will establish a framework that allows us to move forward to create new ethical bonds and fresh communal relationships that reactivate trust, reinvigorate public, cooperative action and support the resolution of conflicts through peaceful dialogue. </p>
<p>As we move towards the referendum, it is important for us to think carefully about the vision we wish to hold for Australia. About whether we are, collectively, ready to accept the invitation offered in the Uluru statement.</p>
<p>We have to decide whether we are ready to break the silence of our shared histories and take up the challenge to talk with each other, openly, frankly and with respect.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192388/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pat Anderson is co-convener of the Uluru Statement and is a member of the Referendum Working Group.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Komesaroff 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>Some Australians have dismissed a Voice to Parliament as inconsequential. That argument is mistaken.Pat Anderson, Chairperson, Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary EducationPaul Komesaroff, Professor of Medicine, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1816802022-06-21T15:14:19Z2022-06-21T15:14:19ZPride Toronto 2022: This party should be a riot<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469022/original/file-20220615-24-fwl4k1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=19%2C0%2C3178%2C2958&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">2022 marks the first year Pride Toronto events will be hosted in person since the pandemic began</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Pride Toronto has a history of whitewashing its past. From the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02614367.2018.1468475">the humiliation of the 1981 bathhouse raids</a>, to the <a href="https://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/sanitizing-pride">controversial ban of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid from the 2010 parade</a> and more recently when the organization <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4877398/pride-toronto-police-uniformed/">only narrowly voted to prevent uniformed police from joining the parade</a>. </p>
<p>Pride is rooted in a history of anti-police and anti-prison riots and rebellions with racialized people as its protagonists. Pride was <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/gay-rights/the-stonewall-riots">founded after the 1969 rebellion in New York City</a> when police arrested and roughed up <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/30/nyregion/storme-delarverie-early-leader-in-the-gay-rights-movement-dies-at-93.html">Storme DeLarverie</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/challenging-the-whiteness-of-queer-organizations-183286">Challenging the whiteness of queer organizations</a>
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<p>This legacy demands Pride to work towards a decolonial future. However, <a href="https://acrobat.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn%3Aaaid%3Ascds%3AUS%3Aac1c477f-dc98-4469-a69b-10e4118e571f#pageNum=1">a report released by York University historian Tom Hooper earlier this year</a> solidifies that Pride Toronto not only continues to whitewash its past, it also replicates the colonial and racist practices and systems within Canada. </p>
<p>The report says Pride Toronto has been actively exploiting Indigenous labour and creative output. It provides examples of the organization’s contract with Indigenous artists <a href="https://www.kentmonkman.com/">Kent Monkman</a> and <a href="https://www.jasonbaerg.ca/work">Jason Baerg (Indigiqueer)</a> as examples of this exploitation.</p>
<p>According to the report, Pride Toronto has also failed to transform its relationship with Indigenous people — not living up to <a href="https://www.afn.ca/uploads/files/aga2014/1030_panel_-_rick_hill_-_fort_niagara_treaty_of_1764_final.pdf">the treaty of Niagara (1764)</a> to share the land in the spirit of friendship, mutual benefit and respect. </p>
<h2>Misleading and fraudulent</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://acrobat.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn%3Aaaid%3Ascds%3AUS%3Aac1c477f-dc98-4469-a69b-10e4118e571f#pageNum=1">his report</a>, Hooper demonstrates that Pride Toronto had misled and fraudulently misrepresented the terms of its contracts with Indigenous artists and the progress on the work they had commissioned to secure a CA$600,000 dollar grant. </p>
<p>Pride Toronto secured the funding conditionally based on promising to collaborate with Indigenous artists. Artists, however, cancelled their collaborations due to lack of transparency.</p>
<p>The organization demanded full rights of ownership over the artists’ work in exchange for contracts. They misled the government, claiming support from several 2SLGBTQIA+ organizations by recycling old letters of support.</p>
<p>Pride Toronto also actively lied to Indigiqueer claiming that the funding had fallen through. The organization then claimed they had fully executed their contract with Monkman, despite Monkman cancelling all association with the project. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1483787362236833794"}"></div></p>
<h2>Extractive relationships</h2>
<p>Pride Toronto’s <a href="https://xtramagazine.com/power/pride-toronto-grant-funding-misuse-217252">demonstration of fiscal and moral corruption</a> speaks to more than a lack of organizational transparency. It invokes the same exploitative colonial practices <a href="https://brighterworld.mcmaster.ca/articles/expertise-not-extraction-how-to-centre-indigenous-knowledge-in-a-time-of-crisis/">that extract value from Indigenous labour</a> for private institutional gains and gives nothing to Indigenous people in return. </p>
<p>The organization’s demands for ownership over the product of Indigenous labour entrenches <a href="https://thediscourse.ca/urban-nation/fake-art-indigenous">ongoing colonial expropriation of Indigenous work and art</a>. </p>
<p>Since this report was released, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/pride-toronto-kpmg-grant-review-compliance-lack-of-documentation-1.6392821">Pride Toronto has issued an apology</a> recognizing that this is an iteration of settler colonial harm, yet not much has been done in terms of reparations. The organization continues to snub racialized queer communities with little scrutiny and no commitments to materially compensate for the repeated exclusion and violence they’ve committed. </p>
<p>While the organization has become firmly institutionalized over the last several decades (for better or worse) <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/radical-history-review/article-abstract/2008/100/145/22107/Transgender-History-Homonormativity-and">the movement of queer resistance and Pride is rooted in police and prison abolition</a>. By not materially supporting Black, Indigenous and racialized queer people, Pride Toronto will suffer the fate of irrelevance. </p>
<h2>‘Moves to innoncence’</h2>
<p>Decolonizing our relationships, as <a href="https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/18630">Eve Tuck and K Wayne Yang eloquently write, is not a metaphor</a>. The harms queer settlers experience at the hands of homophobic social structures cannot be an alibi for our complicity in colonialism, something Tuck and Yang coin as “moves to innocence.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A massive pride flag is carried down the street" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469024/original/file-20220615-23-xnyiaw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469024/original/file-20220615-23-xnyiaw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469024/original/file-20220615-23-xnyiaw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469024/original/file-20220615-23-xnyiaw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469024/original/file-20220615-23-xnyiaw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469024/original/file-20220615-23-xnyiaw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469024/original/file-20220615-23-xnyiaw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pride Toronto has failed to transform its relationship with Indigenous people.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>As queer communities, we must end an imagined contradiction between Indigenous self-determination and queer rights. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10894160.2014.849165">Whiteness is not a synonym for queerness</a>. And an abolitionist vision of queer liberation must involve Black, Indigenous and racialized queer people. We have to reject simple inclusion as the solution to homophobic violence, and recognize the diversity of queerness across racial lines.</p>
<p>Decolonization is tangible, material work, that begins with transforming our relations as queer settlers with Indigenous people. It involves <a href="https://www.ualberta.ca/newtrail/how-to/how-to-be-a-better-treaty-person.html">living up to treaty obligations</a>, paying <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/national-chief-reparations-indigenous-people-1.6096493">reparations</a> to Indigenous people and stopping colonial theft. </p>
<p>After being called out, Pride Toronto has the opportunity to change its relationship with Indigenous and racialized people. It is a movement on stolen and unceded Indigenous lands, and as a social justice organization, it has the potential, capacity and obligation to address these histories with its work. So far, it hasn’t.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181680/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Semaan 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>Pride Toronto has the opportunity to change its relationship with Indigenous and racialized people.David Semaan, PhD Candidate, Political Science, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1847392022-06-16T02:04:19Z2022-06-16T02:04:19ZA new Treaty Authority between First Peoples and the Victorian government is a vital step towards a treaty<p>Last week the Victorian government demonstrated its commitment to build an equal relationship with First Peoples. A <a href="https://www.legislation.vic.gov.au/bills/treaty-authority-and-other-treaty-elements-bill-2022">new bill</a> has been tabled in the Victorian parliament to advance the Victorian treaty processes.</p>
<p>In 2018, <a href="https://content.legislation.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/50f587e2-f753-3e01-b2ca-2f86930eef93_18-28aa001%20authorised.pdf">legislation was enacted</a> that required the <a href="https://www.firstpeoplesvic.org/">First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria</a> and the Victorian government to work together to establish a Treaty Authority. </p>
<p>The new bill further affirms the Assembly and the Victorian government’s <a href="https://www.firstpeoplesvic.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Signed-Treaty-Authority-Agreement-Geraldine-Atkinson-and-Marcus-Stewart-060622-Minister-Signed96.pdf">agreement and commitment </a>to establish a Treaty Authority and support its operations. </p>
<p>The new Treaty Authority will be the first of its kind in Australia, placing First Peoples’ culture at the heart of its practices. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/queenslands-path-to-treaty-has-some-lessons-for-the-rest-of-australia-174464">Queensland's 'Path to Treaty' has some lessons for the rest of Australia</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What is the Treaty Authority and how will it work?</h2>
<p>The significant power difference between the government and First Nations people means there needs to be a way to establish equal footing for treaty negotiations. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.firstpeoplesvic.org/our-work/treaty-authority-2/">Treaty Authority</a> serves that role as an institution independent of parliament and government. </p>
<p>Negotiations may well be long and complex. The authority will oversee treaty negotiations and if the parties cannot agree on particular matters or the appropriate process, it will act as an independent umpire to help resolve the issue. </p>
<p>The new authority will respect First Peoples’ culture with a focus on dialogue. Talking through problems to achieve agreement, rather using than a combative approach, is at the core of the treaty process. </p>
<p>Assembly co-chair and Nira illim bulluk man <a href="https://www.firstpeoplesvic.org/media/treaty-authority-agreement-reached/">Marcus Stewart</a> said the Treaty Authority</p>
<blockquote>
<p>will be guided by Aboriginal lore, law and cultural authority that has been practised on these lands for countless generations. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is a significant development in Australian legal institutions and processes. It addresses well known problems with the adversarial nature of native title determinations, where traditional owners must sue the government to prove their title. </p>
<p>This new public law process appropriately recognises the standing of Indigenous cultural approaches.</p>
<p>In another important development, the Treaty Authority will have guaranteed government funding, which it controls and manages. This will ensure the authority can perform its functions long-term. </p>
<p>In the past when governments set up bodies to assist First Nations, there were problems with sustainability, because the body did not have the resources to function. It is encouraging to see the commitment at this early stage, to continuous funding and First Nations’ control.</p>
<p>The Treaty Authority will be comprised of independent members who are all First Peoples, who will be selected after a public call for nominations. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/voice-to-parliament-design-report-still-doesnt-meet-international-human-rights-standards-174861">Voice to Parliament design report still doesn't meet international human rights standards</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<h2>The Treaty Authority recognises the right to self-determination</h2>
<p>Indigenous rights expert Professor Megan Davis <a href="http://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/AltLawJl/2006/32.html">explained</a> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>before Indigenous Australia can participate in the Australian democratic project on just and equal terms, the unresolved issues of the colonial project and the psychological terra nullius of Australia’s public institutions must be finally dealt with.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Treaty Authority will be a public institution that grapples with this problem of “psychological terra nullius” – the exclusion of First Nations peoples in politics and law.</p>
<p>It forms part of the broader work to provide just and equal participation by First Peoples in our democratic institutions. It complements the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria, and the <a href="https://yoorrookjusticecommission.org.au/">Yoorrook Justice Commission</a>, which address voice and truth respectively.</p>
<p>All of these institutions are part of the overarching treaty process in Victoria.</p>
<p>Treaty is one important way of realising Indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination. </p>
<p>Self-determination means the right of a people to make decisions about their own governance and way of life. </p>
<p>Self-determination for Indigenous peoples is also a requirement of the <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/declaration-on-the-rights-of-indigenous-peoples.html">United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples</a>, and <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/ahrc4875-efforts-implement-united-nations-declaration-rights-indigenous">other international human rights law</a>. </p>
<p>By drawing on First Nations’ “law, lore, and cultural authority” in order to support the treaty process, the Victorian Treaty Authority is demonstrating an innovative approach to realising First Peoples’ right to self-determination.</p>
<h2>Navigating a way to treaty</h2>
<p>Victoria is only one Australian jurisdiction currently navigating treaty processes. <a href="https://theconversation.com/queenslands-path-to-treaty-has-some-lessons-for-the-rest-of-australia-174464">Queensland</a>, the <a href="https://www.nit.com.au/landmark-nt-treaty-a-step-closer-as-final-report-delivered-to-government/">Northern Territory</a>, <a href="https://www.nit.com.au/treaty-a-key-goal-for-south-australias-first-aboriginal-attorney-general/">South Australia</a>, and <a href="https://www.premier.tas.gov.au/site_resources_2015/additional_releases/next_steps_on_pathway_to_truth-telling_and_treaty">Tasmania</a> are all embarking on pathways to treaty. </p>
<p>And the new Albanese government is working to deliver on its commitment to the <a href="https://ulurustatement.org/the-statement/">Uluru Statement from the Heart</a>’s call for Voice, Treaty, and Truth at the federal level. </p>
<p>Each of these processes should properly be informed by respective First Peoples in each area. </p>
<p>For all jurisdictions, the Victorian approach demonstrates the potential for transformative institutional reform, in and beyond government. </p>
<p>Self-determination must be led by sovereign First Nations people and grounded in Indigenous culture and law. International human rights law requires it. And justice alone demands the state, in all its guises, enters into proper relations with the First Nations of this land.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184739/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><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Galloway and Scott Walker do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In partnership with the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria, the Victorian government has committed to advancing state treaty processes. This is through a new bill establishing a Treaty Authority.Melissa Castan, Associate Professor, Law Faculty, Monash UniversityKate Galloway, Associate Professor of Law, Griffith UniversityScott Walker, Researcher, Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1825112022-05-19T20:02:25Z2022-05-19T20:02:25ZFriday essay: ‘but we already had a treaty’ – Tom Griffiths on a little known 1889 peace accord<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463867/original/file-20220518-17-qdqsix.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Josh Gorringe at the Debney Peace site in 2019. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo: Tom Griffiths</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and/or images of people who have passed away.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>In July 2019, the Queensland Government launched a series of community consultations as part of its <a href="https://theconversation.com/queenslands-path-to-treaty-has-some-lessons-for-the-rest-of-australia-174464">Path to Treaty</a> initiative. The then Department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships explained that “when Queensland was settled, there was no treaty agreement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first custodians”. </p>
<p>“First Nations peoples,” continued the government statement, “were displaced from their land without any negotiation, resulting in political, economic and social inequalities that continue to this day.” On 11 November 2019, one of 24 public consultations around the state was held in Birdsville in the Channel Country of south-western Queensland. </p>
<p>At the Birdsville meeting to discuss Treaty, Mithaka Elder Betty Gorringe said just one thing from the back of the room: <em>We already had a treaty: the Debney Peace. It’s in Alice’s books.</em></p>
<p>What was the Debney Peace, when and where was it negotiated, and why is it nationally significant in 21st-century Australia?</p>
<p>And who was Alice?</p>
<h2>Harrowing decades of war</h2>
<p>In May 1889, after more than two decades of brutal conflict on the Queensland frontier, a five-day peace ceremony was performed on Mithaka Country. It was orchestrated by the Mithaka as part of a traditional regional gathering for initiation ceremonies and drew 500 Aboriginal people from across the Channel Country as well as from the Barcoo and Warrego rivers to the east. </p>
<p>The event became known by settlers as the Debney Peace in honour of the white leaseholder of Monkira Station, George Debney, who helped to organise proceedings. The peace functioned as a negotiated truce in the frontier war, an unwritten agreement solemnised in ritual and ceremony.</p>
<p>On the vast plains of the Channel Country, the Cooper Creek, Diamantina and Georgina rivers flare out into a myriad of braided channels, revealing an intricate web of arteries. It is a boom-and-bust ecosystem, an arid land animated by water flows from elsewhere, a place where monsoonal rain falling hundreds of kilometres away to the north-east periodically floods down dry channels, bringing a spectacular pulse of life to the plains. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462416/original/file-20220511-12-9dc37j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462416/original/file-20220511-12-9dc37j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462416/original/file-20220511-12-9dc37j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462416/original/file-20220511-12-9dc37j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462416/original/file-20220511-12-9dc37j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462416/original/file-20220511-12-9dc37j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462416/original/file-20220511-12-9dc37j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462416/original/file-20220511-12-9dc37j.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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Part of the Warrego Way after heavy rainfall in 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sean Scott/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The flush of water occasionally reaches all the way to the salt pan of Lake Eyre, a continental rain gauge. More than 500,000 square kilometres in size, the basin is the largest inland draining system in the world. Aboriginal peoples of the region hold up the open palm of their hand to signify the basin; their fingers are the rivers that drain into it.</p>
<p>For tens of thousands of years, people lived in this place. Every tree, rock, dune and channel had a name and a story. Water defined these people. Anthropologist A.P. Elkin said of Aboriginal peoples in the lower Channel Country that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>one never asks the name of a person’s camp, ngura, but of his water, kapi. Man is tied from his birth to his death to the rock holes and soaks, and to the tracks between them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In spite of erratic water, the land sustained permanent habitation. In the early 1900s, after decades of dispossession and war, there were still 13 Aboriginal dialects spoken within 80 kilometres of Mooraberrie, a pastoral station between Windorah and Birdsville. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463844/original/file-20220518-11-b8mvyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463844/original/file-20220518-11-b8mvyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463844/original/file-20220518-11-b8mvyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463844/original/file-20220518-11-b8mvyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463844/original/file-20220518-11-b8mvyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463844/original/file-20220518-11-b8mvyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463844/original/file-20220518-11-b8mvyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463844/original/file-20220518-11-b8mvyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Queenslander, 29 September 1917. Mooraberrie Station became famous that year because Mrs Laura Duncan (celebrated as a ‘brave widow’) challenged the Queensland state government in the Supreme Court over its attempt to ‘arrest’ her cattle on their way to sale in South Australia, under legislation introduced to secure supplies for troops.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Journalist George Farwell, in his book <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/9326650">Land of Mirage</a> (1950), recorded a settler near Cooper Creek claiming that he used to stand on a hillock and see the flat beyond full of Aboriginal women “as thick as sheep grazing” as they bent over in search of seeds, roots and small bulbs. </p>
<p>This density of population was high for this arid region of Australia, and First Nations peoples lived in communities larger than many outback towns today.</p>
<p>This remote south-western corner of Queensland had been a place of trauma, violence and disruption from the 1860s, accentuated by the ecological extremes. The sheep and cattle of the invading pastoralists destroyed the native grasses and waterholes, and conflict increasingly erupted between Indigenous owners and the newcomers. </p>
<p>By 1875 most of the Diamantina channels were leased to pastoralists and by the early 1880s almost all the Channel Country had been parcelled and claimed for stock. The 1870s and 1880s were harrowing decades of war. There was a long, tense, violent struggle for possession and control of the land and its resources. </p>
<p>First Nations peoples speared cattle and sheep and occasionally killed settlers; the newcomers massacred whole clans in revenge. Mary Durack, whose forebears colonised the Channel Country, wrote that by the mid-1870s </p>
<blockquote>
<p>many settlers now openly declared that Western Queensland could only be habitable for whites when the last of the blacks had been killed out – “by bullet or by bait”.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A Native Mounted Police force operated in Queensland for more than 60 years up to 1910 (when, from 1848 to 1859, the area was part of New South Wales, and then a separate colony) and was more lethal than in any other colony.</p>
<p>Historian Jonathan Richards describes this force of mounted Aboriginal troopers led by white officers as a paramilitary organisation, and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/contributor/Raymond-Evans/9835864">Raymond Evans</a> calls it a counterinsurgency force. It operated under the direct control of the executive council of the colonial administration and functioned secretively. It was effectively deployed as a death squad. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-unearthing-queenslands-native-police-camps-gives-us-a-window-onto-colonial-violence-100814">How unearthing Queensland's 'native police' camps gives us a window onto colonial violence</a>
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<hr>
<p>Although specific frontier violence was shrouded in silence, many colonists were willing, indeed determined, to speak openly both for and against what was going on. “From what has come within my own knowledge I can believe that the atrocities you have published are true in their general statements,” wrote “Outis” to The Queenslander in June 1880. “We must admit that a war of extermination is waging on all sides.”</p>
<p>He accused the Native Police force of committing “wholescale murder”. The strategy of their detachments was to surround Aboriginal settlements and fire into them at dawn, killing men, women and children; they then burnt the evidence of the bodies.</p>
<p>More than a dozen major massacres are known and remembered in the Channel Country. Most began at waterholes where people gathered and lived, often in large numbers. Some were reprisals for the theft of cattle, while others were provoked by the Aboriginal execution of lone white men who raped Black women. The Native Mounted Police were generally involved. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463573/original/file-20220517-12-5hjwmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="view from air of river" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463573/original/file-20220517-12-5hjwmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463573/original/file-20220517-12-5hjwmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463573/original/file-20220517-12-5hjwmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463573/original/file-20220517-12-5hjwmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463573/original/file-20220517-12-5hjwmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463573/original/file-20220517-12-5hjwmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463573/original/file-20220517-12-5hjwmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Aerial view of the Diamantina River, Queensland. More than a dozen major massacres are known and remembered in the Channel Country.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2explore/">NASA Johnson/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Large ceremonial gatherings were targeted and death tolls from single events could total more than a hundred, even up to 200. The waterholes – the precious jewels of the arid country – were transformed into a grim roll-call of places of death.</p>
<p>Sometimes the conflict seemed to challenge the very possibility of long-term European settlement of the Channel Country. By 1885, leases forfeited were nearly as numerous as runs leased for the first time, and by 1890 fewer than one in five of those who had initially leased runs remained. </p>
<p>Aboriginal labour had also become essential to the white pastoral economy. As Mithaka survivors dealt with long-term British pastoralism on their lands, they also proved indispensable to the newcomers. Most Channel Country pastoralists could not have stayed on their land without the cheap labour of the locals.</p>
<p>The invading pastoralists, although very strange in many of their customs, had characteristics that were recognisable to the original inhabitants. The whites were nomadic, prized waterholes, had ties of kinship with their white neighbours and ran an economy centred on the management of animals over wide territories. </p>
<p>First Nations peoples often advised where homesteads should be built to avoid periodic flooding, counselled on signs of drought and rain, and knew where to find water. Work on the stations, both pastoral and domestic, relied on them heavily. They were the best riders and horse breakers, proficient at mustering and knew where to seek straying cattle. </p>
<p>But they were paid little or nothing and generally received scant rations of food and clothing instead of wages. They suffered from introduced diseases and the effects of alcohol and opium, and on some stations Black women were coerced into sexual servitude to white workers. The economic and social dependence of remote European pastoralism on unpaid and exploited Aboriginal workers remained long unrecognised in Australian histories.</p>
<p>In remote regions where the land was so vigorously contested and where a cheap Aboriginal workforce underpinned the economy, local agreements were sometimes made between European pastoralists and First Nations peoples. </p>
<p>And occasionally, in attempts to keep wholesale slaughter at bay, broader regional settlements were reached. A negotiated truce – a ceremonial accord – could offer some kind of future for both sides. All of this led to the Debney Peace.</p>
<h2>Frontier warfare and vengeance parties</h2>
<p><a href="https://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/debney-george-leonard-302">George Leonard Debney</a> (1843–1908) was a tall, bearded man with blue eyes, personal charisma and a dignified bearing. He arrived in the Channel Country about a decade after Patsy Durack and John Costello had established their stations on Cooper Creek. When Debney became managing partner of Monkira Station on the Diamantina in 1879, he already had experience of frontier warfare. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463547/original/file-20220517-27-fq04q5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="man with white beard" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463547/original/file-20220517-27-fq04q5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463547/original/file-20220517-27-fq04q5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463547/original/file-20220517-27-fq04q5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463547/original/file-20220517-27-fq04q5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463547/original/file-20220517-27-fq04q5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1124&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463547/original/file-20220517-27-fq04q5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1124&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463547/original/file-20220517-27-fq04q5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1124&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George Leonard Debney.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library South Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1868, following a spate of sheep stealing at Mundowdna Station in north-eastern South Australia, Debney and his partner John Woodforde were involved in what the South Australian Register called a “serious native affray”. After a struggle, the pastoralists shot two Aboriginal men, whose bodies were carried away by their countrymen; the station homestead was burnt to the ground as a retaliatory action. </p>
<p>Lacking bodies of the victims and judging that the white men fired in self-defence, the government did not pursue proceedings. Debney thus had personal insight into the cost of occupation without negotiation. “Where you don’t see any blacks is where they are sure to be and thickest,” he would say.</p>
<p>When Debney and his family arrived to live at Monkira in the early 1880s, they encountered stern resistance from the locals. “The Murranuddas”, as the local Mithaka clan was called, were renowned as a fierce and assertive people and on several occasions they subjected the homestead to siege. </p>
<p>Detachments of Aboriginal warriors, known as the “storm birds” and “dingo men”, conducted guerrilla-style warfare against the pastoralists of the region.</p>
<p>Debney, learning from his earlier experience, became a respected mediator of conflict, helped sick Aboriginal people and was once “an honoured guest of a fierce war-like tribe” when he was injured while mustering alone. It soon became apparent to Debney “that the head men of the tribes would have to be got together”.</p>
<p>Debney had been a Justice of the Peace and a court magistrate in South Australia before coming to the Channel Country, and in 1884 he was sworn in as a JP at Monkira. This meant that he had a formal role as a “protector” of the Aboriginal peoples of his region. By 1887 his acquisition of Monkira was complete and he probably wished to secure its future. </p>
<p>With the help of Barralong, a Monkira stockman, he began two years of consultations with First Nations leaders, including two he had known for many years: Winjan of the Eaglehawks and Knuppa-pip-pa Budgeree of the Wonkamurras. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463572/original/file-20220517-6205-tvdhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463572/original/file-20220517-6205-tvdhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463572/original/file-20220517-6205-tvdhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=209&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463572/original/file-20220517-6205-tvdhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=209&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463572/original/file-20220517-6205-tvdhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=209&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463572/original/file-20220517-6205-tvdhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=263&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463572/original/file-20220517-6205-tvdhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=263&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463572/original/file-20220517-6205-tvdhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=263&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Police Riot Squad and Native Mounted Police, Queensland, c1890s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Queensland State Archives</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Debney was worried that further unrest would bring the attention of the Native Mounted Police and that they “would set upon the myalls and shoot them down like wild dogs”. The Mithaka shared his fear: in early 1888, during a “great commotion” at Mooraberrie Station, it was reported that “the blacks here have a wholesome dread of the black troopers”.</p>
<p>The local Native Police force was led by a man of Debney’s age, Robert Kyle Little (1841–1889), an Irishman who had served in the British Army in the Crimean War and established the first Native Police camp on Eyre Creek (the Mulligan River) at Bedourie in the early 1880s. </p>
<p>It was Little who led a vengeance party at Cooninghera Waterhole when the head of a cook was found in a camp oven following the rape of Black women. </p>
<p>As later told to George Farwell and reported in Land of Mirage, Little “chased the whole tribe all over the country, overtaking the first of them six miles from the waterhole, where they were shot out of hand”. </p>
<p>Little killed others at Coongie Lake and more still at Coonchere sandhill. This was the representative of white law with whom George Debney and other Channel Country pastoralists had to work.</p>
<h2>The Debney Peace settlement</h2>
<p>In May 1888, Senior Inspector Little wrote from Eyre Creek to the commissioner justifying his job on the remote edge of settlement and confirming the Native Mounted Police were “still very much required out here”. He argued that </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Should the N.M. Police be removed it would be the old story over again; outrages by the blacks and retaliation from the Squatter.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Inspector Little died suddenly of “sunstroke” or “heat apoplexy” in Birdsville in January 1889. But, according to local oral history, he had already given the nod to Debney’s consultations with Indigenous leaders. </p>
<p>This was crucial, for a successful regional peace depended on the assent of the Native Police. It’s unlikely, however, that Little mentioned the negotiations in official reports (which were, in any case, deliberately destroyed by government in 1939): it was not in his interest to record any “peace settlement”. </p>
<p>His duty was to clear the country. Furthermore, sanctioning such negotiations may have constituted official recognition of a state of war, which would have been unacceptable to the Crown. Nor did pastoralists want to advertise the event, for any willingness to negotiate with the land’s original owners could have suggested weakness – or even acknowledgement of their rights. </p>
<p>To be effective, the Debney Peace needed to be known among First Nations peoples, a select group of local pastoralists and the leadership of the Native Mounted Police. But otherwise it would not be for public report. This is why knowledge of the event survives only in the early oral history recorded “in Alice’s books”.</p>
<h2>‘Alice’s books’: a rich ethnographic source</h2>
<p>I was 14 when I came across one of “Alice’s books” in a library. The dusty volume was sitting unobtrusively on a shelf of “Australiana”, but it looked different to its companions and immediately attracted me. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463561/original/file-20220517-24-7bpy4j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463561/original/file-20220517-24-7bpy4j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463561/original/file-20220517-24-7bpy4j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463561/original/file-20220517-24-7bpy4j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463561/original/file-20220517-24-7bpy4j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463561/original/file-20220517-24-7bpy4j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463561/original/file-20220517-24-7bpy4j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463561/original/file-20220517-24-7bpy4j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even its title was mysterious: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15789319-where-strange-paths-go-down">Where Strange Paths Go Down</a>. The book described happy childhood memories of warmth and companionship with Aboriginal women and men at home on their own country. I was drawn into its glowing stories, and the compelling strangeness of the book stayed with me.</p>
<p>Its author, <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/duncankemp-alice-monkton-12444">Alice Duncan (later Duncan-Kemp)</a>, was born in 1901, the year the Australian colonies federated. She grew up on Mithaka Country. Her parents, William and Laura Duncan, managed the pastoral property known as Mooraberrie on Farrars Creek west of Windorah, where they employed Mithaka men and women at the homestead and in the paddocks. William Duncan (1858–1907) emigrated from Scotland as a young man, worked in western NSW and arrived in the Diamantina in the late 1880s about the time of the Debney Peace.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463840/original/file-20220518-11-45x5bz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463840/original/file-20220518-11-45x5bz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463840/original/file-20220518-11-45x5bz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463840/original/file-20220518-11-45x5bz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463840/original/file-20220518-11-45x5bz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463840/original/file-20220518-11-45x5bz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1055&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463840/original/file-20220518-11-45x5bz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1055&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463840/original/file-20220518-11-45x5bz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1055&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alice Duncan-Kemp with her Remington Rand typewriter, c. 1967.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo courtesy of Heather Spring.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Knowledge of the agreement may have encouraged him to take on the run: George Debney was a near neighbour and friend. Winjan, the Elder who knew Debney, showed Duncan where he could safely site his homestead. In 1898 Duncan married Laura Davis from Parramatta, the daughter of a Sydney solicitor whose sister had married another neighbouring pastoralist, Allen Alexander of Daroo Station. </p>
<p>As an amateur ethnologist, William was fascinated by the history of human migration and took a strong and sympathetic interest in the people whose lands he had usurped.</p>
<p>Alice remembered that her father believed it to be “an uncontestable fact that Aborigines are the rightful owners” of the land on which they lived, and it was his habit to refer to Mithaka Elders as “the landlords”. </p>
<p>Mithaka people determined which sections of the property were accessible at particular seasons, and when cultural considerations should prevail over pastoral routines; they advised on the life cycle of grasses and forecast the weather. They built the homestead, established the garden, cleaned the house and lived nearby in a settlement by the creek. At grace before dinner the Duncan family gave thanks to “white pioneers, black saviours”.</p>
<p>Alice had an older brother, David (“Poppy”), who died of diphtheria aged four, and two little sisters, Laura and Beatrice. In 1907 her father died prematurely from an illness exacerbated by a fall from his horse. Alice, together with her sisters, was nursed, cared for and tutored by Mithaka people. </p>
<p>She was made welcome at the “kindergartens” of her young Mithaka playmates and absorbed everything they were taught. Soon she was writing it down, for she picked up pen and paper from an early age and always carried a notebook. Young Alice was a gatherer of facts and asked questions endlessly to clarify matters. As an older child she joined mustering journeys for weeks and spent days in the saddle and nights by the campfire listening to the yarning of Elders Black and white. </p>
<p>Her beloved companions and teachers were Mary Ann Coomindah, head of the homestead domestic staff, Moses Yoolpee, a stockman, gardener and tracker with some European schooling, and Bogie, a stockman and rainmaker who had survived a massacre at Kaliduwarry as a teenager in the late 1870s.</p>
<h2>‘Twice-born’</h2>
<p>Alice’s Mithaka teachers regarded her as “twice-born”. At the age of two, she had survived an accident while crossing the flooded Bulloo River with her father and two Mithaka stockmen. The stockmen, Wooragai (Chookie) and Bogie, struggled to get the buggy and horses (one of which was badly injured) onto dry land before lighting a small fire and beginning a sacred chant.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463843/original/file-20220518-13-9rc32x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463843/original/file-20220518-13-9rc32x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463843/original/file-20220518-13-9rc32x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463843/original/file-20220518-13-9rc32x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463843/original/file-20220518-13-9rc32x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463843/original/file-20220518-13-9rc32x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463843/original/file-20220518-13-9rc32x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463843/original/file-20220518-13-9rc32x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Workers at Glengyle Station, c. 1920s. Moses Yoolpee, one of Alice’s teachers, is thought to be the central figure at the front of the group.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo courtesy of Lorraine McKellar.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Mithaka believed that the accident revealed Alice as a reincarnation of a powerful spirit, the appearance of whom they had been awaiting. When Alice was a little older, her nurse, Mary Ann, took her to Kulkia, a flat-topped hill, where her Mithaka teachers were gathered at a small fire within a circle of white stones. </p>
<p>They inscribed Alice’s forehead with ochre and touched her with the heated stone tip of a naming spear, giving her the name Pinningarra (the Leaf Spirit). She was presented with a small, thin spear made of acacia, pointed at both ends, which Alice treasured. It remains in the Duncan-Kemp family today, a beautiful object. For the rest of her life, Alice bore a faint burn scar on her left breast from the naming ceremony.</p>
<p>Alice grew up with a feeling of deep gratitude, respect and love for her Mithaka teachers. These years of cross-cultural learning were the most important of her life and she spent the next 60 years remembering and celebrating her unusual education. As well as becoming a farmer, wife and mother, Alice (who married Fred Kemp) was a writer – and her subject was the Mithaka people she had known and loved as a child and young woman. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462419/original/file-20220511-15-7b3w9v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462419/original/file-20220511-15-7b3w9v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462419/original/file-20220511-15-7b3w9v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=864&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462419/original/file-20220511-15-7b3w9v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=864&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462419/original/file-20220511-15-7b3w9v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=864&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462419/original/file-20220511-15-7b3w9v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1086&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462419/original/file-20220511-15-7b3w9v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1086&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462419/original/file-20220511-15-7b3w9v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1086&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">goodreads</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>She wrote four books: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15789250-our-sandhill-country">Our Sandhill Country</a> (1933), <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15789319-where-strange-paths-go-down">Where Strange Paths Go Down</a> (1952), <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16059191-our-channel-country">Our Channel Country</a> (1961) and <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15828148-where-strange-gods-call">Where Strange Gods Call</a> (1968). A further manuscript, <a href="https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/9472389">People of the Grey Wind: Life with a Stone Age People</a>, was published posthumously by her family in 2005. All her published writing was autobiographical non-fiction relating to the first 20 years of her life at Mooraberrie.</p>
<p>She had lived in a kind of “wonderland”, a world animated by the parallel universe of Mithaka stories and traditions. In her memoirs, she chose an Aboriginal style of storytelling: “I have always tried to tell and to write things as they themselves would have told it.” </p>
<p>Her narrative style of interwoven journeys and memories, rendered in vivid detail, led many readers and scholars over the years to believe that she was fictionalising her experience and inventing characters and encounters. </p>
<p>As an outback woman – a writer, a sympathiser with Aboriginal spirituality and a pastoralist memorialising the frontier in rather a different way – Alice found that her books could make people uncomfortable or confused. There has been a steady stream of disparagement of her work, from white locals believing that “a bloody woman had no right to be able to get the material” to a senior academic dismissing Alice’s work with hardly a glance at it. </p>
<p>One reviewer labelled her narratives “tall stories”, saying that it was “impossible to take many of them seriously”. </p>
<h2>Frontier denialism</h2>
<p>In 2018, the commissioned historians of the Barcoo Shire – in a book entitled <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/6453202">Their Promised Land</a> – dismissed Alice’s evidence because she was “only a child or a very young woman” when she had her Mithaka education, and added that Aboriginal people were not in any case capable of the kind of defence of Country that Duncan-Kemp described. This is Australian frontier denialism at work. </p>
<p>To accept Alice’s testimony is to confront the tragic scale of the human loss that accompanied violence and dispossession on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/of-course-australia-was-invaded-massacres-happened-here-less-than-90-years-ago-55377">Queensland frontier</a>.</p>
<p>There is so much cultural material in Alice’s books that it is easier to dismiss them as “colourful” or “fanciful” than to understand them. The very detail of her account saw people assume she embroidered or imagined it. How could official records describe a people as “miserable, tattered remnants” while this woman remembered a rich cultural and religious life still in existence?</p>
<p>It was possible for both to be true, as anthropologist <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/stanner-william-edward-bill-15541">W.E.H. Stanner</a> found in the Daly River in the 1930s and 1950s, and as is becoming still clearer across the continent through the resilience of Indigenous ceremonial life and belief systems in the face of trauma and dispossession. Duncan-Kemp reveals a violent frontier where cross-cultural learning and compassion were still possible, where there was joy among the darkness. Alice’s books have also attracted champions.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-great-australian-silence-50-years-on-100737">Friday essay: the 'great Australian silence' 50 years on</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Many contemporaries admired her work – A.P. Elkin, Charles Barrett, Charles Mountford, Nan Chauncy, Olaf Ruhen and Nina Durack, for example. The greatest contemporary tribute came from <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/winterbotham-lindsey-page-12057">Dr Lindsey Winterbotham</a> (1887–1960), a doctor of medicine who became the honorary Curator of Anthropology at the University of Queensland. Winterbotham solicited Aboriginal information and artefacts from around the state and corresponded with Alice from 1948 to 1957. He asked her: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Do you realise that the different letters that you have written to me in past times have contained the fullest and most scientific knowledge that I have received from any correspondent? </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Dr Winterbotham made Alice a foundation member of the Anthropological Society of Queensland, read her books and asked her questions, to which she replied seriously and at length. He read out her letters at Anthropological Society meetings and submitted her material (under their joint names) for publication in the journal <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/2270667">Mankind</a>. Alice’s “scientific” letters to Winterbotham are consistent with the stories in her books.</p>
<p>Scholars who have since looked at Duncan-Kemp’s work in detail – historians Pamela Lukin Watson and Yvette Steinhauer and anthropologists Tony Jefferies and Paul Gorecki – have come away humbled and impressed. Linguist <a href="https://www.batchelor.edu.au/portfolio/honouring-a-pioneer-luise-hercus-1926-2018/">Luise Hercus</a>, at first suspicious of Alice’s unsystematic recording, found herself increasingly respectful of her knowledge. </p>
<p>Alice’s descriptions of plants and animals have won the regard of desert scientists, and she is one of Australia’s most significant and exuberant nature writers, recently celebrated in Luke Stegemann’s <a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/amnesia-road/">Amnesia Road</a> (2021). Crucially, the Federal Court of Australia considered the evidence of her books in its Native Title <a href="https://www.qsnts.com.au/publications/MithakaPeoplecelebratehugeQueenslandnativetitlewin.pdf">consent determination</a> for the Mithaka people in 2015.</p>
<p>In my own engagement with the Duncan-Kemp books and papers, I have tested Alice’s stories by seeking parallel sources and have concluded that she rarely invented substantive detail. In other words, she felt a sacred responsibility to record the stories of her Mithaka teachers accurately. Caution in interpreting her work is warranted: Alice did occasionally paraphrase other authors and sometimes drew without acknowledgement on sources beyond her region.</p>
<p>But overwhelmingly, her testimony was from personal experience. I have thus become open to the exciting truthfulness of her memoir – one tinged by innocence and nostalgia and prey to the glitches of memory, but faithfully told. A precious possibility emerges that Alice’s books comprise one of the richest ethnographic sources Australia possesses.</p>
<p>She was an oral historian of both Black and white lore at a time of tragic transformation. She relied on the yarning of homestead visitors as well as the stories of the Mithaka families; she asked questions of everyone and wrote it all down from an early age.</p>
<p>Far from being disadvantaged by her youth, she was given unusual privileges in terms of access and cultural permission and absorbed everything with the enduring clarity of childhood. Her father told local stories at night in the homestead and after his death she had access to his journals, since destroyed by other members of her family. </p>
<p>These were the sources of her account of the Debney Peace and the reasons she could write vividly of an event that took place a dozen years before her birth.</p>
<h2>The peace ceremony in detail</h2>
<p>In a chapter that occupies ten pages of Our Channel Country, Alice describes The Debney Peace:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Debney, alone and unarmed, guided by an old man of the Eaglehawks, moved silently across to the waterhole and out on to a rising slope of sandstone. Here, screened with a light break of brush-willow boughs, burned a fire, and beside it lay bundles of aboriginal tools and weapons. This was the “peace” place or dhooraba (altar), and the white man stood, as aboriginal etiquette demanded of strangers, a little distance back from the fireside.<br></p>
<p>The white man stood watching the great Mulka-mukana (peace) ceremony, watched the procession five hundred strong march across the claypan … At the head of the Eaglehawks strode Winjan, and with him came Knuppa-pip-pa Budgeree of the Wonkamurras … There was dead silence as Debney stooped to pluck a lighted brand from the fire and hand it to Knuppa-pip-pa Budgeree, taking his torch in exchange.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462421/original/file-20220511-14-ptp94a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462421/original/file-20220511-14-ptp94a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462421/original/file-20220511-14-ptp94a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=932&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462421/original/file-20220511-14-ptp94a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=932&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462421/original/file-20220511-14-ptp94a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=932&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462421/original/file-20220511-14-ptp94a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1172&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462421/original/file-20220511-14-ptp94a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1172&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462421/original/file-20220511-14-ptp94a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1172&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">goodreads</span></span>
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<p>Although the pastoralists named the peace after one of their own, it was chiefly orchestrated by First Nations peoples. Alice records the name of the ceremony as “Mulka-mukana, the vow of peace and the seal of goodwill”. </p>
<p>Linguist David Nash believes that the term draws on the Karnic (Eyre Basin) language stems of malka (“mark” or “sign”) and muka (“sleep”) and he regards Alice’s translation as plausible. The ritual was grafted onto an event in the existing Aboriginal calendar, a large five-day gathering for initiation ceremonies. </p>
<p>Debney had to ride 60 miles to participate in it. The ceremony was held not on his station but on a tract of country with special significance for Aboriginal peoples of the region – the “Common Ground” or “neutral territory” of the Pharmaleechie Channel. The location chosen had special status as “a sort of buffer state” or “diplomatic immunity area”, as Alice described it to Dr Winterbotham. </p>
<p>Mithaka stories recorded by Alice tell of this site’s significance as neutral ground in pre-contact times when a council was formed to negotiate ancient tribal rivalries and land was set aside as “a hunting ground and meeting place for all but permanent home to none”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463842/original/file-20220518-18-z09qd5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463842/original/file-20220518-18-z09qd5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463842/original/file-20220518-18-z09qd5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463842/original/file-20220518-18-z09qd5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463842/original/file-20220518-18-z09qd5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463842/original/file-20220518-18-z09qd5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463842/original/file-20220518-18-z09qd5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463842/original/file-20220518-18-z09qd5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Debney Peace site among the red sandhills of the Pharmaleechie Channel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Tom Griffiths</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It was an Indigenous event with few if any European features. There were no documents, signatures or gifts, but there was fire, smoke, singing and stamping, a blaze of torches, an illuminated procession through a natural arch of four great gum trees, an exchange of burning torches, a corroboree and the ritual letting of blood. </p>
<p>The performance featured the sudden arrival of 200 armed men from “a strange tribe” who were solemnly greeted before they circled the fire and laid down their spears. Debney “took their spears and carefully arranged them in order of tribal precedence, each in its correct totemic group”. </p>
<p>In this, the white man played his allocated role. It is likely that the peace festival was as much about relationships between the various First Nations communities as it was about dealing with the white intruders. Debney knew several Aboriginal languages and had long been interested in Indigenous lore about plants and animals, but he was out of his depth that night in the shadows and firelight of the sandhills.</p>
<p>Contemporaries and local historians acknowledged 1889 as a turning point in frontier conflict in the region, seeing it as the year when widespread violence ceased, without mentioning or knowing about the peace. </p>
<p>What if Mithaka people had demanded a written document as well as their traditional verbal and ceremonial formalities? Alice belatedly provided one. Her written record is a significant inscription and reminds us that there may be others out there to be rediscovered.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-treaties-are-meaningless-without-addressing-the-issue-of-sovereignty-98006">Indigenous treaties are meaningless without addressing the issue of sovereignty</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Treaties and sovereignty</h2>
<p>The idea of <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-the-federal-government-debates-an-indigenous-voice-state-and-territories-are-pressing-ahead-120411">Treaty</a> goes to the heart of the moral and legal anxieties that underlie the Australian nation. The Debney Peace was not explicitly about sovereignty, or even about land, although its location did recognise and consolidate a specific area of neutrality and safety. It was an unadvertised peace in an undeclared war. The peace was an act of desperation by both parties, designed to save lives and livelihoods. Peace-making was one of the purposes of treaties.</p>
<p>The only documented “treaty” in Australian history – <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-truth-about-john-batman-melbournes-founder-and-murderer-of-the-blacks-1025">John Batman’s</a> two signed deeds with Kulin peoples at Port Phillip in 1835 – was a private contract quickly disowned by government. Although Batman used the term “treaty” and Aboriginal leaders such as William Barak and William Cooper later reinforced the significance of that word, the 1835 agreements were not prosecuted on behalf of the Crown. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463571/original/file-20220517-23-2fl9ij.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463571/original/file-20220517-23-2fl9ij.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463571/original/file-20220517-23-2fl9ij.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463571/original/file-20220517-23-2fl9ij.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463571/original/file-20220517-23-2fl9ij.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463571/original/file-20220517-23-2fl9ij.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463571/original/file-20220517-23-2fl9ij.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463571/original/file-20220517-23-2fl9ij.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
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<p>In his book <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/possession-paperback-softback">Possession</a> (2009), Bain Attwood beautifully analyses the legal confusion about British sovereignty in relation to Aboriginal peoples, especially in this period, when the Port Phillip Association made their attempt at land purchase and called it a “treaty”.</p>
<p>A government treaty with Indigenous peoples would have had implications for sovereignty and raised questions about whether the frontier was a theatre of war. As <a href="https://www.britannica.com/contributor/Raymond-Evans/9835864">Raymond Evans</a> has explained in his forensic histories of the Queensland frontier, declaring war would have meant recognising Indigenous peoples as invaded sovereign peoples rather than as “British subjects” whose resistance could be legally defined as criminal.</p>
<p>But an undeclared war, if pursued secretly, could proceed without regard to the conventions of war. There was no need to respect protocols about prisoners and certainly no place for truces or treaties. In Queensland a secret war was waged until a district could be declared “quiet”.</p>
<p>In this way, the title of Douglas Pike’s history of Australia, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13724454-australia">The Quiet Continent </a>(1962), published a decade before Aboriginal history made an impact on scholarship, now has a sinister ring to it.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463580/original/file-20220517-16-v215pz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463580/original/file-20220517-16-v215pz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463580/original/file-20220517-16-v215pz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=934&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463580/original/file-20220517-16-v215pz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=934&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463580/original/file-20220517-16-v215pz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=934&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463580/original/file-20220517-16-v215pz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1173&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463580/original/file-20220517-16-v215pz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1173&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463580/original/file-20220517-16-v215pz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1173&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>In his recent book, <a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/truth-telling/">Truth-Telling</a>, Henry Reynolds has argued that when the British chose not to pursue treaty-making in Australia (as they did, for example, in New Zealand and Canada) they laid the ground for a much more violent frontier and brought about many more Indigenous deaths. </p>
<p>Not to consider treaties was, he suggests, a “radical departure from accustomed colonial practice”. It was a policy that generated conditions where tensions could only be relieved by violence and where any accommodations or agreements had to be private and unacknowledged. Reynolds concludes that such agreements probably took place all over the country, but “most of them have been lost to the historical record”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-its-time-for-a-new-museum-dedicated-to-the-fighters-of-the-frontier-wars-155299">Friday essay: it's time for a new museum dedicated to the fighters of the frontier wars</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The Debney Peace joins a long lineage of formal appeals to the invaders since 1788: petitions on bark and paper, parliamentary pilgrimages and performances, Rom ceremonies, respectful pleas, dialogues, conferences, promises, campaigns, statements, reckonings, conciliations and makarratas that have been patiently prosecuted across more than 200 years. </p>
<p>It was distinct in that it sought to put an end to devastating violence, as its name conveys. Colonial conquest did not happen in an instant with the raising of a flag; it was incremental, resisted, sometimes negotiated and forever unfinished.</p>
<h2>Visiting Mooraberrie, and Mithaka Country</h2>
<p>I first visited Mooraberrie in 2000 and again in 2009, soon after the Kidman pastoral company acquired the property from the Duncans and before the Native Title determination for the Mithaka people in 2015. I was moved to finally see this landscape about which Alice had written so passionately, but I had to look at it out of the corner of my eye. Every historical fact and insight had to be gained against the inclination of the landholders. </p>
<p>Kidman’s managers were suspicious of my interest in First Nations histories. I learnt that the historic pisé homestead built by the Mithaka had recently been bulldozed into the creek, and the homestead collection of Indigenous artefacts had been thrown out. The managers had never heard of Alice, whose family had lived there for more than a century. I later posted them a first edition of Our Sandhill Country for their station collection so that the book could come home again.</p>
<p>When, in 2009, I visited neighbouring Bedourie, I was surprised that the little settlement’s good collection of local books and histories did not include any by Alice Duncan-Kemp. But the omission was national as well as local. In 1987 <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/2249560.The_Oxford_Literary_Guide_to_Australia">The Oxford Literary Guide to Australia</a> recognised only one writer from the Channel Country: the drover <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/boake-barcroft-henry-3018">Barcroft Boake</a>, who visited south-western Queensland for a few months in 1889 and wrote one poem called Where the Dead Men Lie about a desolate, uninhabited wasteland. Duncan-Kemp’s half-million published words on a populated landscape were not mentioned.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463582/original/file-20220517-18-1yg8aw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463582/original/file-20220517-18-1yg8aw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463582/original/file-20220517-18-1yg8aw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463582/original/file-20220517-18-1yg8aw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463582/original/file-20220517-18-1yg8aw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463582/original/file-20220517-18-1yg8aw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=641&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463582/original/file-20220517-18-1yg8aw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=641&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463582/original/file-20220517-18-1yg8aw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=641&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mithaka Elder Betty Gorringe and archeobotanist Andy Fairbairn. Photo by Michael Westaway.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2019 I made a very different visit to Mooraberrie. I was invited to return by the general manager of the Mithaka Aboriginal Corporation, <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/joshua-gorringe-1237694/articles">Josh Gorringe</a>, and this time I was working as part of a research team led by Mithaka people and the archaeologist Michael Westaway of the University of Queensland. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-how-our-new-archaeological-research-investigates-dark-emus-idea-of-aboriginal-agriculture-and-villages-146754">Friday essay: how our new archaeological research investigates Dark Emu's idea of Aboriginal 'agriculture' and villages</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Our aim was to bring Mithaka memories together with ethnographic, historical and archaeological evidence to identify significant story places. It was a joy to be on Country with Mithaka people. They welcomed my questions and we talked constantly of the history of the land. They have fought all their lives to retain and rebuild their connection with it.</p>
<p>I had Alice’s books with me and we talked about them too. One day we investigated a vast stone quarry site, mapped it with drones and walked some of its 15 hectares. There were artefacts as far as I could see, large and small – flakes, cores, blanks, choppers, knives, chips and grind- stones, broken and perfect, stacked up like dry-stone walls metres high, an industrial-scale production site.</p>
<p>Some white locals still explain this stunning feature as the result of “a meteor shower”. But these millstone quarries were part of an “Indigenous Silk Road” – dynamic factories at the centre of a vast transcontinental trade exchanging grindstones for pituri (a plant that is a stimulant), ochre, fibre and resin, songs and dances. </p>
<p>Archaeological work by Michael Westaway and his team is confirming the high-density populations described by Alice and finding signatures of peoples poised between the hyper-productivity of flood years and the lean economy of an otherwise dry, hard land.</p>
<p>On a gentle rise near this quarry were stone arrangements and lines of cobbles where strange paths go down. It is exhilarating to work from book to earth, translating words on the page into features of the landscape. As we walked the strange paths, Michael confided to me: “It’s a bit like Heinrich Schliemann reading the Iliad and finding Troy.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463578/original/file-20220517-24-xrnwvy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a pattern of stones forming pictures, as seen from the air" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463578/original/file-20220517-24-xrnwvy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463578/original/file-20220517-24-xrnwvy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463578/original/file-20220517-24-xrnwvy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463578/original/file-20220517-24-xrnwvy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463578/original/file-20220517-24-xrnwvy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463578/original/file-20220517-24-xrnwvy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463578/original/file-20220517-24-xrnwvy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=525&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">A spectacular stone arrangement from Mithaka country. Image courtesy of Lyndon Mechielsen.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>This was <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/heinrich-schliemann-the-man-who-discovered-troy/a-18946144">the story</a> of an amateur archaeologist named Schliemann who turned Homer’s Trojan War of legend into material, historical reality in 1871 when, with the Iliad in hand, he went in search of the great sites of the Greek Bronze Age and found Troy. The classical reference beautifully conveys the significance of books in our quest. Like Homer, Alice distilled the oral histories of generations.</p>
<p>One evening at dusk as we sat in a circle in the tall iron farm shed, Michael read aloud Alice’s account of the Debney Peace. I marvelled that her words had returned to this place of origin and that we were commemorating, with Mithaka people, an event that took place 130 years earlier. </p>
<p>The next day Josh Gorringe gunned his four-wheel drive over the red sandhills to the Pharmaleechie Channel in search of the ceremony site. The place we found was where Alice said it would be: a majestic setting with a stone arrangement at the foot of a knoll next to a flat-topped mesa, with a waterhole nearby and a claypan large enough for a gathering of 500.</p>
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<p>What took place here on this ancient common ground in the late 19th century left a firm fossil imprint in the drifts of the sandhill country. The Debney Peace made possible the continued presence of Mithaka people on their land in a time of war, created the conditions for cross-cultural conversations on Mooraberrie and enabled the education of young Alice. </p>
<p>Much tragedy and loss followed – people were exploited for labour, ravaged by the influenza pandemic of 1919 and forcibly removed by government in 1901 and 1932. But a diaspora of Mithaka families clung on to Country and won Native Title determination, drawing in part on the rich evidence in Alice’s books, the gift of her beloved teachers.</p>
<p>We stood together there – and stand together in this place today – because the promise of the peace fire was, in this mysterious way, realised.</p>
<p><em>Author’s note: I would like to thank the Gorringe family, the Duncan-Kemp family, the Debney family and the Mithaka Aboriginal Corporation for their strong support for this research. I also thank Michael Westaway, Trish FitzSimons, Grace Karskens, Tim Rowse, David Nash, Paul Gorecki and David Trigger – and Dawn Duncan-Kemp (1932-2021) for her dedication in preserving the archive of her mother-in-law, Alice.</em></p>
<p><em>This essay was originally published in <a href="https://www.griffithreview.com/editions/acts-of-reckoning/">Griffith Review 76 Acts of Reckoning</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>Kirrenderri, Heart of the Channel Country, an <a href="https://anthropologymuseum.uq.edu.au/exhibitions/kirrenderri-heart-channel-country">exhibition on Mithaka history and culture</a> is currently open at the University of Queensland Anthropology Museum and will be touring regional Australia.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182511/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Griffiths 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 Debney Peace, negotiated over a 5-day ceremony on Mithaka Country, is nationally significant to 21st century Australia.Tom Griffiths, Emeritus Professor of History, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1821352022-05-05T18:00:24Z2022-05-05T18:00:24ZHow treaties protecting fossil fuel investors could jeopardize global efforts to save the climate – and cost countries billions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461418/original/file-20220504-16-lkr3zr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5082%2C3520&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The threat of expensive payouts may already be having an effect.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/foot-sections-of-pipeline-which-will-carry-oil-from-the-news-photo/52832800?adppopup=true">Tom Stoddart/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fossil fuel companies have access to an obscure legal tool that could jeopardize worldwide efforts to protect the climate, and they’re starting to use it. The result could cost countries that press ahead with those efforts billions of dollars.</p>
<p>Over the past 50 years, countries have signed <a href="https://investmentpolicy.unctad.org/international-investment-agreements/iia-mapping">thousands of treaties</a> that protect foreign investors from government actions. These treaties are like contracts between national governments, meant to entice investors to bring in projects with the promise of local jobs and access to new technologies.</p>
<p>But now, as countries try to phase out fossil fuels to slow climate change, these agreements could leave the public facing overwhelming legal and financial risks.</p>
<p>The treaties allow investors to sue governments for compensation in a process called <a href="https://www.iisd.org/itn/en/2014/08/11/aron-broches-and-the-withdrawal-of-unilateral-offers-of-consent-to-investor-state-arbitration/">investor-state dispute settlement</a>, or ISDS. In short, investors could use ISDS clauses to demand compensation in response to government actions to limit fossil fuels, such as canceling pipelines and denying drilling permits. For example, TC Energy, a Canadian company, is currently seeking <a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/tc-energy-seeks-nafta-damages-over-canceled-keystone-xl-project-2021-11-23/">more than US$15 billion</a> over U.S. President Joe Biden’s cancellation of the Keystone XL Pipeline.</p>
<p>In a study published May 5, 2022, in the journal Science, we estimate that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abo4637">countries would face up to $340 billion</a> in legal and financial risks for canceling fossil fuel projects that are subject to treaties with ISDS clauses. </p>
<p>That’s more than countries worldwide put into climate adaptation and mitigation measures combined in <a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/tc-energy-seeks-nafta-damages-over-canceled-keystone-xl-project-2021-11-23/">fiscal year 2019</a>, and it doesn’t include the risks of phasing out coal investments or canceling fossil fuel infrastructure projects, like pipelines and liquefied natural gas terminals. It means that money countries might otherwise spend to build a low-carbon future could instead go to the very industries that have <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-big-oil-knew-about-climate-change-in-its-own-words-170642">knowingly been fueling climate change</a>, severely jeopardizing countries’ capacity to propel the green energy transition forward.</p>
<h2>Massive potential payouts</h2>
<p>Of the world’s 55,206 upstream oil and gas projects that are in the early stages of development, we identified 10,506 projects – 19% of the total – that were protected by 334 treaties providing access to ISDS. </p>
<p>That number could be much higher. We could only identify the headquarters of project owners, not the overall corporate structures of the investments, due to limited data. We also know that <a href="https://www.jonesday.com/en/insights/2022/02/climate-change-and-investorstate-dispute-settlement">law firms are advising clients in the industry</a> to structure investments to ensure access to ISDS, through processes such as using subsidiaries in countries with treaty protections. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461313/original/file-20220504-16-x863of.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Maps showing where these treaties are used." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461313/original/file-20220504-16-x863of.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461313/original/file-20220504-16-x863of.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=678&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461313/original/file-20220504-16-x863of.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=678&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461313/original/file-20220504-16-x863of.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=678&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461313/original/file-20220504-16-x863of.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=852&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461313/original/file-20220504-16-x863of.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=852&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461313/original/file-20220504-16-x863of.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=852&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="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abo4637">K. Franklin/Science based on K. Tienhaara et al.</a></span>
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<p>Depending upon future oil and gas prices, we found that the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abo4637">total net present value of those projects</a> is expected to reach $60 billion to $234 billion. If countries cancel these protected projects, foreign investors could sue for financial compensation in line with these valuations. </p>
<p>Doing so would put several low- and middle-income countries at severe risk. Mozambique, Guyana and Venezuela could each face over $20 billion in potential losses from ISDS claims.</p>
<p>If countries also cancel oil and gas projects that are further along in development but are not yet producing, they face more risk. We found that 12% of those projects worldwide are protected by investment treaties, and their investors could sue for $32 billion to $106 billion. </p>
<p>Canceling approved projects <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abo4637">could prove exceptionally risky</a> for countries like Kazakhstan, which could lose $6 billion to $18 billion, and Indonesia, with $3 billion to $4 billion at risk.</p>
<p>Canceling coal investments or fossil fuel infrastructure projects, like pipelines and liquefied natural gas terminals, could lead to even more claims.</p>
<h2>Countries already feel regulatory chill</h2>
<p>There have been <a href="https://www.iisd.org/system/files/2022-01/investor%E2%80%93state-disputes-fossil-fuel-industry.pdf">at least 231 ISDS cases</a> involving fossil fuels so far. Just the threat of massive payouts to investors could cause many countries to delay climate mitigation policies, causing a so-called “regulatory chill.” </p>
<p>Both <a href="https://capitalmonitor.ai/institution/government/cop26-ambitions-at-risk-from-energy-charter-treaty-lawsuits/https:/capitalmonitor.ai/institution/government/cop26-ambitions-at-risk-from-energy-charter-treaty-lawsuits/">Denmark and New Zealand</a>, for example, seem to have designed their fossil fuel phaseout plans specifically to minimize their exposure to ISDS. <a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/opinion/energy-charter-conference-a-ministerial-without-ministers/">Some</a> climate policy <a href="https://www.ibanet.org/Climate-crisis-Impact-of-Energy-Charter-Treaty-on-clean-energy-transition-raises-concern">experts</a> have suggested that Denmark may have chosen 2050 as the end date for oil and gas extraction to avoid disputes with existing exploration license holders.</p>
<p>New Zealand banned all new offshore oil exploration in 2018 but did not cancel any existing contracts. The climate minister acknowledged that a more aggressive plan <a href="https://capitalmonitor.ai/institution/government/cop26-ambitions-at-risk-from-energy-charter-treaty-lawsuits/">“would have run afoul of investor-state settlements.”</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esg.2021.100118">France revised a draft law</a> banning fossil fuel extraction by 2040 and allowing the renewal of oil exploitation permits after the <a href="https://www.vermilionenergy.com/our-operations/europe/france.cfm">Canadian company Vermilion</a> threatened to launch an ISDS case.</p>
<h2>Securing the green energy transition</h2>
<p>While these findings are alarming, countries have options to avoid onerous legal and financial risks. </p>
<p>The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is <a href="https://www.oecd.org/investment/investment-policy/investment-treaties.htm">currently discussing proposals</a> on the future of investment treaties.</p>
<p>A straightforward approach would be for countries to terminate or withdraw from these treaties. Some officials have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12355">expressed concern</a> about unforeseen impacts of unilaterally terminating investment treaties, but other countries have already done so, <a href="https://www.citizen.org/wp-content/uploads/pgcw_fdi-inflows-from-bit-termination_finaldraft.pdf">with few or no real economic consequences</a>. </p>
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<p>For more complex trade agreements, countries can negotiate to remove ISDS provisions, as the United States and Canada <a href="https://www.iisd.org/articles/usmca-impact-north-american-trade">did when they replaced</a> the North American Free Trade Agreement with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.</p>
<p>Additional challenges stem from “sunset clauses” that bind countries for a decade or more after they have withdrawn from some treaties. Such is the case for Italy, which <a href="https://borderlex.net/2022/04/25/ect-negotiations-members-eye-june-deal-announcement/">withdrew from the Energy Charter Treaty</a> in 2016. It is <a href="https://icsid.worldbank.org/cases/case-database/case-detail?CaseNo=ARB/17/14">currently stuck</a> in an ongoing ISDS case initiated by the U.K. company Rockhopper over a ban on coastal oil drilling. </p>
<p>The Energy Charter Treaty, a special investment agreement covering the energy sector, emerged as the greatest single contributor to global ISDS risks in our dataset. Many European countries are <a href="https://borderlex.net/2022/04/25/ect-negotiations-members-eye-june-deal-announcement/">currently considering</a> whether to leave the treaty and how to avoid the same fate as Italy. If all country parties to a treaty can <a href="https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1153&context=sustainable_investment_staffpubs">agree together to withdraw</a>, they could <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/icsidreview/sit051">collectively sidestep</a> the sunset clause through mutual agreement. </p>
<h2>The global transition</h2>
<p>Combating climate change is not cheap. Actions <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-group-3/">by governments</a> and the private sector are <a href="https://www.iea.org/articles/the-cost-of-capital-in-clean-energy-transitions">both needed</a> to slow global warming and keep it <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/">from fueling increasingly devastating disasters</a>.</p>
<p>In the end, the question is who will pay – and be paid – in the global energy transition. We believe that, at the very least, it would be counterproductive to divert critical public finance from essential mitigation and adaptation efforts to the pockets of fossil fuel industry investors whose products caused the problem in the first place.</p>
<p>[<em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182135/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Thrasher receives funding from Open Society Foundations and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kyla Tienhaara receives funding from the Canada Research Chairs Program (Government of Canada). She provides pro bono advice for a number of non-profit organizations working on climate and investment issues. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Blake Alexander Simmons does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new study adds up the potential legal and financial risk countries could face from hundreds of agreements, like those under the Energy Charter Treaty.Rachel Thrasher, Law Lecturer and Researcher at the Boston University Global Development Policy Center, Boston UniversityBlake Alexander Simmons, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Human Dimensions of Natural Resources, Colorado State UniversityKyla Tienhaara, Canada Research Chair in Economy and Environment, Queen's University, OntarioLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1744642022-01-20T05:25:24Z2022-01-20T05:25:24ZQueensland’s ‘Path to Treaty’ has some lessons for the rest of Australia<p>After decades of <a href="https://antar.org.au/treaty">calls</a>, a patchwork of treaty processes are being developed <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-the-federal-government-debates-an-indigenous-voice-state-and-territories-are-pressing-ahead-120411">across Australia</a>. However, without a history of treaty-making or treaty law in Australia, serious questions arise about the best approach. </p>
<p>Getting treaties right is crucial for First Nations peoples’ well-being and for building a reflective, assured, and confident nation. This is urgent work, and yet the best way forward might involve working in longer time frames than is usual in policy reform. </p>
<p>Taking time with these processes is important because developing meaningful treaties requires negotiating political authority between Indigenous peoples and Australian governments, and the balance of power and resources between them.</p>
<p>Indigenous peoples have political authority going into treaty processes as the original peoples governing this continent for tens of thousands of years. However putting this authority into action is challenging because white Australian political forms and processes are pervasive. </p>
<p>In addition, many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have been systematically disconnected from their sources of authority and each other. This can make for challenging <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/may/22/indigenous-greens-mp-lidia-thorpe-says-she-may-oppose-treaty-legislation">issues</a> surrounding Indigenous representation in treaty processes. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-short-history-of-the-aboriginal-tent-embassy-an-indelible-reminder-of-unceded-sovereignty-174693">A short history of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy – an indelible reminder of unceded sovereignty</a>
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<h2>Queensland’s approach</h2>
<p>Victoria is acknowledged for being the first Australian state to begin developing a treaty, having passed the first <a href="https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/publications/research-papers/download/36-research-papers/13861-advancing-the-treaty-process-with-aboriginal-victorians-bill-2018">legal framework</a> for treaty negotiations. <a href="https://www.firstpeoplesrelations.vic.gov.au/treaty-process">A treaty process</a> has progressed relatively quickly since then.</p>
<p>Queensland began a “pathway” to treaty process in 2019. The Queensland government’s <a href="https://statements.qld.gov.au/statements/87895">announcement</a> of an open ended process as part of NAIDOC week was generally <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-the-federal-government-debates-an-indigenous-voice-state-and-territories-are-pressing-ahead-12041">well-received</a> at the time, but was no guarantee of success.</p>
<p>The Eminent Panel and the Treaty Advancement Committee have carefully listened to voices of First Nations communities and managed the complex politics involved with these consultations. The Queensland government has responded <a href="https://documents.parliament.qld.gov.au/TableOffice/TabledPapers/2020/5620T1358.pdf">positively</a> with a key next step to include the establishment of a “Treaty Institute” to invest in the state being <a href="https://www.dsdsatsip.qld.gov.au/our-work/aboriginal-torres-strait-islander-partnerships/reconciliation-tracks-treaty/tracks-treaty/path-treaty/about-path-treaty">treaty-ready</a> over a ten year period.</p>
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<h2>Sustaining the Queensland approach</h2>
<p>While the Queensland treaty process has thus far proceeded well, it stands at a crossroads as backroom negotiations to give shape to the Treaty Institute continue. Previous <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/religion/why-we-need-aboriginal-political-philosophy/12865016">collaborative work</a> in Indigenous-settler relations in Queensland suggests sustaining a meaningful treaty process requires following these three principles:</p>
<p>• the Treaty Institute needs to be as separate from government as possible and affirm the distinct political authority of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples</p>
<p>• the Treaty Institute should focus on engaging with and supporting Indigenous peoples and their place-based forms of political authority, including to re-establish peer-to-peer treaties among Indigenous nations. (Existing Indigenous organisations have a role to play in this process but fresh, creative, and demanding work is also required)</p>
<p>• the governance and work of the Treaty Institute must be inclusive, recognising men’s and women’s law and their respective leadership as well as including the views of people of diverse ages, genders, sexualities, and abilities.</p>
<h2>Navigating political authority and power</h2>
<p>Developing meaningful treaties with First Nations peoples requires at least partly remedying the dominance of white Australian political forms and power. If this is not done it is not possible to negotiate political authority of First Nations peoples and Australian governments and the power relations between them.</p>
<p>Australian governments exercise sovereignty and have an abundance of power and resources, but they struggle with legitimacy and thus authority within treaty processes. As Professor of Law Irene Watson <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/indigenous/irene-watson-aboriginal-treaties-for-past-present-and-future/11268294">asks</a>, “by what lawful authority do you … dispossess us?”</p>
<p>White Australia needs to grapple with the legitimacy of its claims to authority, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/indigenous/sarah-maddison-treaty-whats-in-it-for-non-indigenous-australians/11267990">including</a> addressing past injustices and imbalance of power and resources in treaty processes. </p>
<p>Queensland’s proposed process allows time for the Queensland government to recognise Indigenous political authority while nurturing trust in the treaty process within Queensland’s diverse political communities. </p>
<p>The process is also broadly aligned with many First Nations peoples because of an affinity with continuity, a careful approach to change, and regard for protocol borne of tens of thousands of years of governing this continent. Additional time in these processes also allows space from immediate pressures of negotiating with government.</p>
<p>Most importantly, the proposed Treaty Institute provides Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples the necessary time and resources to consider how to preserve and strengthen Indigenous ideas and institutions in Australian policy and decision-making processes.</p>
<p>This can enable the pursuit of placed-based approaches to decision-making that draw on respective First Nations’ <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/religion/aboriginal-political-concepts-country-place-territory/12815608">Countries</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-has-a-heritage-conservation-problem-can-farming-and-aboriginal-heritage-protection-co-exist-170956">Australia has a heritage conservation problem. Can farming and Aboriginal heritage protection co-exist?</a>
</strong>
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</p>
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<p>As Australia’s treaty deliberations continue to develop, we will begin to see advantages and disadvantages of different approaches. </p>
<p>For now, the comparatively slower approach in Queensland looks to address fundamental challenges which could potentially be overlooked in a more rushed process.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174464/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Treaties with First Nations people are being developed across Australia. However, without a history of treaty law in Australia, serious questions arise about the best approach.Morgan Brigg, Associate Professor, Peace and Conflict Studies, The University of QueenslandMary Graham, Adjunct Associate Professor, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1748612022-01-20T00:50:52Z2022-01-20T00:50:52ZVoice to Parliament design report still doesn’t meet international human rights standards<p>Last month, the Australian government published the <a href="https://voice.niaa.gov.au/final-report">Indigenous Voice co-design final report</a>. It’s the latest step in the debate about how Australia should and shouldn’t recognise a distinctive Indigenous presence in public life.</p>
<p>Some of the report’s recommendations, which the government <a href="https://ministers.pmc.gov.au/wyatt/2021/indigenous-voice-co-design-final-report">accepts</a>, will help policy-making to work better for Indigenous people. But they don’t go far enough to meet international human rights norms by supporting <a href="https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/%E2%80%98we-are-all-here-stay%E2%80%99">self-determination</a> as a right that belongs to Indigenous peoples as much as to anybody else.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-dispossession-to-massacres-the-yoo-rrook-justice-commission-sets-a-new-standard-for-truth-telling-170632">From dispossession to massacres, the Yoo-rrook Justice Commission sets a new standard for truth-telling</a>
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<h2>What is self-determination and why is it so important?</h2>
<p>Self-determination is the right to exercise authority over one’s own affairs and to participate fairly in public decision-making. It encompasses the right to make decisions about things like health, education, natural resource management and economic development. It doesn’t stop the state’s right to govern. But as the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/ccpr.aspx">International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights</a> puts it, the state’s right to govern doesn’t override an obligation to recognise that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>All peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Voice co-design report is limited in the opportunities it provides for Australia to meet these obligations. Furthermore, it doesn’t give effect to the UN <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2018/11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf">Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples</a>, which says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen their distinct political, legal, economic, social and cultural institutions, while retaining their right to participate fully, if they so choose, in the political, economic, social and cultural life of the state.</p>
</blockquote>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/most-australians-support-first-nations-voice-to-parliament-survey-157964">Most Australians support First Nations Voice to parliament: survey</a>
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<h2>The Uluru Statement from the Heart</h2>
<p>One limitation is the local and regional bodies will be referred to as “Indigenous”, not “First Nations” Voices. <a href="https://voice.niaa.gov.au/final-report">The co-design committee</a> wasn’t allowed to consider First Nations’ Voices, as the Referendum Council proposed in its Uluru Statement from the Heart in 2017. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.referendumcouncil.org.au">Referendum Council</a> was established in 2015 by then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and the leader of the opposition, Bill Shorten. Its job was to recommend amendments to the Constitution to “recognise” Australia’s first peoples.</p>
<p>The significance of the term “First Nations” is that nationhood implies distinctive and enduring political community, whereas the term “Indigenous” refers only to prior occupancy. </p>
<p>Under instruments like the <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2018/11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf">Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples</a>, “Indigenous” is a politically significant concept. But it’s not the same as nationhood. This is important because the Referendum Council made its recommendations after widespread consultation with First Nations people and most said they preferred to be recognised as members of First Nations because of its more significant political meaning.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.referendumcouncil.org.au">Uluru Statement from the Heart</a> recommended amending the Constitution to create a permanent First Nations’ Voice to Parliament. However, amending the Constitution requires a referendum. </p>
<p>The Voice was to be complemented by Makarrata, a process of “coming together after a struggle”. Makarrata would lay the foundation for agreement-making. </p>
<p>Discussions are underway on what agreement-making through treaties might look like in Queensland, Victoria and the Northern Territory. However, the Commonwealth doesn’t like the idea of recognising Indigenous peoples’ nationhood, which treaties would require.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1481218532692340741"}"></div></p>
<h2>The co-design report</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://fromtheheart.com.au/uluru-statement/the-statement/">Uluru Statement from the Heart</a> was a plan to recognise human equality by accepting that enduring nationhood, cultural perspectives and colonial experiences legitimately influence the way people want to participate in public life. However, the Coalition government immediately <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/media/pressrel/5596294/upload_binary/5596294.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%22media/pressrel/5596294%22">rejected</a> the statement. </p>
<p>More than four years later, <a href="https://voice.niaa.gov.au/final-report">the co-design report</a> proposed to create 35 local and regional voices to government. How these voices will collectively appoint a 24-member National Voice to Parliament and government is yet to be worked out. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1471619074488627201"}"></div></p>
<p>There isn’t time to pass the legislation to set up these Voices before the federal election, due by May. However, the Labor party says if it is elected, <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/2021/08/06/burney-and-labor-criticise-indigenous-voice-timeline">it will support a referendum</a> to establish a national Voice to Parliament as a permanent institution.</p>
<p>The co-design committee <a href="https://voice.niaa.gov.au/final-report">wasn’t allowed</a> to consider a referendum to change the Constitution. However, it did report that constitutional entrenchment was what many of the <a href="https://voice.niaa.gov.au/final-report">9,400 people</a> it spoke to actually wanted.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-did-the-public-say-about-the-governments-indigenous-voice-co-design-process-163803">What did the public say about the government’s Indigenous Voice co-design process?</a>
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<hr>
<h2>The next steps for the Voice to Parliament</h2>
<p>There is potential for these Indigenous regional voices to help improve public administration and contribute to better policy-making. But it’s not a guaranteed contribution at a national level. Also, because the plan is to set them up by legislation, not by referendum, they could be abolished at any time.</p>
<p>Standalone concepts like “co-design” and “partnership” can’t assure First Nations people of the decision-making authority that self-determination requires. An entrenched Voice to Parliament also won’t provide this, but the Voice was only one part of the Referendum Council’s proposal. Taken alongside truth-telling and Makarrata, there is potential for politics to work differently and inclusively.</p>
<p>For example, in New Zealand, there are <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/the-house/audio/2018658559/maori-seats-what-are-they">guaranteed Maori seats in parliament</a>. In Victoria, the <a href="https://www.firstpeoplesvic.org/media/big-steps-taken-on-the-path-to-treaty-in-victoria/">First Peoples’ Assembly</a> is considering whether it wants to propose a similar kind of arrangement so First Nations people actually get to make policy.</p>
<p>This is why, in spite of consultation’s benefits for effective policy-making, the co-design report is not significant from a human rights perspective. </p>
<p>Only a positive referendum vote would give Australia a better chance at recognising Indigenous peoples human rights.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174861/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dominic O'Sullivan 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>Last month, the government published the Indigenous Voice co-design final report. However, ways to ensure First Nations self-determination remain lacking in the strategy.Dominic O'Sullivan, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology and Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1709562021-12-01T22:05:07Z2021-12-01T22:05:07ZAustralia has a heritage conservation problem. Can farming and Aboriginal heritage protection co-exist?<p>Rio Tinto’s destruction of the 46,000 year old Juukan Gorge rock shelters has led to recommendations by the Parliamentary Inquiry on <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/reportjnt/024757/toc_pdf/AWayForward.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf">how Australia can better conserve Aboriginal heritage sites</a>. </p>
<p>Around the time the recommendations were made, Queensland’s Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act faced an important test when a pastoralist who cleared 500 hectares of bushland at Kingvale Station in Cape York <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/qld-country-hour/scott-harris-cleared-of-breaching-cultural-heritage-act/13592850">was charged</a> with failing to protect Aboriginal cultural heritage. </p>
<p>The charges were eventually <a href="https://www.northqueenslandregister.com.au/story/7474626/cultural-heritage-charges-against-scott-harris-dismissed/">dismissed</a> but the prosecution, the first of its kind in Queensland, highlights weaknesses in the law.</p>
<p>Like related legislation in other Australian states and territories, Queensland’s law requires landholders to conserve Aboriginal heritage sites or risk prosecution.</p>
<p>But the law has been criticised by many Aboriginal people and heritage specialists for allowing destructive development by removing any ability for government to independently assess how proposed clearing would affect Aboriginal heritage.</p>
<p>Under the “duty of care” provisions in the Act, Aboriginal heritage must be protected even if it is not known to landholders. However, as the Kingvale clearing case heard, if Aboriginal heritage is not known, how can it be shown to have been lost? </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-coastal-waters-are-rich-in-indigenous-cultural-heritage-but-it-remains-hidden-and-under-threat-166564">Australia's coastal waters are rich in Indigenous cultural heritage, but it remains hidden and under threat</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What we learned from the Kingvale clearing case</h2>
<p>In 2013, the former Newman government in Queensland removed protection for the environment by introducing the Vegetation Management Act which enabled clearing of what they deemed as “high value agricultural projects” in Cape York. </p>
<p>The World Wildlife Foundation argued this would see large areas of forest and bushland destroyed. Advocates for the new Act <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2013-05-22/veg-law-pass/4705890">argued</a> primary producers are “acutely aware of their responsibility to care for the environment”.</p>
<p>In opening up new areas of Cape York to clearing, this legislation posed new threats to heritage sites. In this context the landholder of Kingvale decided he did not need to assess cultural heritage when clearing 500 hectares.</p>
<p>At the conclusion of the hearing into this case, Judge Julie Dick of the Cairns District Court instructed the jury to return <a href="https://www.cairnspost.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=CPWEB_WRE170_a_GGL&dest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cairnspost.com.au%2Fnews%2Fcairns%2Fcape-york-grazier-cleared-of-criminal-land-clearing-charges%2Fnews-story%2F1d124158e58936a302f1ee5d159ad841&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium">a not-guilty verdict</a>, exonerating the landholder, as the offence could not be proved beyond reasonable doubt. </p>
<p>The landholder’s legal team noted in the media if their defendant had been found guilty, every landholder (including freeholders) who had cleared land, built a fence or firebreak, ploughed a paddock, or built a road or airstrip since 2003 would potentially be guilty of a criminal offence.</p>
<p>The defendant argued the ramifications of the legal case were significant </p>
<blockquote>
<p>for the rest of Queensland […] anyone who mowed a lawn or cut down a tree since 2003 would be automatically liable.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In our view, this is hyperbole. <a href="https://www.legislation.qld.gov.au/view/pdf/inforce/2016-09-27/act-2003-079">Section 21 of the Act</a> makes explicit a person’s right to enjoy the normal and allowed use of their land to the extent they don’t harm Aboriginal heritage. </p>
<p>Further, a person doesn’t commit an offence if they take into account the nature of the activity and the likelihood of it causing harm. Mowing the lawn is quite different to clearing 500 hectares of native vegetation. </p>
<p>The setting of this activity is also important. Kingvale Station is located 100 kilometres west of the national heritage listed Quinkan Country. Heritage studies in similar landscapes across Cape York have identified scarred trees, artefact scatters, stone arrangements and cultural burial places. </p>
<p>Based on our heritage experience across Queensland, it would be surprising not to find Aboriginal heritage sites at Kingvale. </p>
<p>To reduce heritage risks, we assess the potential impacts of an activity, and talk with relevant Aboriginal groups about their sites and heritage values. Archaeologists and anthropologists also develop models to predict where unknown sites are likely to be found. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431020/original/file-20211109-23-aylfq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431020/original/file-20211109-23-aylfq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431020/original/file-20211109-23-aylfq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431020/original/file-20211109-23-aylfq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431020/original/file-20211109-23-aylfq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431020/original/file-20211109-23-aylfq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431020/original/file-20211109-23-aylfq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Recorded archaeological sites across Cape York. The distribution pattern reflects several key heritage surveys. It is expected that cultural sites would be found across the cape, including within the 500 hectares cleared at Kingvale. Image by Kelsey M. Lowe.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Can farming and the conservation of Aboriginal heritage co-exist?</h2>
<p>The best way to conserve heritage is for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians to work together to identify, document, and protect places. An important example is the discovery of human remains from a mortuary tree west of St George, southern Queensland. </p>
<p>The site was discovered during fence clearing by the landholder, who contacted the police. We worked with the landholder who has supported the Kooma nations people to conserve the mortuary tree and enable it to remain on country. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qKJs23hwLXA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Courtesy of Tony Miscamble, NGH Consulting.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A further example from Mithaka Country saw a spectacular stone arrangement discovered by a pastoral station manager, who notified the native title holders. </p>
<p>All are now engaging with researchers to <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=TAWEB_WRE170_a_GGL&dest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theaustralian.com.au%2Fnation%2Fstones-point-way-to-indigenous-silk-road%2Fnews-story%2F8318b531d82263beab4afd089fd8d559&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium">investigate the site’s history</a>.</p>
<p>Dozens of other examples around the state illustrate collaborative approaches to heritage conservation. But more effective legislation is urgently needed in response to Kingvale’s failed prosecution.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430631/original/file-20211107-10010-f752su.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430631/original/file-20211107-10010-f752su.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430631/original/file-20211107-10010-f752su.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430631/original/file-20211107-10010-f752su.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430631/original/file-20211107-10010-f752su.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430631/original/file-20211107-10010-f752su.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430631/original/file-20211107-10010-f752su.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A spectacular stone arrangement from Mithaka country. Image courtesy of Lyndon Mechielsen</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How can we improve cultural heritage protection?</h2>
<p>The Juukan Gorge case highlighted how Australia has a problem protecting its Aboriginal cultural heritage. The final report of the parliamentary inquiry into the disaster made several <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/reportjnt/024757/toc_pdf/AWayForward.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf">recommendations</a> that could help pave a way forward. </p>
<p>Instances like Kingvale emphasise more work needs to be done. The Queensland government needs to act now to address the glaring problem with its heritage legislation. </p>
<p>Heritage management investment will also help. Victoria provides an example of how to improve Aboriginal heritage management. A standout action is the roll-out of a Certificate IV in Aboriginal cultural heritage management, with over 500 Aboriginal graduates to date. </p>
<p>This program is decentralising heritage management and empowering Aboriginal people across Victoria, building a level of professionalism rarely seen in other states. </p>
<p>Establishing treaties and agreements similar to those in Canada and New Zealand could go a long way to enable First Nations people in Australia to authoritatively protect their respective cultural heritage sites. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-wet-tropics-wildlife-is-celebrated-worldwide-its-cultural-heritage-not-so-much-157147">The Wet Tropics' wildlife is celebrated worldwide. Its cultural heritage? Not so much</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Heritage conservation will remain challenging, particularly in resource-rich states like Queensland. But we can do better. </p>
<p>Judge Dick’s ruling, while frustrating for the effort to conserve heritage, is crucial as it highlights weaknesses in the law. </p>
<p>This trial, along with the Juukan Gorge incident, may represent a critical tipping point in the struggle to protect Aboriginal cultural heritage in Queensland and across Australia. </p>
<p><em>The authors wish to thank Jamin Moon for his consultation in the writing of this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170956/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Westaway receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua Gorringe is Mithaka Traditional owner and General Manager of Mithaka Aboriginal Corporation RNTBC. Mithaka has received funding from NIAA and QLD Caring for Country Grants. He is affiliated with Mithaka Aboriginal Corporation RNTBC. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kelsey M. Lowe receives funding from University of Queensland Strategic Research Investment.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Martin receives funding from the Australian Research Council. Richard also receives funding from a range of Aboriginal groups across Queensland relating to native title claims and cultural heritage protection.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ross Mitchell Kooma Chairperson currently receives funding from NIAA for IPA Ranger Program Murra Murra and Bendee Downs Station owned by Kooma Traditional Owner association Inc </span></em></p>How can we improve the management of Queensland’s heritage sites? Can farming and the conservation of Aboriginal heritage co-exist?Michael Westaway, Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Archaeology, School of Social Science, The University of QueenslandJoshua Gorringe, General Manager Mithaka Aboriginal Corporation, Indigenous KnowledgeKelsey M. Lowe, Senior Research Fellow, The University of QueenslandRichard Martin, Senior lecturer, The University of QueenslandRoss Mitchell, Common Law holder and director of Kooma Aboriginal Corporation Native Title PBC, Indigenous KnowledgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1713842021-11-10T02:21:42Z2021-11-10T02:21:42ZWhy the Australian government must listen to Torres Strait leaders on climate change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430960/original/file-20211109-23-1sbwiqv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Paul Kabai and Pabai Pabai.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Talei Elu</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last month, First Nations leaders Pabai Pabai and Paul Kabai <a href="http://climatecasechart.com/climate-change-litigation/non-us-case/pabai-pabai-and-guy-paul-kabai-v-commonwealth-of-australia/">filed a landmark class action</a> against the Australian government to protect communities in the Torres Strait from climate change.</p>
<p>In the Torres Strait, First Nations communities are facing an <a href="https://theconversation.com/torres-strait-islanders-face-more-than-their-fair-share-of-health-impacts-from-climate-change-165388">existential threat</a> as the planet warms. Rising seas are already inundating infrastructure and cultural sites, and some islands may be uninhabitable by the end of the century causing devastating harm to Torres Strait Islander Peoples and Ailan Kastom culture.</p>
<p>Mr. Pabai and Mr. Kabai have seen the impacts first hand. They have filed their class action to protect over 65,000 years of connection to land. Mr. Kabai has <a href="https://www.gratafund.org.au/climate_case_release">described</a> the class action as answering their responsibility to community and culture.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have a cultural responsibility to protect our communities, our culture and spirituality from climate change – for our ancestors and future generations.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Mr. Pabai and Mr. Kabai are part of a proud history of Torres Strait Islander Peoples fighting for their rights through the courts. They draw on the legacy of Eddie Mabo and his co-plaintiffs James Rice and David Passi, who took on the government and established that <a href="https://australianstogether.org.au/discover/australian-history/mabo-native-title/">terra nullius was a lie</a>, paving the way for Native Title recognition as we know it today.</p>
<p>Mr. Kabai and Mr. Pabai are also part of the foundational tradition of First Nation stewardship of land and water. As Traditional Owners, their knowledge and protection of Country is vital to tackling climate change.</p>
<p>Indigenous Peoples have always known this. Our communities have adapted and thrived together by caring for country for countless generations. The scientific community has only recently caught up. </p>
<p>In 2019, the <a href="https://ipccresponse.org/home-en">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</a> recognised Indigenous Peoples, our knowledge and rights to land and water are key to tackling climate change.</p>
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<h2>Pabai and Kabai’s case</h2>
<p>In their class action, Mr. Pabai and Mr. Kabai will argue the Australian government has a duty to protect the people, islands, and culture of the Torres Strait. The duty arises from the common law of negligence, the <a href="http://www.tsirc.qld.gov.au/community-entry-forms/treaty-png-border-movements">Torres Strait Treaty</a> (between Australia and Papua New Guinea, providing protection for the way of life of traditional peoples of the Torres Strait Protected Zone), and the Native Title rights of Torres Strait Islander Peoples.</p>
<p>The legal rights Torres Strait Islander Peoples hold as Traditional Owners of their lands and waters are central to Mr. Kabai and Mr. Pabai’s case. As is their deep spiritual and personal connection to the islands. </p>
<p>Mr. Kabai has further <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/why-these-torres-strait-islanders-are-filing-a-class-action-against-the-australian-government/4d420d1a-2752-4f7c-bb2f-bbb898aae764">detailed</a> that if the government’s climate failure continues they will lose everything. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Becoming climate refugees means losing everything: our homes, our culture, our stories and our identity […] If you take us away from this island then we’re nothing. It’s like the Stolen Generation, you take people away from their tribal land, they become nobodies. </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430981/original/file-20211109-17-yee01y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A cross in front of ocean." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430981/original/file-20211109-17-yee01y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430981/original/file-20211109-17-yee01y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430981/original/file-20211109-17-yee01y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430981/original/file-20211109-17-yee01y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430981/original/file-20211109-17-yee01y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430981/original/file-20211109-17-yee01y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430981/original/file-20211109-17-yee01y.jpeg?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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Boigu, Torres Strait.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Talei Elu</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Australian government’s responsibility to Torres Strait Islander Peoples comes from the particular vulnerability of their communities to climate harms like sea level rise. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/11/norway-court-rules-two-windfarms-harming-sami-reindeer-herders-turbines-torn-down">Similar arguments</a> have been made and won by the Sami people in Norway to protect their rights as part of climate change mitigation. Although in different legal and political contexts, both Indigenous rights and climate action are entrenched, structural priorities.</p>
<p>Mr. Pabai and Mr. Kabai will argue the government’s failure to reduce emissions will extinguish the Native Title rights of Torres Strait Islander Peoples as their traditional lands are lost beneath rising seas.</p>
<p>In court, they will urge the government to take pre-emptive steps to stop climate change impacts from destroying their islands – and with them, over 65,000 years of custom and culture protected by Native Title.</p>
<p>The government’s responsibility to act is also said to come from legal protections provided by the Torres Strait Treaty. Australia entered into the Treaty with Papua New Guinea in 1978, after grassroots political pressure from Torres Strait Islander leaders like Getano Lui Snr.</p>
<p>The Treaty created a protected zone to acknowledge and protect the traditional way of life of Torres Strait Islander Peoples and requires the Australian government to prevent damage to the marine environment of the Torres Strait.</p>
<p>These protections exist to preserve the deep spiritual connection First Nations communities have to their islands and waters.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430963/original/file-20211109-17-u0jccz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A concrete seawall." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430963/original/file-20211109-17-u0jccz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430963/original/file-20211109-17-u0jccz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430963/original/file-20211109-17-u0jccz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430963/original/file-20211109-17-u0jccz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430963/original/file-20211109-17-u0jccz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430963/original/file-20211109-17-u0jccz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430963/original/file-20211109-17-u0jccz.jpeg?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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A concrete seawall in the Torres Strait protecting against rising sea levels.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Talei Elu</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The importance of this connection to Country has been recognised by the High Court. In 2019, the court found the Northern Territory government was <a href="https://www.hrlc.org.au/human-rights-case-summaries/2019/7/23/high-court-recognises-significance-of-cultural-and-spiritual-loss-in-native-title-decision">responsible for spiritual hurt</a> caused to Ngaliwurru and Nungali native title holders by the building of roads and infrastructure on their traditional lands.</p>
<p>It is this combination of legal rights – unique to Torres Strait Islander Peoples – that Mr. Pabai and Mr. Kabai will rely on to ask the court to create a new duty of care.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-climate-change-activists-can-learn-from-first-nations-campaigns-against-the-fossil-fuel-industry-165869">What climate change activists can learn from First Nations campaigns against the fossil fuel industry</a>
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<h2>Recent developments</h2>
<p>Earlier this year, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-a-landmark-judgment-the-federal-court-found-the-environment-minister-has-a-duty-of-care-to-young-people-161650">Federal Court found</a> a novel duty of care not to cause climate harm to young people. The Court found that the minister for the environment had a responsibility to take reasonable care to avoid harm to children caused by greenhouse gas emissions when exercising her power to approve new coal mining.</p>
<p>Mr. Pabai and Mr. Kabai’s case is the first of its kind because it argues a far broader case: that the Australian government has a duty to protect the Torres Strait from climate harm.</p>
<p>While this may sound ambitious, these kinds of cases have worked before. Most notably, in the Netherlands, where the <a href="https://www.urgenda.nl/en/home-en/">Urgenda Foundation</a> and 886 people took the Dutch government to court for climate inaction – and won.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.urgenda.nl/en/home-en/">The Urgenda Foundation</a> has partnered with Mr. Pabai and Mr. Kabai on their case, and the circumstances are similar. Both communities live on land perilously exposed to rising sea levels and face severe harm from climate change.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/if-governments-fail-to-act-can-the-courts-save-our-planet-170713">If governments fail to act, can the courts save our planet?</a>
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<h2>A legacy of nation shaping</h2>
<p>First Nations communities have a history of bringing legal cases vital to the development of Australian law. Often against the odds.</p>
<p>Mabo’s legal victory placed the Torres Strait at the centre of a transformation in the way the Australian nation places itself in a long history of Indigenous ownership and connection. Mr. Kabai and Mr. Pabai are inspired by that legacy.</p>
<p>As world leaders meet in Glasgow for the COP26 climate summit, billed as a “last chance” for real climate action, Mr. Pabai and Mr. Kabai are asking the Australian government to step up and stop causing harm.</p>
<p>Their class action could prevent extreme climate harm for all Torres Strait Islander Peoples, and all Australians. </p>
<p>It is a vitally important case. It is also an action taken by traditional owners that highlights our continued commitment to country over countless generations, a commitment that is a proven practice of providing for all of existence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171384/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eddie Synot 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>First Nations leaders Pabai Pabai and Paul Kabai filed a landmark class action against the Australian government to protect communities in the Torres Strait from climate change.Eddie Synot, Lecturer, Griffith Law School, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1706322021-11-05T03:53:10Z2021-11-05T03:53:10ZFrom dispossession to massacres, the Yoo-rrook Justice Commission sets a new standard for truth-telling<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429292/original/file-20211029-21-vdrpj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mural by Matt Adnate</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/warrnambool-australia-january-23-2016-south-378523009">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There can be no Treaty without truth.</p>
<p>This simple but powerful statement is the reason for the <a href="https://yoorrookjusticecommission.org.au/">Yoo-rrook Justice Commission</a>’s mandate to reveal, record and analyse the systemic injustices experienced by Victorian First Peoples since colonisation.</p>
<p>Named from a Wamba Wamba word meaning truth, the Yoo-rrook mandate will take three years from 2021-24. This is a significant step for truth-telling in Victoria.</p>
<p>Truth-telling commissions are formal bodies tasked with discovering and revealing past wrongdoings in the hope of resolving conflict and repairing relationships.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/victorias-truth-telling-commission-to-move-forward-we-need-to-answer-for-the-legacies-of-colonisation-156746">Victoria's truth-telling commission: to move forward, we need to answer for the legacies of colonisation</a>
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</p>
<hr>
<p>Yoo-rrook’s strategic vision is for a transformed Victoria. A Victoria based on truth and justice, grounded in First Peoples’ enduring spirit, cultures and self-determination. </p>
<p>As any other royal commission, Yoo-rrook will have broad powers to hold public hearings, compel evidence and make recommendations to the Victorian government as to what should change. </p>
<p>The commission’s letters patent is the legal document from the governor setting up the Yoo-rrok’s royal commission. This document essentially gives instructions to Yoo-rrook about how to inquire into the experience of past and present systemic injustices for Victorian First Peoples.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429291/original/file-20211029-15-m794x3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429291/original/file-20211029-15-m794x3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=291&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429291/original/file-20211029-15-m794x3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=291&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429291/original/file-20211029-15-m794x3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=291&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429291/original/file-20211029-15-m794x3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429291/original/file-20211029-15-m794x3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429291/original/file-20211029-15-m794x3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Yoo-rrook Justice Commission logo.</span>
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<p>The letters patent details a wide-ranging <a href="https://yoorrookjusticecommission.org.au/resources/">set of obligations</a> that can be summarised as:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>establishing an official record of the impact of systemic injustice on the First Peoples of Victoria from colonisation to the present </p></li>
<li><p>developing a shared understand among all Victorians on the impact of these systemic injustices, as well as the diversity, strength and resilience of First Peoples </p></li>
<li><p>determining the causes and consequences of systemic injustice and make recommendations for system reform and changes to laws, policy and education.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The commission’s findings also aim to support the founding of a new relationship between First Peoples, the state, and the people of Victoria, inclusive of informing Treaty negotiations.</p>
<h2>Establishment of the Yoo-rrook Justice Commission</h2>
<p>An historical first for Australia, a truth-telling commission was an agreed action of the Victorian government and the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria. </p>
<p>The First Peoples’ Assembly was established in 2019 and is the elected representative body of Traditional Owners and other Victorian Aboriginal people.
This is a crucial step in the realisation of the <a href="https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/publications/research-papers/download/36-research-papers/13861-advancing-the-treaty-process-with-aboriginal-victorians-bill-2018">Advancing the Treaty Process with Aboriginal Victorians Act 2018</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://yoorrookjusticecommission.org.au/commissioners/">Yoo-rrook</a> began in May with the appointment of five commissioners. Independently selected from 64 applicants, we are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Chairperson: Professor Eleanor Bourke (Wergaia/Wamba Wamba) </li>
<li>Dr Wayne Atkinson (Yorta Yorta/Dja Dja Wurrung)</li>
<li>Sue-Anne Hunter (Wurundjeri/Ngurai illum wurrung)</li>
<li>Distinguished Professor Maggie Walter (Palawa) </li>
<li>Professor the Honourable Kevin Bell AM QC (non-Indigenous)</li>
</ul>
<p>Yoo-rrook employs a human rights framework aligned to the <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/declaration-on-the-rights-of-indigenous-peoples.html">United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples</a>. To ensure the priority of First Peoples’ voices and knowledge, this framework is enacted through a methodology that weaves together First Peoples knowledge systems, worldviews and Western methods of scientific analysis. This methodology ensures an approach that respects Victorian First Peoples values and culture.</p>
<p>The commission’s terms of reference are extensive.</p>
<p>The instructions to inquire into historical systemic injustices perpetrated against First Peoples include (among other areas):</p>
<ul>
<li><p>cultural violations, such as denial of First Peoples’ law and lore by colonial state authorities and systems</p></li>
<li><p>theft and misappropriation of land and culture </p></li>
<li><p>dispossession and displacement of Aboriginal peoples, families and children </p></li>
<li><p>massacres, wars and killings</p></li>
<li><p>unfair policies and practices in areas such as labour, the justice system, child protection and welfare, and health care</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The findings of the royal commission’s inquiry into these areas will be the basis for the official record, and more details will come.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1449684325495017475"}"></div></p>
<h2>Priority #1: Sovereignty over knowledge</h2>
<p>Yoo-rrook is the first Aboriginal-led royal commission. It is also the first in which the foundational evidence is First Peoples voices, stories and knowledges. The commission has now determined four strategic priorities for its first year.</p>
<p>To maximise participation, Yoo-rrook’s <a href="https://yoorrookjusticecommission.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Yoo-rrook-Strategic-Priorities.pdf">first strategic priority</a> has been to build strong foundations to bring about trust that First Peoples’ voices will be heard, and the commission’s processes are conducted in a culturally appropriate way. </p>
<p>Despite the COVID-19 lockdowns of the last six months, the commissioners and commission staff have consulted (mostly online) with Traditional Owner groups and many Aboriginal community-controlled organisations across Victoria.</p>
<p>Yoo-rrook is instructed to uphold the sovereignty of First Peoples over their knowledge and stories. This will be done through the <a href="https://www.maiamnayriwingara.org/key-principles">Indigenous data sovereignty principles</a>, which is the right of First Peoples to own, control, access and possess their respective data. </p>
<p>This means the First Peoples who provide evidence to Yoo-rrook will maintain ownership of their respective data, determining how their information is treated with regards to confidentiality and accessibility.</p>
<p>This is significant because with past royal commissions, evidence has been available to the public. This is not always in First Peoples’ best interest. </p>
<h2>Priority #2: Culturally appropriate ways of collecting evidence</h2>
<p>Yoo-rrook’s second strategic priority is to focus on formal <strong>evidence collection</strong> from Elders and those who are unwell. </p>
<p>The commission is acutely aware of First Peoples unease toward formal processes such as these. So, culturally safe systems have been developed. </p>
<p>For example, the commission is accepting evidence in relation to the experience of historic and ongoing systemic injustice in a myriad of ways. These include individual witness statements, group testimony and testimony through cultural means, such as ceremony, dance and art. Evidence can also be given confidentially and on Country, with ongoing support for social and emotional wellbeing in place.</p>
<h2>Priority #3: Creating a public record of systemic injustice</h2>
<p>The third strategic priority is to develop a comprehensive picture of systemic injustices against First Peoples as part of the official record of what happened in Victoria. </p>
<p>This will be done via the compilation and interrogation of existing knowledge sources. This work has begun with the collection of official records, academic studies and legislative materials.</p>
<h2>Priority #4: Reviewing the criminal justice system</h2>
<p>The fourth priority is to review current reform processes in criminal justice and law enforcement. </p>
<p>This will begin with First Peoples’ experiences with these systems and an examination of the implementation of <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/IndigLRes/rciadic/index.html">Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody</a>’s recommendations in Victoria.</p>
<h2>Setting a global precedent</h2>
<p>The task of the Yoo-rrook Justice Commission is intimidating and the timeframe is short. Yoo-rrook is required to deliver an interim report in June 2022 and a final report in June 2024. </p>
<p>It is the only truth-telling commission anywhere authorised to scrutinise First Peoples’ experiences of systemic injustices, past and present, arising from colonisation.</p>
<p>That Yoo-rrook has been initiated in Victoria should be a matter of pride for all Victorians. The commission is setting a national and global precedent. Because Yoo-rrook is the first, it assuredly will not be the last. </p>
<p>The world is watching.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>If you are interested in reaching out to the commission, you can do so <a href="https://yoorrookjusticecommission.org.au/contact/">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170632/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maggie Walter is a Commissioner with the Yoo-rrook Justice Commission and also Distinguished Professor of Sociology (adjunct) University of Tasmania and receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Minderoo Foundation</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Professor the Hon Kevin Bell AM QC is also the Executive Director of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law in the Faculty of Law at Monash University.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eleanor Bourke, Sue-Anne Hunter, and Wayne Atkinson do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Yoo-rrook Justice Commission is a royal commission seeking truth-telling on the historical and contemporary injustices experienced by First Nations peoples in Victoria.Maggie Walter, Commissioner, Yoo-rrook Justice Commission, University of TasmaniaEleanor Bourke, Professor and Chair of the Yoo-rrook Justice Commission, Indigenous KnowledgeKevin Bell, Commissioner, Yoo-rrook Justice Commission; Executive Director, Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, Faculty of Law, Monash University., Monash UniversitySue-Anne Hunter, Commissioner at Yoo-rrook Justice Commission, Indigenous KnowledgeWayne Atkinson, Commissioner of the Yoo-rrook Justice Commission, 2021-2024: Senior Fellow School of Social and Political Science, University of Melbourne., The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1692182021-10-14T15:17:05Z2021-10-14T15:17:05ZWhy we must address the colonial dimension of climate migration<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426031/original/file-20211012-27-zanrmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=19%2C19%2C6470%2C4300&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A man from Skuppah Indian Band rides off on his motorcycle after stopping to watch a wildfire burn on the side of a mountain in Lytton, B.C., in July 2021. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>We are being increasingly <a href="https://thenarwhal.ca/opinion-climate-crisis-migration-canada/">warned about climate migration in Canada</a>. And these warnings serve as a critical reminder of the fragile state of the Earth and our relationship to it. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/wildfire-and-flood-disasters-are-causing-climate-migration-within-canada-167730">Wildfire and flood disasters are causing 'climate migration' within Canada</a>
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<p>But climate and weather events have already had a disproportionate impact on Indigenous communities in settler states like Canada. Such disparities are the calling card of colonialism.</p>
<h2>Forced displacement of Indigenous Peoples</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.internal-displacement.org/internal-displacement">Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre</a> defines internal displacement as “the forced movement of people within the country they live in.” It recognizes that those affected include “Indigenous communities forced from their ancestral lands to make way for the construction of dams and other infrastructure projects.” </p>
<p>In Canada, however, it is not only development that has uprooted Indigenous Peoples. </p>
<p>Treaty-making <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/land-claims">began the process of land theft</a>, resulting in the forced relocation of Indigenous communities. The abduction of Indigenous children through <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/residential-schools">colonial “education”</a> and <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/child-welfare">child welfare systems</a> were further devastating displacements. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1100100016115/1534786491628">Inuit High Arctic Relocations</a> removed Inuit peoples from Northern Québec and Qikiqtaaluk to islands farther north, in part to “<a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/inuit-high-arctic-relocations">establish Canadian sovereignty</a>.”</p>
<p>In short, the internal displacement of Indigenous Peoples in Canada is nothing new. </p>
<h2>The role of climate change</h2>
<p>In addition to the historic displacement of Indigenous Peoples to further colonial policies, the forced relocation of communities <a href="http://climatecasechart.com/climate-change-litigation/non-us-case/rights-of-indigenous-people-in-addressing-climate-forced-displacement/">due to climate and weather events is a contemporary Canadian reality</a>. </p>
<p>Displaced from their traditional territories, many First Nations now reside on a fraction of their original land base. In some cases, these areas are prone to seasonal events, such as ice breakup and snow melt, that require moving residents to safer spaces. </p>
<p>Kashechewan First Nation in northern Ontario <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/kashechewan-first-nation-flooding-living-on-the-land-1.5985846">regularly evacuates its members each spring when the Albany Rivers swells its banks</a>. In 2016, more than 75 per cent of community members were temporarily displaced to Kapuskasing and Thunder Bay. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://cdd.publicsafety.gc.ca/prnt-eng.aspx?cultureCode=en-Ca&provinces=9&eventTypes=%27EP%27%2C%27IN%27%2C%27PA%27%2C%27AV%27%2C%27CE%27%2C%27DR%27%2C%27FL%27%2C%27GS%27%2C%27HE%27%2C%27HU%27%2C%27SO%27%2C%27SS%27%2C%27ST%27%2C%27TO%27%2C%27WF%27%2C%27SW%27%2C%27EQ%27%2C%27LS%27%2C%27TS%27%2C%27VO%27&normalizedCostYear=1&dynamic=false">Canadian Disaster Database</a> tells the stories of numerous other affected Indigenous communities. Such forced migrations have prompted Indigenous Peoples to call on the government to permanently relocate their communities to safer places.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of people stand holding signs that read 'no more broken promises' and 'relocation now'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426036/original/file-20211012-17-49aln5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426036/original/file-20211012-17-49aln5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426036/original/file-20211012-17-49aln5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426036/original/file-20211012-17-49aln5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426036/original/file-20211012-17-49aln5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426036/original/file-20211012-17-49aln5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426036/original/file-20211012-17-49aln5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kashechewan Chief Leo Friday joins other members of Kashechewan First Nation at a rally demanding the relocation of the community, in front of Queen’s Park in Toronto in 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When wildfires swept through British Columbia in summer 2021, Indigenous communities felt the impact. The village of Lytton, B.C., was destroyed by a fire in June — Indigenous people make up more than <a href="https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/prof/details/page.cfm?Lang=E&Geo1=CSD&Code1=5933015&Geo2=CD&Code2=5933&SearchText=lytton&SearchType=Begins&SearchPR=01&B1=Immigration%20and%20citizenship&TABID=1&type=0">one-third</a> of its population. And the White Rock Lake fire that happened in August <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/dozens-of-okanagan-residents-cope-with-the-news-their-homes-have-been-lost-to-wildfire-1.6144478">claimed 10 properties</a> on the Okanagan Indian Band reserve. </p>
<h2>Space, mobility and privilege</h2>
<p>Discussions around <a href="https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/07/16/opinion/canadas-domestic-climate-refugees">moving for climate change</a> raise important questions about space, mobility and privilege. Canada’s historical preoccupation with containing Indigenous Peoples through the reserve system means fewer options in the present day for communities to relocate. And those relocations that are permitted are often plagued by <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/stefanovich-kashechewan-2019-relocation-agreement-1.5129181">bureaucratic delay and oversight</a>.</p>
<p>Climate change has also been a pressing issue for Arctic residents — <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/warmingpoles.html">the Earth warms faster at the poles</a>. In her book <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/417373/the-right-to-be-cold-by-sheila-watt-cloutier/9780143187646"><em>The Right to Be Cold</em></a>, Sheila Watt-Cloutier, the former international chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, outlines the impact of climate change on the North. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ocean-warming-is-changing-the-relationship-coastal-communities-have-with-the-ocean-122599">Ocean warming is changing the relationship coastal communities have with the ocean</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Rising sea levels and the reduction of land and ice have affected traditional hunting grounds. Shoreline homes and animal habitats have been destroyed. The gradual disappearance of the permafrost has impacted the built environment. And warmer temperatures make food storage more difficult.</p>
<p>All of this has had a significant impact on Inuit cultural practices. Watt-Cloutier argues that climate change must be fought in order to maintain traditional Inuit ways of living. Northern Indigenous communities, in other words, have “the right to be cold.”</p>
<p>Adaptation and relocation may be viewed as potential solutions to these challenges, but such initiatives must be Indigenous-led. Historically, the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/climate-change-arctic-inuit-reality">spectre of assimilation</a> has haunted Indigenous displacements. We must do better. </p>
<h2>The impact of disproportionate displacements</h2>
<p>All of us should be concerned about the impact of rising global temperatures. But we need to recognize that in the immediate future some communities will be more vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change than others. Not all displaced people within Canada have or will experience the same degree of privilege when it comes to reconfiguring their lives in response to climate change. </p>
<p>If we are serious about redressing Canada’s colonial history and repairing damaged relationships with Indigenous Peoples, the disproportionate ways in which we experience our shared territory — and threats to it — cannot be left out of the equation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169218/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maggie Quirt 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>While climate migration may be on the rise in Canada, it has been disproportionately impacting Indigenous people and communities for years.Maggie Quirt, Associate Professor, Teaching Stream, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1392592020-06-04T16:40:04Z2020-06-04T16:40:04ZHow the COVID-19 crisis calls us towards reconciliation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338974/original/file-20200601-95036-k7dwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=93%2C46%2C3789%2C2533&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">We need more positive Indigenous-settler alliances like the one with Shoal Lake 40 First Nation, which created 24 km Freedom Road to provide access to the Trans-Canada Highway. Here a teepee frame sits beside Shoal Lake.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Woods</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Canadians have shown their support for front-line workers. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other political leaders have told Canadians “<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-pandemic-covid-coronavirus-media-1.5516383">we are all in this together</a>” and “<a href="https://www.thestar.com/politics/provincial/2020/03/23/ndp-leader-andrea-horwath-urges-premier-doug-ford-to-give-covid-19-impacted-households-2k-relief-cheques.html">no expense will be spared</a>” to ensure the health and safety of Canadians. </p>
<p>Yet, when it comes to the persistent and glaring inequities facing Indigenous communities in Canada, many of these same leaders, as well as Canadians, have fallen drastically short. The stubborn tendency of non-Indigenous Canadians to turn away from “Indigenous issues” and seek a return to “normalcy” remains an ongoing barrier to change.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338971/original/file-20200601-95049-5yds49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338971/original/file-20200601-95049-5yds49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338971/original/file-20200601-95049-5yds49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338971/original/file-20200601-95049-5yds49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338971/original/file-20200601-95049-5yds49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338971/original/file-20200601-95049-5yds49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338971/original/file-20200601-95049-5yds49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338971/original/file-20200601-95049-5yds49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Senator Lynn Beyak pictured here in Ottawa, Dec. 5, 2019, was suspended from the Senate.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick</span></span>
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<p>On April 27, 2020, for example, the Dryden town council in northwestern Ontario <a href="https://www.ckdr.net/2020/04/28/lynn-beyak-resignation-motion-voted-down/">voted 5-2 against a motion</a> calling for the resignation of Conservative Sen. Lynn Beyak. Beyak made national headlines last year when she refused to remove racist letters from her website and was subsequently <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/lynn-beyak-suspended-second-time-1.5478536">suspended from the Senate</a> for failing to take sensitivity training seriously.</p>
<p>Dryden Mayor Greg Wilson said some councillors felt it was beyond their jurisdiction to comment on federal matters. But as Fort Frances town councillor Douglas Judson pointed out: “Municipal resolutions comment or call for action by other levels of government all the time.”</p>
<p>Leaders from the Grand Council Treaty 3 (GCT3) and Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) publicly condemned Dryden council’s decision. <a href="https://theturtleislandnews.com/index.php/2020/05/07/dryden-refuses-to-call-for-senator-lynn-beyak-to-resign/">NAN Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler said</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“As leaders we must seize every opportunity to support reconciliation and speak out against racism … it is the duty of all Canadians to stand against racism and bigotry … hurtful comments that ignore our shared colonial history must be denounced.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>COVID-19 highlights Indigenous inequities</h2>
<p>COVID-19 has illuminated longstanding inequities in Indigenous communities, such as the lack of clean drinking water, overcrowded housing and inadequate health-care access in dozens of First Nations, as <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-history-will-repeat-itself-if-first-nations-remain-underfunded-in-the/">Cindy Blackstock and Isadore Day</a> recently explored in an op-ed for the <em>Globe and Mail</em> and <a href="https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/covid-19-first-nations-and-poor-housing">documented by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives</a>.</p>
<p>These conditions, created by decades of colonial policies and actions and inactions, make it much more challenging to follow basic public health guidelines, such as frequent hand washing and physical distancing.</p>
<p>Moreover, <a href="https://www.tvo.org/article/what-the-government-knows-and-doesnt-know-about-covid-19-in-indigenous-populations">the federal government recently acknowledged</a> that its funding for Indigenous organizations has “fallen short” and its COVID-19 data on Indigenous peoples is “limited.” </p>
<p>The Congress of Aboriginal Peoples is suing the federal government for “<a href="https://www.timescolonist.com/indigenous-group-files-legal-challenge-over-inadequate-covid-19-funding-1.24134269">inadequate and discriminatory funding</a>” to respond to COVID-19 among off-reserve and urban Indigenous people. </p>
<p>Some companies, meanwhile, seem to be exploiting the pandemic to <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/indigenous-fear-canada-work-camps-coronavirus-incubators-200406115720000.html">build pipelines or extract resources</a> on Indigenous territories that Indigenous people staunchly oppose. Alberta’s energy minister even said: “Now is a great time to be building a pipeline <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/26/canada-coronavirus-alberta-energy-minister-oil-pipeline">because you can’t have protests of more than 15 people</a>.”</p>
<h2>Widespread avoidance</h2>
<p>I conducted interviews and fieldwork over 18 months in the Rainy River District in northwestern Ontario to explore the attitudes of people like Beyak and her supporters. I found out they are not as rare as some would like to think. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338972/original/file-20200601-95059-qbrxi3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338972/original/file-20200601-95059-qbrxi3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338972/original/file-20200601-95059-qbrxi3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338972/original/file-20200601-95059-qbrxi3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338972/original/file-20200601-95059-qbrxi3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338972/original/file-20200601-95059-qbrxi3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338972/original/file-20200601-95059-qbrxi3.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">‘Canada at a Crossroads: Boundaries, Bridges, and Laissez-Faire Racism in Indigenous-Settler Relations.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(University of Toronto Press)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In fact, in my book, <a href="https://utorontopress.com/us/canada-at-a-crossroads-4"><em>Canada at a Crossroads: Boundaries, Bridges, and Laissez-Faire Racism in Indigenous-Settler Relations</em></a>, I show that non-Indigenous Canadians, whatever their personal views, seek to avoid discussing racism and colonialism at all costs. </p>
<p>Part of the issue is about language and self-perception. Far too many Canadians do not see themselves as settlers when that is clearly the case.</p>
<p>Many settler Canadians routinely express a sense of group superiority and entitlement and feel threatened by Indigenous people who stand up for their rights, defend their lands and publicly assert their Indigenous identities and cultures. Perhaps even more common is the unwillingness of settlers to say or do anything about the racism in their midst.</p>
<p>Inter-group contact is not enough to overcome these racist and colonialist structures as these attitudes often coexist with a history of intermarriage and cross-group friendships. </p>
<p>Many settlers in northwestern Ontario refer to Indigenous friends or family members as “good Indians,” exceptions who prove the rule. Some even look to Indigenous people for validation of their racist views. Most commonly, racism and colonialism remain elephants in the room, and Indigenous-settler relations can be friendly so long as no one talks about “politics.”</p>
<h2>Reconciliation: A way forward</h2>
<p>The silver lining in my research is that many Indigenous and settler people are interested in finding new ways of relating to one another. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296574/original/file-20191010-188819-17iz6s9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296574/original/file-20191010-188819-17iz6s9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296574/original/file-20191010-188819-17iz6s9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296574/original/file-20191010-188819-17iz6s9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296574/original/file-20191010-188819-17iz6s9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296574/original/file-20191010-188819-17iz6s9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296574/original/file-20191010-188819-17iz6s9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://theconversation.com/ca/topics/focus-truth-and-reconciliation-in-canada-77341">Click here for more articles in our ongoing series about the TRC Calls to Action.</a></span>
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<p>Positive Indigenous-settler alliances exist. In Shoal Lake 40 First Nation, the <a href="https://www.tvo.org/article/what-freedom-road-can-teach-ontario-about-partnering-with-indigenous-communities">Freedom Road</a> campaign brought together activists, evangelical Christians, business people and urban and rural Indigenous people to create a 24-kilometre route to link Shoal Lake 40 First Nation to the Trans-Canada Highway. In the Rainy River District, First Nations and municipalities worked together to protect their shorelines from flooding or pooled their resources to purchase medical equipment at the Fort Frances hospital.</p>
<p>Crises are often an opportunity for groups to develop new ways of working together to protect their mutual interests and to find a new footing on which to grapple with Canada’s past and move forward on a more equitable and sustainable path.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/john-a-macdonald-should-not-be-forgotten-nor-celebrated-101503">John A. Macdonald should not be forgotten, nor celebrated</a>
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<p>The COVID-19 pandemic represents one such crisis: for settlers and their governments, it could be an opportunity to live up to all the recent talk of reconciliation. This would mean respecting Indigenous nations’ political autonomy and jurisdiction, including the right to regulate who enters the community and on what terms. It would also mean providing the necessary funding and other supports to prevent and manage disease outbreaks.</p>
<p>Although there may be regions where this is happening locally in Canada, we continue to see instances like Dryden where settlers overlook or oppose the call to rectify these inequities. </p>
<p>It is imperative to speak out against racism — whether interpersonal or institutional. We must build new relationships based on respect for Indigenous sovereignty, fulfilment of treaty obligations, and a spirit of partnership.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139259/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeff Denis's book research was financially supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the National Science Foundation, the Harvard University Native American Program, the University of Toronto/McMaster University Indigenous Health Research Development Program, and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Canada Program.</span></em></p>The COVID-19 pandemic crisis could represent an opportunity to live up to all the recent talk of reconciliation in Canada.Jeff Denis, Associate Professor of Sociology, McMaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1351912020-04-09T02:13:14Z2020-04-09T02:13:14ZMost laws ignore ‘human-wildlife conflict’. This makes us vulnerable to pandemics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326389/original/file-20200408-193240-1jjymeb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C44%2C5973%2C3323&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Never before have we seen how the human use of wildlife can yield such catastrophe, as we have with COVID-19. </p>
<p>The current available <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9">evidence</a> indicates COVID-19 was first transmitted in a wildlife market in Wuhan. The disease likely originated in pangolins, bats, or a combination of both and was then transmitted to humans. </p>
<p>While various commentators have <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqfNSx8O0wg">blamed</a> pangolins, bats, or even our lack of “<a href="https://twitter.com/RealMarkLatham/status/1242931982385836032">mastery</a>” of wildlife, the real cause of this pandemic goes deeper – into the laws, cultures and institutions of most countries. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-is-a-wake-up-call-our-war-with-the-environment-is-leading-to-pandemics-135023">Coronavirus is a wake-up call: our war with the environment is leading to pandemics</a>
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<p>At the root of the problem is a social phenomenon called “human-wildlife conflict”. This is when the interests of humans and the needs of wildlife overlap in a negative way.</p>
<p>Both the illegal wildlife trade and zoonotic diseases (that is, diseases transmitted from animals to humans) are aspects of human-wildlife conflict.</p>
<p>This ubiquitous phenomenon is poorly addressed in both international and domestic laws. And this grave omission has led to disastrous effects on humanity, as COVID-19 has shown. </p>
<h2>A complex international issue</h2>
<p>Disease outbreaks stemming from human-wildlife conflict are not new or limited to the Chinese wildlife trade. <a href="https://ensia.com/features/covid-19-coronavirus-biodiversity-planetary-health-zoonoses/">Ebola</a>, for example, originated in the Western African country of Gabon. It was likely spread from a chimpanzee that was hunted and eaten by local people. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326404/original/file-20200408-45013-ko9wef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326404/original/file-20200408-45013-ko9wef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326404/original/file-20200408-45013-ko9wef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326404/original/file-20200408-45013-ko9wef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326404/original/file-20200408-45013-ko9wef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326404/original/file-20200408-45013-ko9wef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326404/original/file-20200408-45013-ko9wef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326404/original/file-20200408-45013-ko9wef.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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Ebola virus could be connected to poverty in Gabon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>Sometimes the disease itself creates the conflict. <a href="https://www.who.int/health-topics/hendra-virus-disease#tab=tab_1">Hendra</a>, a zoonotic disease confined to Australia, was passed from fruit bats to horses and then to humans. The outbreak prompted <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/bat-culls-must-be-considered-in-hendra-fight-20110711-1ha2k.html">calls for</a> fruit bats to be culled. </p>
<p>Research shows <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature06536">environmental destruction</a> is also leading to an increase in zoonotic diseases. For example, clearing forests and destroying habitats <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-is-a-wake-up-call-our-war-with-the-environment-is-leading-to-pandemics-135023">can force</a> animals to move closer to urban areas, bringing diseases with them. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ebola-one-year-on-the-wins-the-setbacks-and-the-way-forward-124292">Ebola one year on: the wins, the setbacks, and the way forward</a>
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<p>COVID-19 and Ebola can also be connected to poverty, as wildlife hunting is often connected to a basic need for food. Culture, politics, health, issues of <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/covid-19-responses-why-feminist-leadership-matters-crisis">gender equality</a> and economics (to name a few), are all connected to human-wildlife conflicts as well. </p>
<p>The widespread impact of these types of viruses that can spread across international borders means that they should be governed as an international issue. </p>
<p>But there are no consistent international or domestic laws to guide governance of the multiple and interacting causes of pandemics.</p>
<h2>Laws don’t go far enough</h2>
<p>The human-wildlife relationship goes beyond issues of conservation and animal welfare, yet many of the world’s laws designed to tackle these multidimensional problems <a href="https://theconversation.com/academia-can-help-humans-and-large-carnivores-coexist-115467#comment_1957203">do not</a>. </p>
<p>A select few laws have sought to implement a whole-systems approach to legal decision-making. For example, the <a href="https://www.cbd.int/convention/">Convention on Biological Diversity</a>, an international treaty, requires ecosystem managers to consider the impact of environmental decision-making on multiple parts of society, including levels of poverty and economics. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-the-bushfires-to-coronavirus-our-old-normal-is-gone-forever-so-whats-next-134994">From the bushfires to coronavirus, our old 'normal' is gone forever. So what's next?</a>
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<p>But this holistic approach isn’t reflected in domestic laws around the world that are supposed to enforce international treaties, such as Australia’s Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, which is currently under review by the federal government. </p>
<p>Collaborations, such as between health law and conservation law, must be put in place. For example, while the World Health Organisation works on zoonose (animal-borne disease) prevention, there is little interaction between it and the <a href="https://www.cites.org/eng/disc/text.php">Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species</a>.</p>
<h2>No quick fix</h2>
<p>Our legal systems – especially in the West and in international law – <a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/ajlph43&div=9&id=&page=">encourage separation</a> and domination of the environment. </p>
<p>For example, the laws that designate protected areas explicitly separate people from wildlife, and this can drastically <a href="https://theconversation.com/dingoes-and-humans-were-once-friends-separating-them-could-be-why-they-attack-115917">change the relationship</a> between them. Laws also continue to encourage domination via implicit means, such as through legalised wildlife hunting and trade.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326421/original/file-20200408-37363-yj0k6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326421/original/file-20200408-37363-yj0k6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326421/original/file-20200408-37363-yj0k6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326421/original/file-20200408-37363-yj0k6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326421/original/file-20200408-37363-yj0k6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326421/original/file-20200408-37363-yj0k6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326421/original/file-20200408-37363-yj0k6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326421/original/file-20200408-37363-yj0k6u.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"></a>
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<span class="caption">Don’t blame bats for the spread of Hendra virus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>Various changes to law have been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/06/ban-live-animal-markets-pandemics-un-biodiversity-chief-age-of-extinction">proposed</a> in light of COVID-19, including closing all wildlife markets and trade.</p>
<p>But these types of fixes don’t address the many ways our health can be affected by wildlife use. Nor do they consider the poverty that often drives the consumption of wildlife, such as in Gabon and the other multiple causal factors. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-major-scorecard-gives-the-health-of-australias-environment-less-than-1-out-of-10-133444">A major scorecard gives the health of Australia's environment less than 1 out of 10</a>
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<p>Such blanket legal prohibitions are neither appropriate nor adequate. We need legal changes on a larger scale. Laws must acknowledge how all humans are vulnerable to wildlife and broader environment change. If they haven’t even acknowledged this, then they can’t start to address it.</p>
<h2>What needs to change?</h2>
<p>Changes to the law at both the international and domestic level should focus on two primary areas. </p>
<p>First, increased cooperation is required between systems and areas of law in addressing the source of our vulnerability, instead of waiting for the vulnerability to become catastrophic, such as with COVID-19.</p>
<p>Second, both international and domestic laws must recognise the interdependency between humans and all aspects of the natural environment, in every area of law – from environmental law, to trade law, human rights and corporate law. </p>
<p>Ecuador, for example, integrated this idea into its <a href="http://pdba.georgetown.edu/Constitutions/Ecuador/english08.html">national constitution</a> so the necessity of environmental protection is linked to the continued existence of its people.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/222-scientists-say-cascading-crises-are-the-biggest-threat-to-the-well-being-of-future-generations-131551">222 scientists say cascading crises are the biggest threat to the well-being of future generations</a>
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<p>Another way is to integrate nature into the objectives of each piece of law. This includes all international treaties and domestic pieces of legislation, even those that do not expressly deal with matters of the environment, such as health law, where a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43292777?seq=1">healthy environment</a> is directly linked to human health. </p>
<p>No, this is not a small undertaking. But as the catastrophe of COVID-19 has demonstrated, the problems we face if we don’t change are far more onerous in all aspects of our lives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/135191/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katie Woolaston 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 aren’t enough international and domestic laws to address how the interests of humans and the needs of wildlife overlap.Katie Woolaston, Lawyer, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.