Congratulations Tony! Contained in Tony's posting to the group is one of the best elucidations of the nut of the problem facing meaningful empowerment of Indigenous Australians in Australia. I urge all subscribers to study it carefully.
Well done Tony. No member, of what some like to call 'First People', is morally entitled to make decisions concerning another people's land without consultation and agreement with the Traditional owners of that land. The extinguishment of Native Title by a Land Council that is not representative of Traditional Owners (and very, very few are) should be seen for what it is, a betrayal of the principles of self determination and recognition of sovereignty. It is worse than when a white government organisation or big mining company extinguishes, because it is blackfellers doing it to their people (not for their people). Have no doubt, the Native Police are alive and well, and are prospering at the expense of their brothers and sisters. ATSIC and Land Councils (in NSW and NT)are white bureaucratic constructs that have failed miserably to help any but a handful of Indigenous Australians. The fact that in NSW the Native Title Unit was attached to State Land Council (under Aden Ridgeway), the Indigenous organisation with most to lose from the success of Native Title should demonstrate with what cynicism the system has been constructed. The problem is that any Indigenous person can join a land council and have full voting rights and out vote tradition owners in their own lands. Many people refuse to enrol in ATSIC or join land councils for this reason and because they are white constructs purporting to be democratic, but Indigenous cultural decision making does not conform to democratic models and it is another act of colonialism by government to impose them from above and expect them to be successful. They were set up to fail. pete But, Trudy, these aren't First People. This is Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council, and it stands on a postage stamp of Britannic Majesty called the NSW Land Rights Act 1983. The blackfellers making these decisions have no more right to be here than Her Majesty the Queen. Last Sunday night, I spoke to one of the "native title" or "common law" owners, as the people of this country (and all the other countries on this continent) are now relabelled by the white law for the convenience of those who wish to continue expropriating their lands. He was not even aware of what the Land Council had done. And what they are doing, make no bones about it, is deliberately and consciously extinguishing someone else's "native title". Deliberately and consciously. Not through ignorance. They know exactly what they are doing. Last year someone sent me a couple of old (early 2000, I think) letters from the Koori Mail. In one of these letters, the then Chairperson, Keith Gleeson, attempted to justify the Land Council's applying to extinguish native title, claiming the support of descendants who were members of the Land Council. The land in that case was somewhere in Gosford, it was not this land at North Entrance. "The Land Council threatened us. They said they were going to take us on, that's why we dropped off, and no, none of our family has agreed to the Land Council applying to extinguish native title. 'We will take you ALL THE WAY,' they said. 'We are not going to be coming to you for land.' " was the reason for not proceeding given to me by a member of the family who lodged the first NT claim in this country. He wouldn't tell me who made the threat. Now that's just not good enough, either. Self respect at least demands that you have a go, even if legal assistance is likely to be virtually nil. (The NSW State Land Council has control of funding these legal claims under the Native Title Act, and Darkinjung has inside running at the highest level in NSWALC). Later in 2000, staff at the University of Newcastle started researching the old people of this area at the Ourimbah campus. "Which families?" I naturally asked. "None," Prof Nerida Blair said. The research did not start with living descendants, because "there are no known descendants. The original people have all died out," I was emphatically told. When she then named those who had instigated the project (members of the Land Council opposed to native title), I thought it was an interesting turnaround from Keith Gleeson's earlier position. But strategically, it was the sort of proposition Western Mining Corp would also start from if they were on their way to the Federal Court too. Darkinjung is not alone doing this. Across the border, the Darug descendants [western Sydney region up to Blue Mountains] are right now being forced to a full bench hearing in the Federal Court by the members of Her Majesty's Deerubbin LALC. What this crystallises is that welfare mentality blackfellers have now been moved into the front line by the coloniser to take the place of the native police and the soft white hands that took the children away. The pillars of institutionalised racism in NSW are no longer so-called Protection Acts, but so-called Land Rights and Native Title Acts, but you will need to step through the looking glass out here into the civilised world to see it. The 1983 NSW ALR Act is based on the racist myth of "crown land" which is graciously granted by Her Majesty's Government to special members of something called "the Aboriginal race". What makes these people special is that they had joined something called a "local land council", which was specially created under the Act for the purpose of receiving this racist patronage. These land councils in NSW are a colonial construct. They are no more indigenous than Her Majesty the Queen, whatever their members may say to the contrary. The existence and concepts of Darkinong, Guringai, Wonaruah, Wiradjuri, etc. law are completely at odds with the spiritual foundation of the 1983 NSW Land Rights Act -- terra nullius, the legal doctrine of racial and /or cultural inferiority. Indeed it is Darkinong, Guringai, Wonaruah, Wiradjuri etc. land that is being given away by the Crown under the Land Rights Act as if it owned it. That this was racist was recognised here in NSW by at least a few of us, and it was to be put to the test in the High Court in 1993 using Mabo 1 as a precedent. Soon after Eddie started his historic case, the Queensland parliament put through the Queensland Coast Islands Declaratory Act "to remove doubt" that if the Torres St Islands did not become Crown Land when first annexed in 1879, the Act declared the lands expropriated retrospective to 1879, with no compensation payable. Bjeke-Petersen gave Eddie the middle finger, and the government amended Queensland's defence accordingly, relying on the new Act. Eddie then had to attack the new Act first. By a narrow 4:3 majority, the High Court declared the Act invalid under the Federal Racial Discrimination Act. Sadly, the application for Isobel Coe on behalf of the Wiradjuri Tribe four years later was a bloated, overblown, bloody mess. Paul Coe's only opportunity to launch his threatened devastating attack on white law title to a lot of bacikyards in NSW was by using a narrowly focussed and carefully argued attack on the 1983 Validation of Revocations Act. There was no need to attack its twin sister, the Aboriginal Land Rights Act at that time. But attack it they did, and a whole lot more as well. It frightened Aden Ridgeway, who sent his bureaucrats all over the State to persuade Local Land Council members not to lodge NT claims with Coe's Aboriginal Legal Service Annette Kennedy carried Aden's torch to Darkinjung. "Because they are trying to close down the land councils," she said. I was there. Any concepts of indigenous law now in the ALR Act are only an awkward ill-fitting bolt-on since Mabo 2 in 1992. in and At 11:35 AM 4/02/2002 +1000, Trudy wrote: >In Vancouver, First Nations people lease out their land on a >longterm, 99 year lease. This provides them with a large cash >settlement, rent, and their land isn't lost to them. It might be >something for First Peoples to consider here. --- Trudy >============================================= > >The Sydney Morning Herald >Life-saving dollars roll in for land council > >Date: 04/02/2002 > >By Debra Jopson > >An Aboriginal land council has voted to sell 101 hectares of prime >beachfront on the Central Coast for millions of dollars to a developer >planning a golf course resort. > >"It's like winning Lotto," said David Pross, chairman of the >Darkinjung Aboriginal Land Council. "We have to really think hard >about >what to do with the money." > >As negotiations are about to begin with the winning tenderer, >Mirvac, this week, Mr Pross refused to reveal the sale price, but >the Herald >understands that it is between $30 million and $50 million. > >Most of the site, which fronts more than one kilometre of beach >from North Entrance to Tuggerah, is a former rutile mine and was >secured in a land claim in 1993. Another 10 hectares, successfully >claimed in 1995, was the old town tip. > >Mirvac plans a "first-class integrated tourist resort and residential >complex" with an 18-hole public golf course, says the land council. > >The council's executive - which stipulated that the developer must >build a surf club on Tuggerah Beach and an Aboriginal cultural >centre >as part of any deal - had long believed that turning the land into >dollars rather than living on it would most benefit its 600 members. > >"We knew this could be the best tourist spot on the Central >Coast," said Mr Pross. "Why put 200 houses there?" > >The land council's treasurer, Mr Roger Sentance, said it planned to >plough the money into "HEHE" - health, education, housing, >employment. Mr Pross said: "The Prime Minister is always talking >about 'HEHE', but not doing anything for us. Now we can really help >ourselves." > >Housing is a priority because "we'd be lucky if 50 of our members >own their own houses". > >The money would also be used to give Aboriginal youths a brighter >future and try to stem the high suicide rate. > >Four youngsters killed themselves last year "and that's a high rate >in a community of 600," said Mr Pross. > >With only $110,000 annual income from the State Government, the >land council had felt powerless to address the social problems. > >The council had borrowed $600,000 to prepare the site for sale, >including environmental impact statements and reports on the >archeology and flora and fauna. Aboriginal middens and the original >bush had been destroyed, Mr Sentance said. > >Interest from developers was strong. One had flown the British >golfer Nick Faldo over the site to assess its potential as a top golf >course. > >The sale will make the Darkinjung Aboriginal Land Council one of >the Central Coast's biggest enterprises, Mr Pross said. "And it's >just a >start." > >The council hopes to turn three more of its 33 parcels of land into >money-spinners - but in joint ventures. > >The Entrance town centre manager, Peter Clough, yesterday >welcomed the golf resort plan, saying it would create jobs and >boost the >local economy. > >However, the director of the Total Environment Centre, Jeff Angel, >said there were tough laws governing beachfront development. > >"The developer should understand he will have a fight on his hands >if he breaches coastal protection policies." > >This material is subject to copyright and any unauthorised use, >copying or mirroring is prohibited. > >http://www.smh.com.au/news/0202/04/text/national5.html > > >************************************************************************* >This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without >permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, >scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal >copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of >the copyright owner, except for "fair use." --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 and is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/recoznet2%40paradigm4.com.au/ until 11 March, 2001 and Recoznettwo is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/recoznettwo%40green.net.au/ from that date. This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use."
