By Michael Anderson
Gomeroi representatives at Moree in northwest NSW can proudly boast a victory against a big transnational corporate development: Woolworths.
It’s been announced that the Woolworths chain are withdrawing their proposed development and expansion of the network stores in Moree.
Woolworths are withdrawing because of the Gomeroi’s steadfast opposition to the store’s expansion, which would have seen a Rugby League oval demolished and a significant Gomeroi cultural site, where human remains have been located, totally disturbed and possibly destroyed.
The opposition has been led by Gomeroi Elder Lyell Munro Senior, who vehemently opposed the development approval by the Moree Shire Council.
Moree is well-known for its overt racism against Gomeroi people.
It is interesting to note that the local newspaper the Moree Champion on 2 May quoted Moree Mayor, Katrina Humphries, venting her frustration. She was quoted as suggesting that minority groups should not be able to have so much influence over corporate decision-making.
What Katrina Humphries fails to understand is that Australia as a nation must now turn their attention to the continuing sovereignty of Aboriginal peoples, who hold, by law, dominion over their land and natural resources.
There is no escaping the fact that what we have here in Australia is a multiplicity of sovereign nation states, including the dominant state, who all have equal sovereign status over this country, while the dominant state merely held by superior numbers, superior force, and adverse possession of other peoples’ lands and are stealing the natural resources, from which they alone benefit.
But we have seen in Moree that two wrongs don’t make a right and that as sovereign Aboriginal nations we are reclaiming our inherent birthright.
Aboriginal sovereign nations are mobilising and it has been announced that on 24 May 2012 an interim Aboriginal National Unity Government will be announced.
Furthermore, Aboriginal nations around Australia are mobilising. Such as the Noongar nation in southwest Western Australia, who have just completed a series of community gatherings around the whole of the southeast and are now planning to announce their nation’s conclusions from these gatherings at a two-day gathering in Perth, where they have invited me to attend to formally engage in the Sovereign Union.
Off the back of the Moree success Elders of the Cape York region are now in the process of organising a joint nations meeting of Elders, where they have invited me to attend to discuss the Sovereign Union and the sovereignty movement and, in particular, how they can fend off government, Land Council and Native Title Service’s demands for them to sign off on Indigenous Land Use Agreements (ILUAs).
The Moree success is a great example of what we as peoples can achieve if we stand up and say ‘No’.
The time is over for your lying, cheating and deceitful governing methods that have witnessed many Aboriginal people believing that what was being done was ‘in our best interest’, whereas history has shown that it has all been about suppressing and oppressing our people in order to demoralise and disempower our communities.
Our people are now seeing through the imposed Aboriginal leadership and are now taking things into their own hands with their own hopes and aspirations in mind. The Moree example represents the type of success that we can all experience.
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Michael Anderson is the last remaining founder of the 40-year-old Aboriginal Embassy in Canberra. He can be contacted at ghillar29@gmail.com, phone 0427 292 492.
Activists in Moree recently set up an Aboriginal embassy, joining a spreading Australia-wide movement
More Aboriginal activism is reported at National Unity Government and Treaty Republic.
