By Michael Anderson
Goodooga, northwest NSW, 22 December - - There’s interference by person or persons unknown, including Aborigines, with preparations for the 40th anniversary of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra, its last founding survivor, Michael Anderson, alleges.
Anderson has just brought back from London a copy of the original document in which Queen Victoria and the English parliament of the time state that the crown owns nothing in Australia and that Aborigines are sovereign, with their own laws and leaders.
The sovereignty issue is expected to be given centre-stage at the three days of anniversary corroboree from 26 to 28 January.
Since he’s returned, Anderson alleges, “a number of significant, very concerning incidents have occurred. The Internet site austlii.edu.au that had the Pacific Islanders Protection Act of 1872-75 up has pulled it down after I had revealed that the actual wording of the 1875 Act was altered by person (s) unknown who in effect altered the intent and law that it established here in Australia.”
He notes in a release that the federal government had given ultimatums to the NAIDOC committee not to use the 40th anniversary of the Aboriginal Embassy as its theme for 2012, which “clearly sends signals that they are under pressure and seek to avoid a confrontation on the question of sovereignty”.
“It was further revealed that a key Aboriginal organization within the Australian Capital Territory who had agreed to be an auspicing body for any funds raised for the 40th anniversary of the Aboriginal Embassy had their computers hacked by person (s) unknown at the same time as they were having printed out their bank details and then for the information to disappear from the computer as it was printing out.”
Anderson writes that on the far north coast line of NSW at Pottsville, an Aboriginal man who had been occupying vacant crown reserve has been advised that he will be evicted from the place. “In the past 12 months he said that he had been running cultural camps for Aboriginal children and youth so that they can continue to have knowledge of their country and what that country means to them as a people. I am now advised that the council and police were coming to evict him from this place today (22 December). This appears to be developing into our first battle ground in the fight for our sovereign status and rights as the real sovereigns of the soil.”
Michael Anderson’s statement in full
A number of significant, very concerning incidents have occurred since arriving back in Australia from my trip to London. The Internet site austlii.edu.au that had the Pacific Islanders Protection Act of 1872-75 up has pulled it down after I had revealed that the actual wording of the 1875 Act was altered by person (s) unknown who in effect altered the intent and law that it established here in Australia.
Then to hear through the main stream media that the federal government had given ultimatums to the NAIDOC Committee not to use the 40th anniversary of the Aboriginal Embassy as its theme for 2012, clearly sends signals that they are under pressure and seek to avoid a confrontation on the question of Sovereignty.
It was further revealed that a key Aboriginal organization within the Australian Capital Territory who had agreed to be an auspicing body for any funds raised for the 40th anniversary of the Aboriginal Embassy had their computers hacked by person (s) unknown at the same time as they were having printed out their bank details and then for the information to disappear from the computer as it was printing out.
On the far north coast line of NSW at Pottsville, an Aboriginal man who had been occupying vacant crown reserve has been advised that he will be evicted from the place. In the past 12 months he said that he had been running cultural camps for Aboriginal children and youth so that they can continue to have knowledge of their country and what that country means to them as a people. I am now advised that the council and police were coming to evict him from this place today (22 December). This appears to developing into our first battle ground in the fight for our sovereign status and rights as the real sovereigns of the soil.
In the last twenty four hours Anderson it has become very clear to me that in the lead up to the 40th anniversary of the Aboriginal Embassy, I have been put on notice that people who have been close to the Aboriginal Embassy all these years are planning a confrontation on the question of the anniversary becoming a focus on sovereignty and not the Embassy. This is concerning, considering that the first intention of the Aboriginal Embassy was to raise and maintain the protest of our people nationwide that sovereignty was never ceded, rights to our lands was our inherent right that we have since time immemorial.
If this is going to be the case then we must now gather together and unite to put down this antagonism against our movement, no matter whether they are Aboriginal people or not. Sovereignty is the key to our future as a people. Right now we are losing our children to the welfare departments, the criminal justice system, our culture is now owned by the white ministers of the state. In Western Australia, the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs is not just the minister, he is also the CEO of the Western Australian Aboriginal Planning Act 1972. In the federal arena, the Labor government refuses to deal with a bill proposed by the leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbot, that will give ownership and management of the Cape York rivers system and remove the wild rivers law created by the Queensland state Labor government.
It is sad to be given this warning but I think our people can stand up to the detractors and those who seek to keep the divisions amongst our people, but we are on the edge of achieving the one thing that has kept us going all these years. This is our country, our lore/law and no Aboriginal collaborators or government junta will stop us from fighting our fight. We will stand up against those who oppose us and if you are Aboriginal and seek to interfere then we will know who you are and will condemn you to the white invaders. This is a case of you are either with us or against us. Make your choice.
Michael can be contacted at ghillar29@gmail.com, and 0427292492 or (02) 68296355
Comments
free steak knives?
Michael,
In researching the disappearing Acts, Pacific Islanders Protection Act 1872 or 1873, and Amendment 1875, I noticed that it has been repealed, in 1999, as a reform of Sexual Slavery laws. Perhaps this repeal is why it was removed from austlii? Perhaps it was previously included in austlii as an error? Although you say it was removed *after* you mentioned changed text in some copies. But I think if you had accessed a copy on austlii *after* describing those changes, you'd have a clear memory of whether austlii had the correct text or not. You don't mention that, so I wonder if you might be mistaken about austlii having had a copy.
Clearly the database of repealed legislation on austlii is not complete, it contains only one item. see http://www.austlii.edu.au/austlii/help/legis-help.html and http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/repealed_reg/
Personally, after hours of searching, I can't find any site anywhere on the internet that links to a copy of the Act on austlii, and I wonder if you have a uri for it, since if so, we can look on the internet archive (http://archive.org) to see if they have a copy (had success with finding a similar 'lost' piece of legislation from paclii, http://www.paclii.org/pg/legis/consol_act/ccoaa1890297 => http://web.archive.org/web/20050714045744/http://www.paclii.org/pg/legis... ).
As for the repeal, the government which did it was the frankly racist government of John Howard, -- they who overturned the Racial Equality Act in order to launch their military invasion of NT; renamed the Immigration department to remove reference to multiculturalism, which they did not believe in, like their endorsed Senate candidate Pauline Hanson; re-introduced the idea of an oral English language proficiency test for worthiness of aspiring immigrants (which was only finally enacted by an equally disgustingly racist Rudd government, they who maintain the NT incursion to this date despite pre-election promises to end it) and made the awful children overboard claims as prelude to Howard's first successful election in 1996.
So I did entertain the idea that they did it deliberately (or as unwitting stooges of someone more intelligent) to bury the link you pointed out ... but (a) are even their backers really that clever? (I think enshrined racism, and obfuscation of legislation, are both the works of complete stupidity), and (b) I think it's more easy to explain as a result of an uncaring, ignorant blunder.
For one thing, repeal of the law wouldn't change the link you're asserting, since that's about the past intent of a historical entity.
It might help to obscure the truth. But not much, I think.
Through searching for the document on austlii, I found the Pacific Islanders Protection Act is discussed in Mabo, in exactly the terms you describe, except that the discussion is limited to non-mainland Australia, as far as I can tell (with my non-legally-trained eyes).
see http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/cases/cth/HCA/1992/23.html
Repealing the law was recommended by the Australian Law Reform Commission in ALRC Report 48. see http://www.alrc.gov.au/inquiries/criminal-admiralty-jurisdiction-and-prize
The genuinely concerning issue of sexual slavery, in an atmosphere of immigration xenophobia linked to asylum seeker refugee people-smuggling concerns, drove new legislation through, and if the change was enacted by someone whose legal knowledge was not focused on the issue of sovereignty, I imagine it would be easy to take an authoritative ALRC recommendation to 'replace' archaic laws, and simply follow that direction a little blindly, resulting in the complete repeal of the 1875 Act.
see Reps Hansard 1998 pp. 5849-5853
http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/reps/dailys/dr010798.pdf
see Senate Hansard 1999 pp. 3075-3079
http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/dailys/ds240399.pdf
see Bills Digest No. 167 1998-99, Criminal Code Amendment (Slavery and Sexual Servitude) Bill 1999, Parliamentary Library, Australian Parliament, 2001-08-13
http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/bd/1998-99/99bd167.htm
I think the section 7 comments about limit of sovereignty ought to have been preserved (perhaps they could be re-added at least somehow?), but I wonder if perhaps they even are correctly the domain of Australian legislation, or actually might belong with the UK government.
In any case, I doubt it was the sovereignty aspect of the 1875 Act was matter of discussion for our busy and somewhat blinkered politicians, but I think you are correct that it should be, and Australian government legislation or treaties should explain not only the status of sovereignty over land, but also the status of the people, and not only the current status, but how that status was achieved. And where the government has not followed their own laws, both the government and the status has been invalidated. And where this infringes other governments' laws and international laws, the entire (claimed) nation and its parent, the UK, are put in jeopardy.
Oh, and I found an 'authoritative' copy which has the text in the form you point out is abridged ... but with the correct elide marks (ellipsis, ellipses, da-da-da, see http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ellipsis ) to show that text has been omitted. I imagine someone has copy-pasted this text, and in the process lost the elide marks, resulting in the version you found problematic.
Here it is, TREATY-MAKING IN THE PACIFIC IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY AND THE TREATY OF WAITANGI, Tom Bennion, Victoria University of Wellington Law Review, http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/VUWLRev/2004/6.html
Perhaps this is the copy you recall seeing at austlii? Ahah!
It just has a brief extract.
"Nothing herein ... contained shall extend or be construed to extent to invest Her Majesty ... with any claim or title whatsoever to dominion or sovereignty over any such islands or places as aforesaid, or to derogate from the rights of the tribes or people inhabiting such islands, or of the Chiefs or Rulers thereof, to such sovereignty or dominion."
The whole exercise reaffirms to me several important technical matters which I need to get back to trying to solve as well as I can, at least for myself.
One being that the internet provides us access to so much information, but much of it is transient, and our own memory inadequate. Some sort of good annotation-and-clipping tool is needed. So far I haven't got one, zotero is not bad, but version 2 of it switched to uploading your data onto their server, which is unacceptable for privacy, reliability, and legal liability reasons.
A second being a matter of practice for authors and correspondents, the importance of citing the most authoritative (ie closest to the original author) version of a work as possible, on the most stable website available, and quoting (and eliding) accurately and honestly. If unsure which is better, it is sometimes better to give links to more than one version of a work, 'just in case' since things on the internet disappear and move more often than hardcopy works in libraries do.
Simeon Scott