Loudmouth says:

"Many of us, especially on the Left, labour under many false suppositions, instead of finding out realities..."

and;

"what the hell were those lawyers doing in the nineties, in 'negotiating' land rights deals, when people already had ususfructuary rights ? Didn't anybody do due diligence ?"




To answer Loudmouth's concluding question: I suspect not, or if someone did they were rapidly sidelined and any evidence of their work buried.


It is now much clearer that the purpose of the 1967 alterations to the Constitution was to empower the Federal government to make racially-based legislation in respect to land. If it were not so intendedly racially-based with specific respect to aboriginal people, to the implicit detriment of other subjects of the Crown resident in Australia, the wording of Section 51 placitum (xxvi) would either have been removed in its entirety or the placitum left unaltered (the words as shown in strike-through format in any printed copy of the Constitution continuing to apply) as a specific protection of aboriginal people against 'special laws' of the like that we now see in operation in the NT.

Which brings up another matter in respect of which due diligence seems to have been lacking: By what authority was the wording of Section 127, that repealed by Act No. 55 of 1967, totally removed from printed copies of the Constitution when all other alterations remain on display in strike-through format? Has a convention applicable to the printing of ordinary legislation been wrongly applied to the printing of the Constitution? All Australians surely have the right to see their own legislative tracks in this very special piece of paramount legislation. Who fudged it? Quo warranto?




What I think few, if any, have considered, is what opportunity this constituted should ever the electoral process be covertly subverted in Australia by a foreign power, or indeed by any interest(s) other than the Crown as by the Constitution constrained.




How much easier for transnational corporations, for example, to negotiate mining rights with small local tribal or land councils rather than with the Crown?

One of the really good things about OLO is that it provides a means of at least partially redressing, even if only initially to a limited viewership, such deficiencies with respect to due diligence in matters of constitutional law research as Loudmouth has highlighted.

One of the names applied in earlier times to the continent that was eventually to become known to the world as Australia was 'Terra Psittacorum', Land of Parrots. This name has proven particularly apt with respect to probably the overwhelming majority of Australian Federal politicians over the years. They tend to faithully recite the lines given to them by what is increasingly being recognised as a self-styled political elite hostile to the concept of constitutional monarchy.

It was particularly sad to see the clean political slate of the youngest member of the present Federal Parliament defaced with one of these elitist shibboleths in his maiden speech, during which mention was made of the "dreadful discrimination against aboriginal Australians that had been removed from the Constitution in 1967", or words to that effect.

For the record, here are those words that have been removed from public view:

"127. In reckoning the numbers of the people
of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other
part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives
shall not be counted."

They can be viewed on a National Archives of Australia webpage called 'Documenting a democracy', here: http://bit.ly/frqpsb

Granted that the law, including that of the Constitution, can often appear to be obtusely worded, what was wrong with these words remaining in strike-through format so all would know what had been repealed? Could it have been thought that with the original words on view it would be difficult to construct upon them a mythology of institutionalised racism and intentional detrimental discrimination, a mythology essential to the sustenance of the guilt-peddling necessary as a smokescreen for the intended removal of sovereignty implicitly flagged in the now-altered wording of Section 51 placitum (xxvi)?

As Loudmouth says:

"Sometimes genuine liberation is a lot of hard work, but is no less valuable for that."

As always, Patrick Dodson has some wise words - but I was surprised by the 'noble native' overtones.

While this article calls for reconcilliation it is far from concilliatory.

I am not at all convinced that aboriginal culture has the answers and it would seem that, generally speaking, neither are aboriginal people themselves.

Whether out of desperation or ignorance of their own roots, so many now claim to be "owners" of the land in total defiance of the original understanding that might yet make a real difference - that man can no more own the land than the air, the water or the sunlight - that we are all OF the land, not owners of it.

I reckon we all have important things to contribute.

Cornflower
"Shouldn't we be talking about the empowerment that comes from casting away the baggage of past wrongs, real and imagined, and getting on with life?"
Correct Cornflower, but you're reading me wrong: I'm not actually thinking about past wrongs at all- nor feeling no guilt about it: instead I'm analyzing it in the context today whether an indigenous request for Autonomy is fair- and to be quite honest it is IMO.
If someone immigrated here, we would expect them to adapt to our way of life- but for an Aboriginal case, it becomes a little harder to actually justify comformity to our own standards but to deny any local rights to their own, as they do make a fair point that we are excercising our standards on land each group does have a fair claim to.

Spindoc- Oh I'm so sorry I got it wrong- somehow, because the Scots had only inhabited the area for a meager one thousand five-hundred years, the claim that a clearly-recognized geographical entity known as Scotland, who very much DID exist as such for a long time before the UK was founded, suddenly becomes moot?
To be fair, I hope my above reply for Cornflower's point helps answer your question. Anyway, I already answered your subdidization point before- the majority of complaints by the English I have found are those that would just as happily see Scotland completely cut from the UK to deny the subsidy- and definitely lesser than the hostility expressed in an Australian forum on the same topic.

Loudmouth:
Those figures would indeed be quite true, but my examples are still quite widespread problems that are claimed by many official reports to be major obstacles for integration.
And this of course is only made harder by those who live in remote areas (for rather more obvious logistical shortcomings).
But no, I'm most definitely not a "lefty"- if anything I'd be quite conservative in my viewpoint- however I simply do not try to pick a 'side' and root for it- I take each issue on its own.

Hazza,

I think spindoc's point was that ALL adults who live in the REGION called Scotland have the right to vote for or against self-government, independence, home-rule or whatever - not just the people with Scottish (and Pictish) ancestry: with such ancestry myself, I couldn't vote there because I live here in Australia, but I could vote if I moved to Scotland, but BECAUSE I WAS LIVING IN SCOTLAND, not because of any Scottish ancestry. Somalis, Vietnamese, Afghans and Irish who are living in Scotland CAN vote in such a plebiscite, or ordinary election, BECAUSE THEY LIVE THERE.

To labour the point, wherever your Fantasy Island in Australia may be, the Indigenous people there would not be the only ones to vote, and unless you go down to a pretty small level, individual communities, then the Indigenous people would not be in a majority.

In individual communities, like Wadeye or Pipalytjara or Galiwinku, concerning the matters that people would want voting on, i.e. through their community councillors, issues of autonomy simply would not come up: being as UN-autonomous as possible, and as dependent on 'outside' service provision and welfare payments as much as possible, would be a bit more likely. And they already have those voting rights, from the local right up to the federal levels.

But thanks for your examples showing that the more separation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Australia, the worse the situation is for Indigenous people.

Sorry, mate, separatism is a racist pipe-dream. Give it away.

Joe

[Deleted for flaming.]