Great article by Chris Merritt about ‘first nations’ BS

Sovereign Indigenous nations ‘is an Australian myth’

Chris Merritt

The Australian Business Network

Denying reality never ends well. Sooner or later someone comes along and punctures fashionable delusions.

Hans Christian Anderson made this clear in his fairytale about the Emperor’s new clothes. And almost two centuries later, exactly the same point has been made by Victorian barrister Lana Collaris.

The issue now is whether the cognoscenti in the law and elsewhere will face the facts about Indigenous Australia or whether they will continue to pay homage to a bucolic past that never really existed.

Collaris’ article in this newspaper on Tuesday made many powerful points but they all flow from this: there have never been sovereign Aboriginal nations on this continent.

This reality lies at the core of her refusal to go along with other members of the Victorian Bar Council who, before each meeting, acknowledge the “traditional owners” of the land on which they meet.

It’s impossible to avoid the conclusion that these acknowledgments and the omnipresent welcomes to country give effect to the idea that Indigenous people are the true sovereigns of this land.

How many times have we heard acknowledgments of “first nations” whose sovereignty, while never ceded, was taken improperly?

This is a modern fairytale that does more harm than good.

It gives children a flawed understanding of their own history and hinders the development of public policy on Indigenous affairs based on true equality of citizenship, not historical fantasy.

It gives succour to the wrongheaded notion that modern Australia is somehow in need of “decolonising” – a process that actually unfolded decades ago and culminated in 1986 when Bob Hawke severed this country’s last constitutional links with Britain.

The Constitution started life as an act of the British parliament after the document had been approved in this country. True independence, however, was painfully incremental.

Hawke’s Australia Acts were the final step.

They mean the Constitution’s status as Australia’s fundamental law now derives entirely from the people of this country – a point made by constitutional lawyer Geoffrey Lindell soon after this change came into effect.

After the outcome of last year’s referendum on the Voice, it seems beyond debate that the guiding constitutional principle in this country is now equality of citizenship – not the race-based division that blighted earlier years.

This is the legal reality that all those welcomes and acknowledgments simply gloss over.

But in the gentlest possible way, Collaris has belled the cat.

She could have gone much harder and was clearly sparing the blushes of those lawyers who have simply gone along with the prevailing fashion despite authoritative statements to the contrary from the High Court.

Lawyers, of all people, should have known that the doctrines of Aboriginal sovereignty and nationhood – which underpin these welcomes and acknowledgments – have been repeatedly rejected by the High Court. Because of that it makes no sense for anyone – let alone the lawyers – to talk of “first nations” or to assert that some Indigenous communities had not ceded their sovereignty. They had none to cede.

Collaris merely referred in passing to the 1979 case of Coe. She could, for example, have reminded her critics about what Justice Harry Gibbs said when confronted with the argument that Aboriginal people had once been a sovereign nation and Britain had wrongly asserted sovereignty.

“There is no Aboriginal nation, if by that expression is meant a people organised as a separate state or exercising any degree of sovereignty,” Gibbs wrote in Coe.

Gibbs made the point that the history of the relationships between white settlers and Indigenous people was not the same in Australia as the United States. He noted that the US Supreme Court had accepted in 1831 that America’s Cherokee nation had been organised as a “distinct political society separated from others”. But it was not possible to make such a statement about Aboriginal people in Australia.

Collaris might also have mentioned what happened in 1992 when the great native title case of Mabo (No 2) also rejected the notion of Aboriginal sovereignty.

This aspect of Mabo was explained by former Chief Justice Anthony Mason in the second Coe case, decided in 1993.

The next time someone asserts that Aboriginal sovereignty exists and has never been ceded, keep in mind what Mason had to say in the second Coe case:

“Mabo (No 2) is entirely at odds with the notion that sovereignty adverse to the Crown resides in the Aboriginal people of Australia,” he wrote.

“The decision is equally at odds with the notion that there resides in the Aboriginal people a limited kind of sovereignty embraced in the notion that they are ‘a domestic dependent nation’ entitled to self-government and full rights (save the right of alienation) or that as a free and independent people they are entitled to any rights and interests other than those created or recognised by the laws of the Commonwealth, the State of NSW and the common law,” Mason wrote.

The point here could have been made by Hans Christian Anderson: organisations risk embarrassing themselves when they ignore the facts and succumb to peer pressure or fashion.

Society expects much more from those in positions of leadership, particularly those in business and the law. It is therefore reassuring that the Victorian Bar has leaders with the fortitude of ­Collaris. Why not follow her example and abandon these race-based mantras and acknowledge all Australians, regardless of race, religion or national origin?

That would be more in keeping with the doctrine of equality of citizenship. It might even prevent eye-rolling when planes full of weary travellers arrive at the nation’s airports.

Chris Merritt is vice-president of the Rule of Law Institute of Australia.

Chris Merritt

Legal Affairs Contributor

I know knighthoods mean absolutely nothing to me if a soft handed empty suit is considered to be worthy of one.

They did it last time, will they do it again?
”There has always been unanswered statistical irregularities about absentee ballots from the 2020 election. These irregularities suggest massive, systemic, voter fraud among absentee ballots. Viewing the percentage of the vote each candidate won from absentee voters precinct by precinct, one can see a very suspicious correlation between the candidates in 2020 that does not exist in 2016. This suggests there was major electronic manipulation of votes combined with the physical ballots placed to back up those fraudulent votes.”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/08/never-forget-jocelyn-benson-dana-nessel-hid-greatest/

If anyone is wondering why Newscorp sites are getting leftier…

Visualizing US Election Contributions By Corporate Employees (29 Aug)

Yep, News employees donate 99% to the Democrats and 1% to the Republicans.

If you believe this you’ll believe anything!
Michael Ware on the usually sensible Stefanovic timeslot of Daytime Sky says Kamala Harris merely “panders to the progressives and is no Bernie Sanders”.
He adds that Kamala is consistently outperforming Trump by one to two percentage points!

shatterzzz —

Better late than never ……. LO

Thanks shatterzzz have been thinking of you and hoping that the outcome is all good for you.

 “Do not cut the grass” .. I wuz told, emphatically! 

I suppose a goat would be out of the question?

H B Bear

 August 29, 2024 11:45 am

 Reply to  Bruce of Newcastle

We were rescued by a Main Roads grader crew after breaking down in the Pilbara. Crib sheds towed behind the grader. Tinned peas only there.

Once Upon a Time, driving through the wilds of a dirt road between Wilcannia and Dubbo, I overtook a combination of:
One dirty great big grader, towing a tip truck a with a backhoe on it, which was towing a Land Rover, which was towing the crib room caravan combination. How to move 5 vehicles with one driver. I wish I’d taken a picture, I really do.

Blame Shin Bet.

‘Hamas doesn’t want a war’ | Top secret Shin Bet documents from before 10.7 revealed (29 Aug)

Documents sent by Israel’s internal security organization to the Prime Minister just days before the murderous attack recommend concessions for Gaza to maintain quiet.

That would make it the greatest intelligence failure in Israeli history since it is now apparent that Hamas had been planning 7 Oct for something like 7 years, with Iranian planning and support – all the while building an unparalleled underground network of defensive tunnels.

Ms King is unhappy…

Labor lands King hit on the Big Australian (Paywallian)

Resources Minister Madeleine King has gone to war with BHP in an extraordinary spray, attacking the mining giant for always ‘railing against’ Labor policies and refusing to work productively with unions. 

So she doesn’t like it that BHP opposes nutty Labor stuff like massive royalty increases and crazy energy policies? And she is also upset that BHP hasn’t been working productively with the utterly corrupt CFMEU? Oh, ok.

a gotta ask …! How the F**K do these jungle bunnies from 3rd world s**tholes get vetted not only to get into Oz but to qualify for carers certificates .. And the gummint expects us to believe they check out Gaza terrorists thoroughly .. FFS!

Sorry this is gonna be a long comment:
Glad you brought that up shatterzzz — a tale I will tell on that point. The time was the 50,000 illegals to these shores during the Rudd Gillard Rudd ineptocracy.

As many here know I and the mother of a severely intellectually disabled family member who is non-verbal and unable to use any form of communication except grimaces, smiles, hand gestures, a made-up sign language AND behaviour.

At the time the disgrace of a service provider which was providing residential services invariably used agency staff. Those staff were almost exclusively the illegal immigrant who had to be given employment so the government thought it terrific idea to get the labour hire organisations to put illegal immigrants on their books.

Because of this policy things like this happened, just one example:

Mother calling at 11.30pm to remind staff that X was to have a surgical procedure the next morning: Hi I am X’s Mum I want to be sure that X is given NIL by mouth from midnight tonight

Support worker/carer: Which one X?

The person on the end of the phone had very little English couldn’t read English and heaven alone knows how medications were to be administered given the person did not even know the names of the disabled person in their care. – there were 4 people in the house one of whom suffered uncontrolled epileptic seizures. We families were never ever apprised of what was going on; we found out by other means.

The standard of care was simply abysmal and heaven alone knows what other indignities/abuse/neglect were suffered by the people with disabilities in the ‘care’ of this service provider. I know some of the stuff but because all of the people with disabilities in the residence are non-verbal and severely intellectually disabled we will never know — except for the psychological damage they have all suffered and to this day is manifest in their behaviours.

This was in the day of NSW Department of Ageing Disability and Home Care ADAHC — so many of those who worked in ADAHC were evil on steroids. It took us 2 years to get rid of that service provider thanks to the disgraceful behaviour of ADAHC — but sometimes you have to go through great challenges to get to something much better and that is what we have now and I thank God every day for the incomparable service provision we have for our family member today and thanks to all Australians for the NDIS which was meant to provide for people who simply CANNOT live a decent life without daily assistance with every aspect of their lives because of their disability.

Thank you Australia for the NDIS

Again apologies for the lengthy comment.

CharlieP

 August 29, 2024 8:34 pm

Brainwashing children should be an indictable offence. But is it too late?

The techniques used are the same as those that produced the Red Guards and the Hitler Youth.
I think that the practitioners should be executed for the damage they do to the kids, but that’s just me.

Resources Minister Madeleine King has gone to war with BHP in an extraordinary spray, attacking the mining giant for always ‘railing against’ Labor policies and refusing to work productively with unions. 

BHP has been very successful in keeping Unions out of their site operations. Bless them. They know that once the union cancer takes hold, BHP productivity will go through the floor. The stupidity of that is BHP shares will be in all the union members Super and a poorly productive BHP will be priced accordingly. This is a perfect example of Labor idiocy not being able to see the world beyond how can be made to fit into union boxes.

King- a know nothing nobody bint in a very important portfolio. Another Labor dummy;

Before entering politics King worked as a commercial lawyer in Australia and overseas, as well as in various roles at the University of Western Australia. Immediately prior to entering Parliament she was the chief operating officer of the Perth USAsia Centre, a think tank based at UWA.[2]

ALP declares war on BHP.

Wow, BHP are incredibly powerful. I saw them get approvals and thumb their nose at Federal Regulations in the Bowen Basin and get away with it.

Not supporting their power because having done a few contracts for them I think they are an incredibly flawed organisation that had the foresight to swallow up the best coal leases in CQ and hold on to them back in the 1970’s. Their insight into the resources market trends is second to none, in 2011 I was talking with an exec who was forecasting a slight downturn and lower prices in 2013/2014 and they were already planning for. It happened and then Rudd added his MRRT which made it worse. Then later Gillard’s Carbon Tax caused the market to crater.

Good luck King, you’ll need it. Rumour had it when I last worked there the Senior Exec in Brisbane had Bligh on speed dial in his mobile phone. That said Corporations of this side have the luxury of waiting out a bad government till there’s a change.

Some more on the far-lefty Brazilian judge who is monstering Elon – which I linked a story about earlier.

Starlink@Starlink·3h

Earlier this week we received an order from Brazil’s Supreme Court Justice @alexandre de Moraes that freezes Starlink’s finances and prevents Starlink from conducting financial transactions in that country

Starlink@Starlink·3h

This order is based on an unfounded determination that Starlink should be responsible for the fines levied—unconstitutionally—against X. It was issued in secret and without affording Starlink any of the due process of law guaranteed by the Constitution of Brazil. We intend to address the matter legally

Starlink@Starlink·3h

Today, Starlink is connecting more than a quarter million customers in Brazil—from the Amazon to Rio de Janeiro—including small businesses, schools, and first responders, among many others. We are proud of the impact Starlink is making in communities across the country, and the Starlink team is doing everything possible to ensure their service is not interrupted

It’s pretty amazing that a judge, who is trying to get X/Twitter to take down some tweets he doesn’t like, can order an unrelated company’s bank accounts to be frozen just because he’s peeved. But that’s lefties for you.

Also not one word about the live export ban.

The Oz has a story on it.

Bush Summit: Farmers feeling fleeced by live sheep export ban (Paywallian)

Loss of competition and the end of a viable trade has farmers in Western Australia frustrated by the Albanese government’s live sheep export ban.

Here you go Dover, I was just about to post this one since I know you have been watching the Chinese economy.

The Latest Signs that China’s Economy is Struggling (29 Aug)

And here’s another sign that Chinese consumers are pulling back. After it’s biggest year ever last year, Chinese movie ticket sales have slumped dramatically.

Movie ticket sales in China have generated more than $1.5 billion so far this summer, a little more than half of last year’s record total of $2.89 billion, according to China’s Film Data Information Network, an institution directly under the Central Propaganda Department…

Much more in the story, but I thought the bit I’ve quoted was the most interesting, since it reflects family finances.