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REFRAMING FIRST NATIONS LEADERSHIP

REFRAMING FIRST NATIONS LEADERSHIP
Media Release

I heard an interesting conversation on Koori Radio on Wednesday morning (26 April) where Warren Williams from Ntaria, NT, said that Senator Jacinta Price does not speak for Central Australian First Nations people. Price was elected as a Senator, but not from an Aboriginal vote, she was elected after being handed the blue ribbon Country Liberal Party Senate seat after previously failing dismally to win a seat in the previous election where she needed a strong Aboriginal vote.

All the other First Nations politicians in the federal parliament, regardless of their positions on issues are now are forced to operate with split personalities: fighting for First Nations rights on the one hand and preserving and maintaining the British Crown's claim of sovereignty over all of Australia.

What I find most interesting about this dilemma is what sort of functions do these people have. We must then ask what rights the other First Nations politicians in the parliament have to speak for Nations like the Gomeroi, Euahlayi, Bunjalung, Aranda, Karyarra of the Pilbara and Yidinji etc? Clearly, they have no right whatsoever without each of those Nations’ approval.

What makes this whole thing of leadership and right to speak for Country a modern-day catastrophe for First Nations Peoples in Australia is that the government and their appointed Aboriginal leadership completely ignore these facts. How many times do we have to say, “We are not an homogenous group of people in this country.” We have our language. We have our boundaries that make us different from each to the degree we are individual and diverse Nations.

How in the world can this dictatorial Prime Minister Albanese pull at the heart strings of the non-Aboriginal population by pleading with them that a ‘Yes’ vote is about correcting a wrong. The hypocrisy of pulling at the heart strings of non-Aboriginal Australia is a disgusting political ploy, when the government knows that First Nations people are asking for this fast-tracking of a shame referendum to be put on hold, until a referendum is put to the First Nations populations themselves to see if they are prepared, as independent Nations, to agree to be ruled by a foreign occupying power under its colonial constitution, thereby ensuring the preservation of the occupying power to have a right to determine the rights we should have and the way we should live in this country, which we call ‘ours’.

Having attended the Anzac Black Diggers March in Sydney, it was encouraging to hear all the politicians and the New South Wales Governor, Margaret Beazley, reiterate the words of the Governor-General, David Hurley, that Aboriginal people did in fact lose their lives within Australia, defending their own Homelands from invasion. As Kim Beazley stressed twice in ABC Radio National on Anzac Day, “We do not have a God-given right to this country.”

So, it is my appeal to all political and like-minded people to stand up and say ‘No’. Let’s fix up the wrongs before we go to a referendum.

How in the world can Prime Minister Albanese promote a referendum to give a ‘Voice’, when the details that we are aware of inform us that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples will not be, and I emphasise will NOT be, permitted to their democratic right to elect who they want to represent them with their concerns to the national parliament of Australia.

This move by the government is a denial of fundamental human rights, entrenching within a constitutional construct, a dictatorship. First Nations Peoples are already aware of this dictatorship by virtue of the tyranny of control of Aboriginal people through existing federal and state legislation which establishes certain peak Aboriginal organisations, also known as ‘peak bodies’. Knowing the underbelly of the government-approved Mafia-type rule, these people do what they are told for fear of being cut out of federal budget allocations for their operations.

So, people, I simply say to you, “We have been under the hammer ever since the British arrived and, like the Roman template for ruling over those who you’ve colonised, the colonisers ‘make friends’ by placing chosen agents in positions of power over their own and these people rule with iron fists, just like the Black police inform the governments of the threats within, thereby blocking grassroots leadership.

- Ghillar Michael Anderson, Convenor of Sovereign Union of First Nations and Peoples in Australia, Head of State of the Euahlayi Peoples Republicd the last surviving member of the founding four Aboriginal men who foundered the Aboriginal Embassy on the 26 January 1972.