Governance and Doublespeak

Professor Ghillar, Michael Anderson, Convenor of the Sovereign Union, last surviving member of the founding four of the Aboriginal Embassy and Head of State of the Euahlayi Peoples Republic provides an insight into the current interplay of doublespeak in governance…. The definition of doublespeak is language used to deceive usually through concealment or misrepresentation of truth. It is language that intentionally obscures, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words. I have chosen this heading because what our People do not understand, in this day and age, is how the federal, state and territory governments in this country are deliberately misleading and misinforming us, and the rest of the world, on how First Nations Peoples within Australia are supposedly free from government protections and controls. Prior to the 1967 Referendum, we were ‘inmates’ of the state, whereas the state preferred to refer to us as ‘Wards of the State’. Not because of any crimes alleged to have been committed, but simply because we were ‘Aborigines’. During this time in our history it was so easy to manipulate the minds of our people, because in reality governments and bureaucrats were our masters. Our Peoples become political prisoners because we were a threat to the British Crown’s claims over our lands and waters. Clearing the land and imprisoning us enabled people to seize our lands and claim ownership. This period was the ‘Killing Times’. The Crown of England and the Colonial Secretary knew of these killings because the British parliament appointed a special inquiry the results of which were published in the 1937 Report of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Aborigines (British Settlements). The colonies that now make up the Commonwealth of Australia, were essentially instructed from England to stop the murdering of First Nations people. As a consequence, the colonists rounded us up and removed us to government mission stations and reserves, where we became prisoners of the state, supposedly to ‘protect’ us against the psychopathic maniacal killers called ‘the squatters’, who later gained title to the lands, despite the fact that their land grants came as a result of the proceeds of a crime–murder and genocide. Australia is the only country in the world where laws were passed to protect one human group from another. There exist epigenetic influences that have become part of our very being, believing that a white man knows what is best for us. (Epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene activity that occur without altering the DNA sequence itself). There is another word that our People need to become very familiar with and that is ‘psychosomatic’. It manifests itself through emotional distress that can cause real physical symptoms such as pain, headaches, skin issues, gastrointestinal problems. The most common symptoms are tension related and can also cause stress and depression. One thing is certain, psychosomatic symptoms are not faked, nor ‘all in the head’. They are physical manifestations of emotional distress. This is underpinned by continuing colonial oppression, resulting in enormous mental and physical harm to our Peoples that continues to this day. Doublespeak can be difficult to identify as it is often deliberately delivered to our communities to create the impression that governments are responding to our demands, while failing to deliver the positive outcomes that are so desperately needed. This is evidenced in the Closing the Gap’s failed strategies and unachieved targets, which are all designed and managed by our oppressors, in consultation with the few chosen Black elites through the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peak bodies. Therefore, we must search our souls and ask ourselves: Are our minds controlled to the degree that slogans and new terminologies prevent us from being free-thinkers? We must shed the shackles of mind control, thus enabling us to critically analyse what governments are proposing and doing? We must challenge the policies promoted through the hand-chosen elite Blacks who sit on peak body committees. Currently, policies are designed and actioned from the top down, instead of coming from the grassroots. In many cases, the strategic planning created for governments by the peak bodies become the rules of law, which ultimately means it’s their way or no way. Unfortunately for our communities, they have little to no capacity to say ‘NO’, nor are our Peoples offered any optional pathways to meet their grassroots aspirations and to establish governance systems that reflect our cultural norms in decision-making. This very question begs an answer on the point of culturally appropriate governance. In terms of grassroots governance and community leadership, there are sufficient numbers of people who are now classified as Elders who have lived experiences of growing up in intact communities where the Rules of Law that governed our families and our personal influences as we grew up, were rooted in the need to provide stability and all necessary planning to sustain the very wellbeing for all who lived in those communities, over and above the basic need to survive. There was no need for police and jails, as our Elders maintained decorum. All of this was despite strict laws within colonial legislation that controlled our very lives through colonial subjugation. There are some people who, like me, have benefitted from learning from our Elders – where our Old People made decisions for the community’s wellbeing. You may be shocked to know that after the turn of the 20th century, our Elders were confronted with two very serious social and political cultural conundrums. They came down to two primary factors. The first being, keeping our communities and families safe and intact given the strict laws that they were subjected to under the Aboriginal Protection Acts around this country. In most cases our People were completely disenfranchised because, by definition in the Acts, we were ‘inmates’ of the state–the government preferred to use the term ‘Wards of the State’, and completely denied our social, political, economic and civil rights and freedoms – fundamental human rights. The laws were so harsh that families (mothers, fathers, grandparents) had no right to protect their children from the deviant criminally-minded people who took children because they could, and enslaved them to white masters in the guise of ‘protecting’ the child, while indenturing them through the legislatively-designed apprenticeship system. This is just one of the many examples I can cite. On the matter of economics and community health, when I was growing up the government still maintained a regimented ration system if you were an ‘inmate’, which included, once a week, flour, sugar and tea, which was the staple diet, and once a month they would be ‘kind’ enough to throw in salted corned beef. This system, unfortunately for our People, was a primary contributing factor to the chronic diseases that we are now confronted with, because of the sugary diet that was our staple intake. In some cases, our Old People were able to get to the rivers where they caught fish, crayfish, turtles etc. I now return to our present situation. In my most recent article, I made reference to the amount of land that is classified ‘owned’ by common law holders as a result of successful Native Title claims and land rights. I also included state land rights acts e.g. the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Land Rights Act 1981 and New South Wales Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983, including other lands in other states that were once part of the Aboriginal Protectorate system, e.g. former government and church mission stations and reserves. I repeat, the lands may be ours in name, but in practice we cannot use them for self-determination and economic purposes. This includes lands that come under the NSW State Aboriginal Land Council, in particular. In the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) lands of South Australia the cattle and camel industries are not being controlled by the people themselves. This denies them any financial gain that should circulate back into the communities. Instead, these communities receive no significant financial return. Then there are the tourist locations purchased under legislation introduced by the Keating government to buy lands and return them to the Traditional Owners as reparation and restitution for dispossession during the British imperial colonial expansion, as referred to above. The Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation (ILSC) has been buying lands and businesses, e.g. major tourist resorts such as Yulara adjacent to Uluru. One must ask the question: With the enormous amount of funds available through government grants to the ILSC, how is it possible for the ILSC to have financial losses so great as have resulted in the ILSC selling the Yulara tourist complex to an American company, a company that no doubt would have done its due diligence and saw the great potential of Yulara as a tourist resort–something the ILSC could not see? The next question is: Why does the ILSC fail to fulfill its legislative obligation to return lands to the Traditional Owners, when the ILSC’s mantra is to buy land, including the businesses, and return them to the ancient owners for being dispossessed. In the case of the Yulara complex, adjacent to Uluru, the Traditional Owners could have made money, not by running the Yulara complex itself, but by leasing the complex to domestic or international interests, thereby always retaining ownership and making money for the benefit of their people. The ILSC failed to consider the community’s interests, instead focusing on their own failures and sought an easy way out. The ILSC has constantly argued that lands bought for Traditional Owners should not be lost from the ‘Indigenous Estate’, that remains to be publicly defined. It therefore follows that major government reviews into the practice of the ILSC are an imperative and should commence immediately, so as to make sure the Traditional Owners get their land back and retain ownership in perpetuity. The second part is to investigate why there are so many non-Aboriginal people running this government statutory body for the purpose of acquiring land, water and businesses for First Nations. The problem is that the Act permits the ILSC to buy land for itself and not only Traditional Owners, and the ILSC is selling off its failed business acquisitions, often at a huge loss. Selling off businesses and property contradicts the purpose and function of the ILSC. Give the land back to the Peoples! Then, of course, we have the native title issue. This is a serious matter because these lands have been returned in accordance with our Law and customs through successful bids in the Federal Court system. The definition of ‘exclusive possession’ only means a usufruct right, that is ‘the right to enjoy the use and advantages of another's property short of the destruction or waste of its substance’. In practice, we have a native title right to use and derive benefits or profit from property belonging to someone else providing the property itself us not injured in any way. So digging a hole or erecting a permanent structure of some kind on land classified as ‘exclusive possession’ is considered ‘injuring’ the land. This is why some successful native title claimants are then told they are not even allowed to build a bough shed for shade on their own land! When we look at usufruct rights we don’t have access and rights to land that is ours despite the Federal Court’s rulings. I reiterate, land determined by the Federal Court to be native title lands is not ours and ours alone. In our case, the Native Title Act 1993 as amended, denies any type of descriptive English land title tenure. Under this Act, in the state and territory Land Registry Offices, the descriptive land title is Unused State Land (USL) with no Traditional Owners’ names on file. The Traditional Owners’ names are only recorded at the Commonwealth level at the National Native Title Tribunal. In reality, if we do want to use these lands or change any description, we have to go through another legal process to use the land the way we want to, because we don’t own the land and have to get permission from the state, which involves a whole different and complex legal process. In respect of native title lands, it is compulsory for the successful claimants, the defined common law holders, to incorporate, through the Office of Registry of Indigenous Corporations (ORIC), a registered Prescribed Body Corporate (PBC) which becomes the trustee. Like all companies, the PBCs are controlled by a constitution. In the case of PBCs their constitutions have to fit within the defined rules of ORIC. This is further complicated by the addition of having to comply with the Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act 2006 (CATSI Act) and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Act 2005 (ATSI Act). When I talk about the former 19th and 20th century Protection Acts, in reality, for us, things have not changed much, because we are still governed and are obliged to fit within the laws that have been written by the oppressor colonial state for us and we have little to no power to change the way we are governed. I therefore ask this question: If you want to remain publicly identified as an Aboriginal/First Nations or Torres Strait Islander person and want to develop your community, then it is time that we admit to ourselves that we continue to be governed by laws created by the colonisers. I personally can attest to the fact that being part of a Traditional Owner group, where land has been returned, the Supreme Court of the State of New South Wales has determined, that despite the land being purchased for Traditional Owners for redress and reparation for dispossession, the court ruled that the land was held in ‘bare legal title’ in favour of the grantor [ILSC] and the Traditional Owners never ‘owned’ the land, but rather the Federal government-funded Commonwealth institution, ILSC, was the actual owner, because of the ‘bare legal title’, always retaining ownership, whereas the Traditional Owners were falsely misled into believing that the lands were purchased in accordance with the Act, and by resolution of the ILSC board, as reparation and redress for dispossession – doublespeak at its best. This reminds me of section 15 of the New South Wales Aborigines Protection Act 1909 where it states: 15. Every blanket or other article issued by the government or by board to any aborigine shall be considered to be on loan only, and to be the property of the board, and any unauthorised person other than an aborigine who has in his possession or custody any blanket, or other article or portion thereof, which reasonably appears from the marks there on or otherwise to have been so issued shall be guilty of an offence against this Act. The fight for Land Rights continues. The conundrum that we as Peoples now find ourselves in, is how do we take ownership and control of all the lands that have allegedly been acquired and/or granted back to us under various legislation at Commonwealth, state and territory levels? Having our names on the Title Deeds of our respective lands, can and will change our social, economic and cultural standing, which will aid in granting us complete franchise as Peoples, because like western society we will become ‘owners’ in our own right of real estate that is so valuable to westerners, i.e. land and water. We falsely pretend to ourselves that we have advanced and progressed as Peoples. Educationally, yes, we have achieved great things. But I turn back to what I began with. As Peoples, we are so used to being controlled that we dare not challenge the hand that continues to feed us. We are so used to being governed and provided for that we instinctively do not challenge, instead we find ourselves complying with their rules and regulations and seeking the oppressors’ permission for fear of losing what little bit of power that we exercise over the organisations we call our own, and the little public funds that are granted to us through the ‘benevolence’ of the colonial parliamentary system and its institutions, where many non-Aboriginal people fill the jobs that should be filled by First Nations people. In conclusion, I turn to the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983. Under this tightly controlled regime, the legislation has made the Registrar an autocrat. There are no provisions that create checks and balances to prevent the Registrar from exercising autocratic rule with impunity. When Local Aboriginal Land Councils attempt to develop their lands to (a) house their people, (b) create industrial development on their lands, and/or (c) use their lands for other industries, such as creating tourist locations and self-owned and managed businesses, the process for approval is way too cumbersome and demanding, because often the Local Aboriginal Land Councils do not have the physical resources or local expertise to develop the strategic planning that is required. So, one can ask: Why is this the case? The answer is simple – the Local Aboriginal Land Councils are bereft of any source of independent income and are reliant on state and Commonwealth grants to function, limiting their ability to be providers for their communities. I am yet to see where our People have been enfranchised sufficiently to become active in the commercial world without government restrictions and controls. These factors prohibit us from being free and ambitious thinkers and entrepreneurs. Why? Because the laws, rules and regulations that control us are overwhelming. In the Black Power days, we marched with a sign which read: ‘Free Black Australia’. That slogan is still relevant today. Dependency is a curse on our Peoples. So ask yourself now: What would freed First Nations/Aboriginal people be able to do if we had unregulated control of the lands we now own? Then ask ourselves: What will we gain from the slogan ‘Truth to power’? By Professor Ghillar, Michael Anderson Convenor of Sovereign Union of First Nations and Peoples in Australia and Head of State of the Euahlayi Peoples Republic    ghillar29@gmail.com,  0499 080 660 www.sovereignunion.mobi