Building our nations

[Music] This is in IATSA's podcast. We acknowledge the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and their continuing connection to land, culture and community. We pay our respects to elders past and present. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this podcast contains voices and names of deceased persons. Hello, I'm Craig Richie, a Dungoney man with connections to the Burapa Nation and CEO of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies or IATSA's. Welcome to the second episode of our Voices of Power series, a joint production between IATSA's and the Churchill Trust. Churchill Trust supports Australians from all walks of life to travel abroad and to explore issues of importance and to bring that knowledge back for the benefit of their communities. I'm a Churchill fellow myself and today we'll be hearing from Indigenous Fellows Cara Kirkwood, Hannah McGlaid, Perry Aegis and Michelle Dishon. In this episode, building our nations will be delving into what nation-building and self-determination look like. So enjoy listening. [Music] Land is at the core of our culture and the return of land remains at the heart of our fight for recognition and justice. My name is Vincent Lengiari, I'm a member of the Cagora, I'm a body-creek physician. [Music] [Music] That means that I can't hear the householders' solemnly path to land right. But I got story from my old father, Grandfather, that land belonged to me, belonged to Aboriginal men before the horse and a cattle come over on that land. That was Land Rights campaigner, Gourin Gielder, Vincent Lengiari, on a trip to Parliament House in Canberra in the early 70s. Unvic Sims of the physical people of Bhattani Bay. Gourin Gielder was back to show down on Land Rights when they walked off the vestigoned wave hill station in the Northern Territory 1966, calling for fair wages and conditions. These Aboriginal stockmen are on strike. They walked off the job over a month ago. Their wives, children and relatives went with them. Are they good workers, the Aboriginal boys? These two boys are the only ones who have kept good work if that's why they're all such a high right. That's that we could stop them. Equals to the white stockmen. Equal to the white stockmen and cattlemen. We are now realizing, and this is part of efficiency, of course, that the Aboriginal is not as important and not as essential to the past of the industry up here as we have in the past believe. And we have already seen one station which has been on strike, as a result, has moved in Thai, almost entirely out of Naked Labour. Now, do you get some of these jack rules that don't know how to master cattle? They don't even know how to ride a horse. Gourin G. People run their long fight. No, no, no, no, the brand. Like this? Yes, G. Gourin G. Dagger, Rago. Terrible. And that's going to go on the cows. That's going to go on the cow, yeah. And that's your own brand. Our own brand. Does that make you feel, when you got your own brand? Make you feel proud? Yeah. We're very proud, yeah, about the brand. The federal government negotiated with besties for the return of Somal Deadland with Prime Minister Gough Whittle and handing over the digital title. Vincent Linguari, I solemnly hand to you these deeds as proof in Australian law. So please land for long for this Gourin G. The fight for the return of land continued to build through the 70s, 80s and 90s. In a landmark moment, four Aboriginal men stood up to tend to embassy outside all parliament house in Canberra in 1972. I brought my grandson, Rob Gerard, from Wales, from Sydney. Just say you're on the Black Lives, Dennis Walker, Gary Farley, Bernie Kraj, or William Jank-Piper, Bob Madden, or I want to go out and come to be very tired of your voice. These are black people that care, that really care that our people will be having. Have it over a principle, have it over a principle of land. You know, also made the white people in this country wake up. Yeah, and this is the first time they've been jolted out of the conservative state of mind. Because always it was, you know, over the outer side out of mind. Now we were on the doorstep. In the 70s, 90s land rights laws were passed in Victoria and New South Wales by the Commonwealth. And in 1993, it was a successful land claim led to the passage of the Native Title Act. What it does is it places land which you've always had separate title in the one European title. And they say that this is not the Aboriginal system and that to impose this in spite of our very good intentions with it simply makes it difficult for their system to hubble right. The land rights granted have raised dust and bought failures and disappointments. What do I want? What do I want? In this world, what do I want? Indigenous people all over the world exist. Our whole identity is based on our land rights. And with our land rights, we are dead Indians. So all of us are delegates from the world. We will be watching the Australian Government Day, proceed in the development and protection for Australian land rights. Yay! The role of the fight for justice, the call for land rights has also always been about desire for economic independence. Where do we want? Where do we want them? Aboriginal people need very specific areas of land and probably quite large areas of land, incidentally none of which is currently legally occupied by white people, in order that we may be able to develop whatever economic enterprises is necessary for us to become economically independent and cease to be the burden that we keep on telling us we are on the Australian taxpayer. What that must know is that there was a land of opportunity. You know, as every individual, there is no need to get any opportunity to do the things we want to do. There is another question of land rights. It's a question of us on and the land we worked. They bought us an address, grabbed us and put us on the reserve, and helped us out and give us hand that we want to get away from that. We could get away from all government in about five years. Churchill Fellow, Pariages, is of the Nerenjari, Narenga, Ajamaatana, Nagerie, and Favis Coast Rangu, Nations of South Australia. He's seen the failures of land rights first hand, but he believes, Navy title, law, strength and South Australia's tribal nations, and given back a sense of belonging. Now, the community of Port Augusta has a dozen different traditional groups from different places, but they are called the average community of Port Augusta. So, when you think about it from 1970s onwards till 1994 when they title came into play, I was looking at the concept of traditional Aboriginal people for a particular piece of land had the same significance as the National Party of the United States. As the Navajo nations, the Creanation, the nations of the First Nations, people of America and Canada. Here we were stepping into that framing, where we, the average community of Port Augusta, where you now, for example, the Nerenjari people of York Peninsula. We are the traditional group of York Peninsula. And regardless of whether there were other traditional owners from other different countries in there, Aboriginal people then had the ability to stand up and say, "We are this, we are that." So, here then we could see Aboriginal people, traditional groups, taking responsibility for themselves in this particular framing of using the Navy title act. To actually say, "We live in Port Augusta." We enjoy Port Augusta because that's our nearest place of work or so on. But our traditional land is elsewhere. And we've got our own land. decision-making group and we've got our boundaries and we've got our rights and interests for that area. With the backing of Landruts and Native Title our people have been able to take more control of our lives and country. It was a new learning space for people who were now running their tribal group business and their tribal group of fears and their tribal group arrangements. So for example they had to look after their heritage especially if somebody wanted to use their country to mine or not to do so they had to think about heritage and the significance of heritage. They had to think about how to deal with mining companies and what sort of financial strategies that they were going to use and then what type of financial institutions that needed to create to actually manage their money. For Perry Native Title has made working on his country a more powerful experience. Working on there is pretty powerful now because when I went through those places I could understand I could feel the difference. When I went through somebody else's country I could feel the back of my hair standing up because I wasn't quite sure whether I'm going through places of significance or whether I'm going through places that I shouldn't be and if I did get through the places I shouldn't be how was I going to deal with the spiritual impact of that. Perry says Native Title has created new relationships and communities where different tribal groups live together and for individuals who have been separated from their country and peoples. Churchill Fellow Hanamat Glade is the Nung Ar woman from Perth. She says because Western Australian governments had resisted introducing land rights. The Marbo decision in introduction of Native Title law were important in the West. We in West Australia didn't really have secure rights to land. That was absolutely a turning point for us and for all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. I saw the case going through law school. I watched it closely. It was amazing and the federal government decided of course to enact the Native Title Act and to ensure those rights were reflected in legislation. There was some winding back of the rights and certainly Native Title has not provided justice as it should have for all Aboriginal people. It's been a response that's been based within the non-indigenous legal system and Aboriginal people have been at a disadvantage and many Aboriginal people actually have seen their inherent rights to their land extinguished under this process. We're very fortunate in Nung Ar country, in Bewomen country, where I am, that there has been a recognition. It's been by way of a settlement though, an Indigenous land use agreement and it's a historic settlement for the lands in Nung Ar countries. Churchill Fellow Michelle Dijon is a cook who yalong eat women from far north Queensland and like many other she does not live in her traditional country. She thinks the process of having to prove Native Title as disadvantaged First Nations peoples who were not able to live on their country and that has created tensions between and within some nations. But she says Native Title has been positive for her and the cook who yalong eat nation. Cook Yalong is one of those nations that has moved a long way from those early days and is a really strong nation around its identity, around its governance, about the alliances that it builds with neighbouring nations. And that's where I think we're seeing Native Title take hold now as people utilising the opportunity, whether they see it as symbolic or not to assert a position and to negotiate on our own terms and I think that that post-Native Title determination opportunity is one that we'll continue to see change and adapt over time and that's where things likely, you know, legal cases advocating for policy change, Indigenous land use agreements, putting on that self-determination lens on our terms becomes a really important part of Native Title into the future. Churchill Fellow, Cara Kirkwood, is a mountain gallery, Bidja and mythical woman from Queensland. She saw the parliamentary debate that raids over Native Title, which was some of the longest in Australian parliamentary history as a disappointing signal. Adopted by non-indigenous parents, she didn't grow up on county and views Native Title through that lens. Identity is inseparable to country, right? So if you didn't grow up in your place, your identity is disconnected in some way. I don't think I could fairly say I've got anywhere near the kinds of cultural knowledge that I wish I had. But what I find that we can see as patterns over time is that we have communities and elders going back to seek reconnection, recompense, acknowledgement of their ownership of their cultural continuum, of these countries. Old people are dying before they get to see whether it's even handed back or not, or whether they're allowed back on their country or not, with a freedom of which culturally you feel on the inside, you see it, but the fence is a holding you out. That is the story for me about Native Title that I doesn't make me want to go in there deep on it because it's utterly heartbreaking. And it's it's butting up against a system of which will tell us every time we're in the strange tyrannolious bubble that we never existed here. With a 2017 Churchill Fellowship, Michelle De Jong traveled to meet First Nations people in New Zealand, Canada and the US to learn more about governance and leadership. She came away within your understanding of what self-determination was and how it could be achieved. I remember many years ago in the 1990s particularly when Atcic was established, there was lots of conversations about self-determination, but when you kind of take off the layers you realize that self-determination was really something that was guided by the government of the day. And so it was putting parameters around, you know, self-determination can look like this, but it can't go as far as that. And so for me thinking about that international perspective, what I've really seen as an opportunity for people to prioritize from a tribal nation perspective or an individual perspective, what self-determination means to them. And it doesn't have to suit for everybody, but it is really important that there's some really fundamental parts to it that enable people to feel like they get to set the priorities and that they get to be in control of the decision-making for those priorities that enable them to enact a self-governance approach. Similarly often words like sovereignty get thrown up and I learnt this over in the United States where they talked about sovereignty by stealth. That what a sovereignty mean, well to me what sovereignty means is being in control of your own destinies and being able to set your own priorities, have decision-making power over those priorities and not deviating from those priorities on the basis of third party intervention. And if you think about that in an Australian context, we certainly see many times whilst we might want something particularly for our nations, the government of the day, the reliance on funding and the intent of a government policy position means that we kind of move too far from what we'd said as our own priority. She saw the importance of tribal nations setting their own goals and priorities and sticking to them. So that was one of the things that I saw was really important about the sovereignty by stealth idea is get our stuff organized, be strong internally, create our own institutions, our own leaders, our own processes and systems to enable us to act as if we are a sovereign state. And then we get to a position where we don't have to rely on others to determine for us what our outcomes are that we stand really strong in that power and that place as self-determined people. Michelle believes the structure of the former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission at Sieg, which was set up in 1990, and the 2009 National Congress of Australia's first peoples, did not allow us to truly set our own agendas. We do need to remind ourselves sometimes that we have the power. We've often lost that level of power because other people have come in an influence and changed our way of working. We need to get back to rebuilding and reclaiming the way that we used to do this work so that we can lead our communities forward. Michelle believes that the focus on tribal nations in the US and Canada is just as important here in Australia. It makes sense that if we want to move forward, we have to start working from a different collaboration point. We know we talk about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, but what we really, when we talk about ourselves, we're talking about being cookie-yullenji or nut and gerry or nunga, and that means that those nations can create their own leadership. They can build their own institutions, have their own processes in place, hold each other to account and to work from a position of anything as possible rather than the limitations of a reliance on a government or a funding partner to create this opportunity. I've seen as well as in Australia, land rights have allowed us to be more self-efficient and run our own lives. Michelle saw first nations people overseas rebuilding their tribal nations through independent income generation. Even looking at the way they were creating their own economic sustainability really changes the way that you get to do business and to prioritise. So if you're creating your own money, you can do whatever you want with your own money. But as long as you have to keep going to others for that source of income and resourcing, then you're always going to have to make some compromises. Native American nations were rebuilding their strength, starting with a small core of people and developing that into a critical mass of leaders and active members. I met you around my Vietnam, I know you're going to be kicked away. I met you around my tour in Nucleague, it makes a crowd of men and women. You can all take me to the start there, kick me to a maguashanal walkanal muggle. So one of the things in the United States that was run out of the Native Nations Institute at the University of Arizona was this idea of rebuilding Native nations. So you know, not saying that things were lost, it's just about reclaiming. Like that quote from Chief Orrin Lyons who says, "The task is now to rebuild our nations to reestablish those foundations and to put them back into practice." So what that process is showing evidence of is working with younger people, engaging them early in those conversations. And then you know, from that small cohort, when everybody's talking from that same kind of standpoint, you start to create the masses. You start to get more people involved. At the heart of every tribal nation are its members and their kinship and relationships. Whether they live on or off their lands. Michelle learned a lot from how the citizen potter but charming nation made sure all its people, even though they were not living on country, were able to contribute. The total population here of the Fort County Potterwater me, I believe, is pretty close to around 1400, maybe a little bit more. They say we're the smallest of all the eight recognized bands of the Potterwater me nation. A lot of the bands today kind of look at us as that band that has retained a lot of the traditions, being that we were the ones that hid from the removal process. A lot of our elderly today are being called upon by the other bands to assist with their language instruction. Like any other person would do, we try to help them as much as we can because, you know, according to a lot of our elders, there are probably right now in this day and age, and this band probably about five fluent speakers left of the Potterwater me language. That's what we do. At the heart of nation building, one of the things is to say who are, your members or your citizens of your nation, and what's their role, whether they live on country or off country, I think, is really important. Citizen Potterwater me is one of those nations that had worked really hard to make sure that there was continual engagement by its citizens from all over the United States, not just those living on reservations. We find that there are some other folks who have not had the exposure to the language because of the relocation efforts of the early 60s, you know, where they were relocated into the urban areas, relocated them, you know, just like they relocated us into the boarding schools. Some of them have not had access to their many roots. Some of those are third generation Native Americans or Indians or Potterwater me is living in the urban areas that have no idea at all about the language, about any of that all they read this one has been written in the history books. In Australia we have a very similar situation where people don't live on country, but are very well educated, have great skills and knowledge and should be making contributions to their nation. So there's an important opportunity for us to re-engage in that space. [Music] [Music] While our leaders and communities were working on rebuilding nations and self-governance from the ground up, in 2007 after more than two decades of lobbying, the United Nations passed a landmark declaration on indigenous rights. Australia, the US, Canada and New Zealand were the only countries to vote against the declaration in the UN in 2007, but later all adopted it with the Australian Government endorsing the declaration in 2009. A hundred and forty-eight nations have now backed the declaration which sets important global standards. Article 3 and 4 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People Say. Indigenous people have the right of self-determination to freely determine their political status and have the right to autonomy or self-government of their affairs. Article 18 says, "Indigenous peoples have the right to participate in decision-making on matters which affect their rights, through representatives chosen by themselves using their own procedures." And that, Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and develop their own decision-making institutions. Article 19 says, "State must consult and cooperate with Indigenous peoples through their own representative institutions to get their informed consent before passing and implementing laws or policies that may affect them." But the UN Declaration is not legally binding, so has it had any real impact on how First Nation peoples live? Hannah McGlaid, who's a member of the UN permanent forum for Indigenous issues, sees the UN Declaration and Australia as an endorsement of it as big turning points. It's a framework that exists that is just so important because our inherent rights as Indigenous people, inherent fundamental human rights simply aren't recognised without the UN Declaration on the rights of Indigenous people, that our advocates and leaders worked so hard for over a decade to develop those standards in Geneva and the Human Rights Council processes there. And the governments are a little aware now that you can't do what if you want and oppress Aboriginal people so freely, but they're still doing it. And sadly, West Australia has always been a very difficult state, a very racist state when it comes to Aboriginal people. And this is something that Aboriginal people know. So we're dealing with governments and non-Indigenous people in government and positions of power and all through society that really actually don't know or respect our rights as Indigenous people. We have a UN Declaration now that is very clear about what those rights are and our government says it supports them. It certainly does support them in the international UN forum and it's a mechanism of accountability now that we draw upon to hold governments to account and to increase our dialogue to improve the recognition of those rights and the protection of them. Annery is calling for the Australian Government to develop a national action plan to make sure the UN Declaration is followed in Australia. So we believe a national action plan will direct government attention to working with Aboriginal people about how we can improve the realisation of those rights, particularly in law and justice, particularly in relation to our children and families and our land as well. In British Columbia, Canada, they've actually passed a legislation to protect the rights of Indigenous people based on respecting the UN Declaration. Today, elders and other First Nations peoples are referring to the declaration using its language in their negotiations with governments. But like Hannah, Michelle the Sean believes more First Nations people need to be aware of the rights and obligations contained in the Declaration. The Declaration is only as solid as the arguments that we place on it. So, you know, we've got to continue to reiterate the intentions of that declaration for the betterment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. And so I find that it's a really important and pivotal document for us to continue to refer back to because while our nation status said, yes, we endorse and we support this approach, what we're actually seeing is decisions that are in contradiction to that. So, as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, I think we need to continually remind ourselves about the Declaration and to use its language and to use its intent to try and influence change. And in McGlaid sees the protection of children and cultural heritage as two areas where the self-determination promised by the UN, Declaration has not been delivered in Australia. As First Nations child removals continue to rise, she wants the West Australian Government to include Aboriginal decision-making and law. So our families have a say in how our children are cared for and by whom. It's a really difficult path that we have in this country because we understand these rights, we know what self-determination is, but our governments, many of them are not listening and there's a lack of commitment, unfortunately. This is evident also in the regards to the Aboriginal heritage legislation in West Australia as well. We've seen so many ministers approve destruction of Aboriginal heritage sites for over 30 years now. We want a different law that can give more respect to the rights of traditional owners to also protect Aboriginal heritage and land. That ends our second voices of power podcast. I hope you've enjoyed listening. Visiting Iatis website at iatis.gov.au. To find out more about issues we've been discussing and to find out more about church or fellowships already, the fellow's reports visit churchotrust.com.au. The fellowships offer people from all walks of life support to travel overseas to explore issues they're passionate about and that can make a difference. If you would like to apply for a fellowship or know someone who does, now is your chance. Applications open in February and close at the end of April. Our third episode of voices of power is online now. In that episode we'll be talking more with our church or fellows about treaties, representation in parlance and how to create a meaningful first nation voice to the nation. So start listening. I'm Big Sims, see you next time. Bye bye. The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iatis or the church hill trust.