TREATY YEAR! BE WATCHING #NITV TONIGHT AS JEFF MCMULLEN LEADS AN ALL FEMALE PANEL

The Redfern Community Centre in Sydney brought straight to your living room. 

Don't miss this important discussion about #Treaty.Opinion Piece | NITV (Ch 34) 7.30PM
Posted by NITV on Thursday, 26 March 2015

Treaty, yeah! Change the last letter and remove the punctuation

and it could read 

TREATY YEAR. 

Much discussion is about Recognise and hats off to those involved. However, the Recognise campaign is putting the cart before the horse in a major way. 

Because the Abbott Government are actively promoting this it becomes, on reflection, evidence that Recognise may not be a positive thing ---- but a palm off. You see, what needs to happen and what, so it seems, our politicians refuse to deal with is the question of ‪#‎Sovereignty‬.

Our governments, ourselves - new and old settlers - need to acknowledge that we stole land from people who were sovereign self-governing nations. And how do sovereign self-governing nations settle their affairs - particularly after wars of which there were plenty in the whitefella's time even up to modern times? They sit down and discuss a treaty. 

This has never happened on this country, in this country. 

There can only be true, honest and clear recognition in Australia's constitution after treaty and all the discussion and actions that go with it. So please let us postpone the ‪#‎Recognition‬ effort and put our energies, intellects, and fellow-felling into a Treaty process. 

It will take a long time - particularly if we use Aboriginal methodology. And what is Aboriginal methodology? It means sitting down with, speaking with, every one who needs to be spoken with. The talking takes as long as it needs to take. It's not a rushed whitefella meeting with a limited agenda, time allocated to each bullet point, and an ayes and nays vote which can sometimes, even in white society, result in some people feeling left out, gob-smacked, puzzled and dissatisfied. It certainly would not be carried out in the fashion as both Lib Nat and Labor Governments conducted discussions with Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory regarding the NT Intervention. 

So get out the Yothu Yindi music and go for it 

Claim that the Recognition Bill is being forced on Aboriginal people against their will

I have posted below about the Recognition Bill due to come before Federal Parliament next week.  As with most things, there are at least two sides to every question or point of view.  Here is the voice of opposition to Recognition ...

~~~~

Press Release: Recognition Bill to be forced on Aboriginal people against their will

by Brisbane Aboriginal-Sovereign Embassy on Monday, 4 February 2013 at 22:43 ·

Press release for immediate release

Monday 4 February, 2013

Recognition Bill to be forced on Aboriginal people against their will

On February 7 the Australian Senate will vote on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Recognition Bill 2012 despite overwhelming opposition to constitutional inclusion by the majority of Aboriginal people and the government's own acknowledgement that the proposed changes to the constitution would be rejected by a referendum.

“This shows the paternalistic contempt that the Federal Government and politicians have for Aboriginal people has not changed in 112 years,” said Kooma man, Wayne Wharton, of the Brisbane Aboriginal Sovereign Embassy.

The Federal Government spent millions through organisations like the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples and You Me Unity using their hand-picked, overpaid representatives to try and sell a referendum on constitutional inclusion to Aboriginal people, but in every community they went to it was overwhelmingly rejected. The Government blamed racist attitudes amongst Non-Aboriginal people as its reason for canceling the referendum, the reality is they realised that they couldn't con the majority of Aboriginal people to support it. They knew that this opposition would become known to the public in any referendum campaign.

“The people have already spoken – we do not want to be included in the colonisers constitution, that is not going to change no matter how many millions they pay the sell-out Bennelongs. This Bill is an empty, tokenistic distraction from the real issue, the real discussion about sovereignty, that needs to be addressed between First Nations peoples and others who now call this continent home ,” Wharton said.

In 1992 the ‘Mabo’ Case (Mabo v Queensland No 2) not only recognised the continuing connection and rights to land of Indigenous people, in rejecting Terra Nullius it recognised the illegitimacy of the assertion of sovereignty by the British Crown and in doing so recognised the illegitimacy of Federal, State and Territory governments to exercise that sovereignty on behalf of the Crown.

“We need to have a genuine discussion about sovereignty to move forward, instead the Gillard government, with support of the opposition, is attempting to create a dodgy paper trail on February 7, in complete disregard of International law, in an attempt to legitimise the colonial authorities in this country”, Wharton said.

“Any politician who supports this bill is just as rotten as any of the 'Protectors of Aborigines' or 'Mission Managers' of old,” Wharton said.

Representatives of Brisbane's Aboriginal community will be protesting along with people from across Australia in Canberra on February 6-7.

There will be a protest on Wednesday February 6 in Brisbane at Wayne Swan's electoral office at 8am (1162 Sandgate Rd, Nundah).

For more information phone Wayne on 0408 064 900

There is a Facebook site too.  Please go here.

First Nations Pathways Conference - James Cook University - 28-30 November 2011