Australian Aboriginal Sovereignty

Australian Aboriginal Sovereignty is a political movement amongst some Aboriginal Australians in the 20th and 21st centuries, demanding control of parts of Australia by Indigenous peoples. Aboriginal sovereignty is not recognised by the Australian legal system.[1]

Sovereignty sign at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy

Initially, the British afforded very little recognition of Aboriginal customs and laws. In 1840, all Governors in Australia and New Zealand were directed that all Aboriginal customary law was to be superseded by British law.[2]

In 1972, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy was established on the steps of Old Parliament House in Canberra, the Australian capital, to demand sovereignty for the Aboriginal peoples.[3] The protest has remained in place for over forty years. Demands of the Tent Embassy have included land rights and mineral rights to Aboriginal lands, legal and political control of the Northern Territory, and compensation for land stolen.

In 1988, the Australian Bicentenary, the Aboriginal Sovereign Treaty '88 Campaign called for recognition of Aboriginal sovereignty and for a treaty to be enacted between the Commonwealth of Australia and Aboriginal nations.[4]

Many public events in Australia, including ceremonies, speeches, conferences and festivals, begin with a Welcome to Country or Acknowledgement of Country. Welcomes to Country are made by elders of the Aboriginal nation on whose traditional lands each event is taking place. Welcomes to Country can be relatively long, and are often spoken in full in both English and the language of the respective Aboriginal nation. (Sometimes an interpreter is required to translate the elder's language into English for the English-speaking audience present.) Acknowledgements of Country are more common, and are typically made at the beginning of a speech or an event by a speaker who is not of the requisite Aboriginal nation. Acknowledgements of Country are usually only one or two sentences long, and simply ask those present to acknowledge the fact that they are on the traditional lands of a particular Aboriginal nation.

Notable proponents of Aboriginal sovereignty included Charles Perkins and Gary Foley..

See also

Further reading
  • Prokhovnik, Raia (June 2015). "From sovereignty in Australia to Australian sovereignty". Political Science. 63 (2): 412–430. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.699.5961. doi:10.1111/1467-9248.12069.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link) Pdf.
  • https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/sjilc21&div=6&id=&page=

References
  1. Harris, Bede (2013). A New Constitution for Australia. Routledge. p. 174. ISBN 978-1135315931. Retrieved 11 October 2015.
  2. Dodson, Michael; Robin Mcnamee (2008). "Recognition of the Indigenous People of Australia and their rights". In Hinton, Martin; Rigney, Daryle; Johnston, Elliott (eds.). Indigenous Australians and the Law. Routledge. p. 234. ISBN 978-1135314392. Retrieved 11 October 2015.
  3. Lisa Martin (24 January 2012). "Aboriginal tent embassy clocks up 40 years". The Sydney Morning Herald. Fairfax Media. Retrieved 26 January 2012.
  4. "Treaty '88". Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. 19 November 2015. Retrieved 20 April 2020.
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