South Australian Indigenous Land Rights 2009

Indigenous groups in South Australia have, for many years, been raising the profile of one of the founding documents of the province of South Australia.

The geographic region of South Australia operates as a legal entity through a Letters Patent issued in 1836 by King William IV of the United Kingdom.

document

transcript

This document sets out instructions as to how the indigenous people in South Australia and their decendants are to be treated, with respect to their right to land.

quote from transcript

Provided
Always that nothing in those our Letters Patent contained shall affect
or be construed to affect the rights of any Aboriginal Natives of the
said Province to the actual occupation or enjoyment in their own
Persons or in the Persons of their Descendants of any Lands therein
now actually occupied or enjoyed by such Natives

This document gives Indigenous South Australians rights to land occupied in 1836, predating and undermining the Federal Native title Act 1993 in which right to land is given as 'land title' from the government (with conditions).

Generally speaking, native title must give way to the rights held by others.

Native Title Tribunal

The issue recently recieved (almost) mainstream media coverage in Australia.

SBS.com.au

The area affected covers a significant number of Indigenous communities.

MAP

Several, if not all, of these are currently engaged in struggles with government and business to exploit their land and birthright.

Here is some.
Kokatha Mula
arabunna video
Ngarrindjeri video


If they won't respect your law.
Teach them theirs.




[edit on 5-4-2009 by ivycutler]

Thanks for sharing those links with me & others, who are concerned about the rights of all people in this world of tyrannical governments. I hope those indigenous folks will rise up & destroy the deplorable diplomats & fiat-lawmakers, who pose as their leaders.

Im all for giving Aboriginals land.
It was there’s, and we took it.

But, and this is a side of Aboriginal culture never seen outside of regional Australia.

What are they doing with this land?

Do you know?

My brother works in Australia central, building the homes the governments build for Aboriginal people.

Now, picture this, its word for word how he describes it

' Aboriginals walk around the town with a tin wired around their neck, its full of petrol. Its strapped with wire around their neck so all they have to do, is look down, take a breathe, then look up. Boom, instant petrol fix '

' The houses we build, they are nice 3x2, 4x2. Better than the houses in suburbs. New kitchens, bathrooms, floors. They pull up all the wood from the floorboards and use them in bonfires, in the living rooms, in the backyard. They sleep outside and the dogs live in the house '

' The town I was in, has the highest suicide rate in Australia. People just lay down on the side of the road and die, no one cares '

' the kids in the town, girls, guys, are raped by the elders. They all get drunk at night then go rape the kids. its not as often as every week, but at least a couple of times a month '


Second to this,

If you ever took the time and walked around Perth City on a Saturday or Sunday night, you'd be appalled. last weekend the police picked up 70+ young children wandering the streets at night. 90% of them were aboriginal. Drinking, Smoking...

You cant walk through Northbridge after 12 without being hassled for money, drugs, smokes. you don’t know wether he's going to hit you with a bottle or follow you down the street.

Now, im not a racist person, I love all colours and types of people. If you go to certain parts of Australia the aboriginals are amazing, earthly peaceful people. but in and around cities they fight, drink, steal with no remorse.

We shouldn’t treat these people as civilised enough to handle land until they prove they are civil.


[edit on 22-4-2009 by Agit8dChop]

reply to post by Agit8dChop


Wow, thanks for sharing those observations.

Do you think that the behavior of the aboriginals is related to the proximity of a foreign culture? Not meaning a blame thing, but it just so happens?

I don't know how to respond to placing oneself in a position to make them 'earn' their own land back. But then, I don't live there either.

reply to post by Maxmars


I think, we give them to much room to move. Police and councils are to scared to lock them up when they steal / fight.

You’ve got to understand, the police cant take a 10yr old home and explain to his/her parents he's been picked up for steeling, fighting and drinking.
The parents will simply scream abuse at the cops

'' f'off you pigs and stop hassling my child, ''

the child will be hit, then released.


we need to

1- stop paying welfare if your children doesn’t attend 85% of a school year
2- introduce a scheme where welfare is paid to supermarkets/clothes shops etc. So the parents have to spend the money on food and clothes, not alcohol and drugs
3- If the child continually commits a crime, the parents after the 3rd crime will be charged for any and all offences.
4- regular health checks need to be made on the child to ensure proper care and treatment
5- free university entry for aboriginal teenagers who meet criteria at high school
6- If they don’t obey public housing rules, they don’t get public housing.
7- BAN alcohol from remote indigenous communities. If they want to live under aboriginal rule, in aboriginal treaty land, so be it. I don’t think ancient aborigines had VB in their 'sacred lands'


two stories that sums up Aborigines in modern society:

years ago I was walking through a major shopping centre. You know, all the big name shops, food courts etc etc.

All of a sudden a loud bone jarring screaming comes from this old women, we turn around and see this large aboriginal lady. wearing tatty clothes, covered in grime, hair all over the place in bare feet walking through the shopping centre. The child, younger than 10 is walking up to everyone asking for a dollar, when they people say no, the mother abuses them as they walk off. The young child walks up to the mother, the mother smacks the child on the head and yells at him. people watch in horror only for the women to scream back at them

'' what the f' are you looking at ''


That’s the motherly type.

The fatherly?

About 5 months ago I was in forest chase in Perth CBD, the open air shopping centre where all the cafe's and such are.

A very large built aboriginal man was walking around in circles, confronting every man around, he'd walk up, swear at them then raise his fists.. the people would walk off or just ignore him, so he'd move onto another. he picked up a silver bin and threw it at the 'peace festival' occurring just down the path. swearing, screaming abuse.. all the people in cafe's were just looking on in horror. A bikie walked up, dropped his bag and said
'' time to shut you up ''

unfortunately, he got hammered. the aboriginal simply walked off, left him on the ground and confronted the next poor fella' sitting quietly drinking a coffee.

Do we really want to give these people land?

As someone who spent a year in Fitzroy Crossing, I have seen many of the things Agit8tedChop mentioned or have heard from friends, one was an orderly at the local hospital, he had to assist with many suicides, rapes and beatings.

These things were truly eye opening and have made me pretty cynical, I too am not racist but a lot of these people just don't want to do anything more than get their fortnightly cash so they can go buy booze and fried food from the local service station.

The government's attempt to cut alcohol abuse is a start but they need to do so much more, especially these two points Agit8tedChop mentioned:

1- stop paying welfare if your children doesn’t attend 85% of a school year 2- introduce a scheme where welfare is paid to supermarkets/clothes shops etc. So the parents have to spend the money on food and clothes, not alcohol and drugs

I've heard stories about kids having to steal money from their parents just so they can eat.

Regarding the drugs, they are a lot more prevalent than anyone will admit, I met a guy who was best friends with Bradley Murdoch (yes the guy who murdered Peter Falconio) who used to work as a mechanic in Fitzroy Crossing, but he also moonlighted as a drug dealer between Kununurra and Adelaide, apparently he made a killing out of it as well. it's amazing what you find out in a bar from a guy full of Ouzo.



Anyway, what really has me gobsmacked about these land titles is the recent issue with the traditional lands at James Price Point. The traditional leaders have just come to an agreement with Woodside, who want to built a Liquid Natural Gas site there.

Seems when you dangle enough money their way, their traditional land isn't so important anymore...

Mark McMurtrie speaks in a very easy to understand video on indeginous land/rights in regard to Australia and the Australian legal system (Swearing occurs). It crosses over with sovereignty or if you will, the free man on the land movement.
For direct information start at the first video at the 31 min mark.
To understand the whole concept view all the videos.

www.youtube.com... (Part 1...54min 45sec)
www.youtube.com... (Part 2...32min 17sec)
www.youtube.com... (Part 3...54min 15sec)

Whos laws are they anyway?

For those who say we "shouldn’t treat these people as civilised enough to handle land until they prove they are civil"; I ask you to define civil given all people in society today.




[edit on 23-4-2009 by Fuzzy1]

[edit on 23-4-2009 by Fuzzy1]

It just goes to show you how ignorant I was regarding this situation.

As an American, the extent of my exposure to what tribesmen are like comes mostly from Hollywood media productions. My bias was one of considering them spiritually-inclined peaceful people who spent most of there time trying to conduct their lives in a traditional way.

I never even suspected that there was this kind stuff going on. I feel torn between wanting to grant them 'the benefit of the doubt' because we often seem to fail at accommodating aboriginal culture and usually warp 'their' reality to the point of dysfunction, or thinking that these people, as a group, are simply incapable of coping with the concepts brought to them from outside their culture.

[edit on 23-4-2009 by Maxmars]

Before replying I must say that I am not an indigenous person of Australia and am merely passing on a message that I was asked to do by a senior elder who has since passed away.

I acknowledge those stories above, i have seen and experienced similar things myself. These situations occur. As do many.

The ideas expressed by me in this thread come from a group of elderly, and close to dying, indigenous people of several areas in South Australia and other people close to them.

There is an understanding amongst these groups that bad things have happened and continue to happen to the land and people (of all races) in this country.

There is a opportunity within the law written by the 'founding fathers' of South Australia' to address some of these issues now in a positive and foward thinking manner.

There are people now who hold knowledge, history, language and culture known nowhere else on this planet. This precious resource is being threatened by eg. mining companies, water mis-management, marina development, luxury housing and the same overbearing tyranny we are all beginning to feel.

There is an opportunity in this document to take a little bit of power back from the people making these bad decisions and give some credit to people who, through thousands of centuries have survived where most of us would struggle in a few days. And are still there.

This struggle embraces global problems such as deforestation, uranium mining, military bases, freedom of religion, human rights and genocide.

Don't be distracted by the symptons of the problem. Remember alcohol and petrol came with the settlers. As did a myriad of physical and mental disorder.

These elders want to teach everybody how they lived on their land so everyone can make an informed decision for their own childrens future.

reply to post by Fuzzy1


thanks for those videos.

perfectly spoken by both the man and the birds in the background.

reply to post by Agit8dChop

we need to

1- stop paying welfare if your children doesn’t attend 85% of a school year
2- introduce a scheme where welfare is paid to supermarkets/clothes shops etc. So the parents have to spend the money on food and clothes, not alcohol and drugs
3- If the child continually commits a crime, the parents after the 3rd crime will be charged for any and all offences.
4- regular health checks need to be made on the child to ensure proper care and treatment
5- free university entry for aboriginal teenagers who meet criteria at high school
6- If they don’t obey public housing rules, they don’t get public housing.
7- BAN alcohol from remote indigenous communities. If they want to live under aboriginal rule, in aboriginal treaty land, so be it. I don’t think ancient aborigines had VB in their 'sacred lands'

So are you volunteering to police this for the entire population of Australia or just the Aboriginal people? Do you think Australia is ready for aparthied?

Do we really want to give these people land?

To me it's not about giving or taking land, it's about looking after it. No matter who you are. My point is that the land is still there and still needs to be looked after.



[edit on 23-4-2009 by ivycutler]

reply to post by ivycutler


I just want to clarify, I wasn't the poster of those comments. Not being Australian and having precious little knowledge of the realities of the situation, I would never presume to offer such solutions.

big apologies to you Maxmars.

that was me being new to this forum business.

i'll try and correct it in my post.


done. sorry again.




[edit on 23-4-2009 by ivycutler]

Good luck to the Aboriginal people on this.

As an aside though, I'm 5th generation Australian and my ancestors came here in the late 1800s.

My ancestors originally came from Scotland and Holland.
Can I go back there and demand land due to having an ancestral connection to it? Of course not, and I'd be laughed at if I even tried that one on.
Aboriginals are scattered everywhere just like the rest of us.
Not many of us are still in possession of the land that was originally possessed by our original forebearers.

My grandparents lost their home during the Great Depression through no fault of their own. Can I as their descendant demand the house and land that was part of our family , generations back? Again no, and the idea is absurd.

I don't get why it's percieved that only traditional people like Aboriginals can have a close relationship to their tribal land.

It runs in the veins of all us but a lot of us have to accept the fact that it was the past and these days if you want a house or land , whether your family owned it for generations or not, you have to PAY FOR IT.

I have no animosity towards Aboriginal people themselves but do resent the notion that they are portrayed as being the only ones worthy of having a relationship with "their land".

It's a human experience to feel close to the land of your birth, it's not just an indigenous one.
I very strongly identify with it myself and know exactly how they feel but why should it be different for them and not for the rest of us?

I've lost relatives in 2 world wars who fought for this land.
The last war being the most important as, if the Japanese had've had their way, there would be no Australians now, Aboriginal or otherwise.
Yeah, we owe them a debt but what about the debt they also owe us??

I'm probably going to get flamed for stating the above, but it's something that's always bothered me when this traditional land issue comes up.

Is 150 odd years long enough to be considered native to Australia?
How long does it take exactly?

thanks for your comment

can't write too much now because i am back home in scotland now and it's late/early here.

my argument is that it is not about where you are from, where you are or where you are born. The situation is the same. There is a minority of people who are very intelligent who are attempting to make you believe that it is necessary to buy land from them.

In reality no one owns Australia. Aboriginal people will be the first to tell you that.

I have been told by Aboriginal individuals that they have a responsibility, passed down through generations to ensure that their certain piece of land needs to be looked after in a manner that ensures that their children can survive and flourish as they and their anscestor have.

Remove from you're thinking the idea of owning anything. You are mortal and you will die leaving nothing but your body behind. This will fertlise the land for future generations to live.

What I am trying to get across is that Australians, and in particular on this thead, South Australians have an opportunity to remove or impair the system of authority that claims to be in power here. That is all.

I need people to disregard what they may think of 'aboriginal' people and think a bit harder about who is really 'in charge' here. And who you are allowing to make the rules.

That is all I am promoting in this thread. A legal challenge to the authoritarian, genocidal, freemason, colonial, fascist, evil!, people who have invaded this portion of our mother earth.

Not many of us are still in possession of the land that was originally possessed by our original forebearers.

but some are.






[edit on 23-4-2009 by ivycutler]