The crushing of the Aboriginal people by United Nations actors

There is a wise Aboriginal saying: the truth burns like fire

‘I shall play the role of my State of Queensland, my Aboriginal race, my background, my political beliefs and my knowledge of men and circumstances dictate. This I shall do through the grace of God to benefit all Australians. For more than 20,000 years, my people have loved this country and appreciated its beauty and its capacity to provide for human need. Throughout that long period, those of my race developed many traditions and one generation has passed to another, respect for these traditions. There are traditions which are preserved and honoured in the Australian Commonwealth Parliament also; and the awareness of these traditions, and the long and illustrious line of people who have upheld them in the interest of freedom and democracy, makes me humble as I realise the privilege and double responsibility which has been bestowed upon me.’

Neville Bonner, the first Aboriginal Australian to become a member of the Parliament of Australia. extract from Maiden Speech, 8.26 pm 8 September 1971

Introduction

Whenever I visit Aboriginal communities and/or speak to Aboriginal community people over the phone, I encourage my people to trust the government and our democratic process, despite knowing many of our people have not received adequate support to give them hope. There is a wise Aboriginal saying: the truth burns like fire.

I know the majority of Aboriginal people living in communities and elsewhere have not been appropriately consulted about the Uluru Statement.

There is something not right about the way the federal Minister for Indigenous Australians appears to be managed by those with a hidden agenda.

Urgent reform is long overdue.

It has been established that financial and other resources are not reaching Aboriginal communities and the people who need them most.

I have called for an end to racial funding, and have been encouraging the government to consider a funding model which has been successfully introduced in Alaska.

Our people deserve economic independence, access to homeownership, access to education, quality healthcare, fresh food, clean water and quality of life.

There is an unelected Aboriginal leadership group which governments, institutions, the media and corporations regularly consult with in regards to Aboriginal affairs.

This group has dismally failed our people for decades.

There have been numerous Parliamentary enquiries which have achieved little. The money spent on public servants’ salaries, failed experiments and consultancies should have earned specific measurable results by now.

Law and order, domestic violence, victimisation, poor quality housing, education standards, school attendance, youth suicide, drug abuse, life expectancy and more, remain unresolved.

Video Interviews

With limited resources, I recently travelled to Aboriginal communities in South Australia and New South Wales.

I spoke on the phone to many of our people in Western Australia, Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory.

Through these conversations and consultations, I confirmed what I had long suspected: that Aboriginal people have not been adequately consulted on the Uluru Statement.

In the course of my research, I had the honour of video-recording some of these conversations, which can be viewed on the One Voice Australia website.

I also had the pleasure of speaking to Michael Kennedy, the Chairman of the Wilcannia Land Council, who holds the most senior position in a town of mostly Aboriginal residents.

Wilcannia has faced chronic social problems for decades. Michael confirmed there have been no Uluru Statementconsultations in Wilcannia.

Michael mentioned he had heard of Noel Pearson, Marcia Langton, Megan Davis and Mark Leibler.

He insisted he had not met these people, and they certainly did not speak on behalf of him and/or the Wilcannia community:

‘I would like to think I speak for myself and for my people where I live, here in Wilcannia… the people that actually make decisions, need to come and sit at the table with us and hear straight from us, the on-the-ground people that live here. You know people outside and who’ve probably never been here, making decisions on a lot of the stuff in the community.’

I spent most of 2020 researching the potential source of our Aboriginal problem. I have known for a long time that our elders have been voiceless, and people who do not have Aboriginal community authority claim to speak on our behalf.

Unfortunately for our people, and for Australia, these unelected, unrepresentative people are listened to by governments, institutions, the media and corporations, as if they hold the authority to speak on our behalf.

During my recent journey, I spoke to a senior lawman (and his adopted son of 30 years).

They told me the Native Title system is corrupt and that their community has been overtaken by fake Aboriginal people, who control their resources and access to money.

They told me that these people are not interested in community concerns. Surely the problems referred to above would have been greatly improved by now if these comments were incorrect.

Role of the Uluru Statement

Experts have estimated that within ten years, between 70 to 80 per cent of Australian land could be under Native Title.

The Uluru Statement appears to have been designed to facilitate this process.

Ironically, the Uluru elders told me they were not consulted and they do not want the name Uluru used in the Statement.

Ninjitsu (Charles) Reid and Bob Brown confirmed that the Uluru elders did not agree to the Uluru Statement:

‘The only thing I can add about the ‘Uluru statement’ business, is at the time they said it was all written up and that they consulted with the old people. It was a lie because the old people were all down here.’

Bob Brown went on to emphasise, half of them were white people who claim to represent Ninjitsu’s country in the Native Title group:

‘It’s just to take over our country for the minerals this country has, so mineral-rich — diamonds, gold, uranium… everything, and the government wants control. They’ve taken control. Government and big business, oh yes, of course they’re all hand-in-hand with each other with the backroom boys of Canberra who’ve created a lot…. They’ve made it complex to take it from the people, not just Aboriginal people but the Australian white people as well.’

They confirmed (along with other community members I spoke to), that Native Title legislation appears to have been written by the five Aboriginal people whom Prime Minister Paul Keating trusted: Lois O’Donoghue, Noel Pearson, Sol Bellear, Marcia Langton and David Ross.

The failed self-appointed Aboriginal leadership group

Instead of addressing real Aboriginal community concerns, the self-appointed Aboriginal leadership group which has no community legitimacy continues to hold on to power, despite its failures and wasted funding allocations.

The group has failed to adequately address the problems our communities have been experiencing for decades. Rather, its members have been promoted and listened to, as if their wishes were the will of all Aboriginal people.

Those who choose to engage in their controlled discourse do so at their peril. Those who oppose them are usually unfairly labelled racist, and bullying tactics are applied to silenceAboriginal people who disagree with them.

These tactics have proven to be an efficient way to silence Aboriginal community voices and have prevented their voices from reaching the decision-makers. I am calling for accountability.

I have witnessed the confusion this has caused Aboriginal elders. Most Aboriginal communities have been traumatised by Aboriginal heritage identity concerns and the continued promotion of the failed leadership group.

These individuals have not gained the trust of the Aboriginal communities they claim to represent and the government is trusting a group which has not made a difference. It can be argued these individuals have exacerbated problems in our communities.

Bruce Pascoe

This leadership group also promotes a faux Aboriginal person who has been unable to substantiate his Aboriginal heritage.

No genealogical records have been found to support his Aboriginality claim.

Nonetheless, the leadership group continually promotes Pascoe as a scholar despite the fact, he has not disclosed his education and qualifications.

He claims to belong to the Bunurong clan of the Kulin nation.

Since August 2020, Pascoe has been Enterprise Professor in Indigenous Agriculture at the University of Melbourne, without holding a science degree and/or being able to prove Aboriginal people were in fact, agriculturalists.

Remarkably, he has also won several literary awards for distorting the facts. This has been proven by Australian Historian, Professor Blainey; Anthropologist, Professor Sutton and writer, Peter O’Neil. Pascoe has altered historical records to justify his claims.

Pascoe has provided no anthropological or archaeological evidence to support his false claims.

Why has altering historical records been accepted as an appropriate academic practice, worthy of a professorship?

Pascoe argues that Aboriginal people were not hunter-gatherers. That is a gross insult to our people.

Of course, if the Pascoe argument claiming Aboriginal people lived in settlements in cottages with penned (native) animals could be proven, it would mean the arrival of the First Fleet on 26 January 1788, was an incursion on a sovereign people and illegal under the doctrine of terra nullius.

This in turn would mean our land would have to be returned, but not to Aboriginal people living in communities.

Instead, it would be returned into the control of the failed Aboriginal leadership group and established Native Title groups. This can therefore be argued to be the hidden agenda.

On an online digital classroom platform, the National Library of Australia promotes a video titled Challenging Terra Nullius.

It argues this means the land belonged to no one and is the legal argument the British government used to justify the settlement of Australia:

Focusing on the work of Bruce Pascoe, this theme explores evidence of Indigenous agriculture and settlement in precolonial Australia, information that challenges the terra nullius claim.

I present this request to the National Library of Australia and Bruce Pascoe. Please name one Australian native animal which could be penned?

It is astounding so many educated people appear to not know there were no hoofed animals on this sacred land before the First Fleet arrived.

However, the claim Aboriginal people were not hunter-gatherers might explain the reason Pascoe and his supporters seek to undermine our unique Aboriginal sacred ancient culture.

Where are the creation stories proving Pascoe’s insulting claims?

Where are the initiation and other ceremonies, rock art, dances, body paintings, dreaming stories and artefacts?

The Pascoe argument not only lacks academic evidence, but it also defies reason. It is also dangerous and risky to teach our children false history.

I wrote to the federal Education Minister Dan Tehan to request Young Dark Emu be withdrawn from Australian kindergartens and primary schools. I did not receive a response.

Many elders remember the Pintupi hunter gatherer tribe found in the Central Desert in 1984. The Pintupi Nine was the last remaining group of Indigenous Australians to make contact with white Australia.

The so called ‘Pintupi Nine’ were discovered living a traditional hunter-gatherer life almost 200 years after European settlers first landed in the country. They spent their days walking enormous distances from rock hole to water soak searching for water, until the day in 1984 when they stumbled on the outside world and the media stumbled on them.

Can Pascoe and his supporters explain this hunter-gatherer discovery? Was this group an exception to the Pascoe rule?

Can a native Australian animal ever be penned? What equipment could have been used to build fences and cottages?

There were no hoofed animals on our sacred land until the First Fleet arrived. Can anyone explain how an isolated and sophisticated hunter gatherer people could have conceived of European agricultural practices?

Our people successfully lived in harmony with nature and we are proud of our heritage.

‘There was a wider variety of foodstuffs than a gourmet in Paris would eat in one year. The daily economic life of the Aborigines came, unjustifiably, to be pitied when it often deserved respect and even admiration. Other British settlers, however, respected the Aborigines’ skills and quickly learned from them.’
~ Geoffrey Blainey, ‘The Story of Australia’s People’, The Rise and Fall of Ancient Australia: Volume 1, Penguin Australia (2015), p. 27

The Pascoe argument is so absurd and demeaning it is beyond belief, yet many senior politicians, universities, education departments and our valued Australian institutions, such as the ABC, SBS and NITV, the National Library of Australia and Melbourne University, continue to promote Pascoe’s fraudulent claims.

This is despite the fact real scholars like historian Professor Geoffrey Blainey and anthropologist Professor Sutton have provided written evidence proving Pascoe has altered historical records and distorted evidence to prove his claim.

Why are Pascoe and his supporters allowed to undermine valued academic principles?

Pascoe has been awarded a professorship for lying and cheating and altering historical records.
He has not been able to prove his Aboriginal heritage and invented the impossible which, I might add, is offensive to our people.

There are no traces of settlements and agriculture in our dreaming stories, creation stories, body painting, rock art, in our sacred initiation and other ceremonies.

These cultural practices have been essential for passing cultural knowledge and values from generation to generation, for thousands of years.

Pascoe is arguing that Aboriginal people do not know their history and/or their values. He has insulted Aboriginal people, and he owes us an explanation.

I call upon Bruce Pascoe to identify which of our Australian native animals can be kept in a pen.

As established, penning animals (with hooves) is a European concept and must have been unknown to Aboriginal people before the First Fleet arrived.

My people are proud of our hunter-gatherer heritage, and Pascoe supporters offend us by supporting a fraud who is attempting to change our history, spirituality and cultural practices.

The Pascoe claim demeans our ancient culture. Clearly the hidden agenda is prima facie.

Why is the failed Aboriginal leadership group pushing Pascoe?

Uncle Max Harrison is a Yuin Aboriginal supporter of Pascoe who has falsely claimed to belong to the Yuin paternal people and country of my son.

The Black Defence Group met in Sydney to promote justice and argue for the rights of New South Wales Aboriginal people.

Marcia Langton, Kevin Cook and others were involved, including Heather Goodall and Meredith Burgmann.

This group established the Trade Union Committee on Aboriginal Rights (TUCAR), which was designed to build support for land rights within the union movement.

This helped establish the NSW Land Right Act and was established by the Wran government. It has failed. In 1992 the late Dean of the Melbourne University Law School, Professor Emeritus Colin Howard QC stated the Mabo case provided ‘a legal framework for creating a nation within a nation, complete with an Australian version of homelands.’
Colin Howard, “A Nation Within a Nation”, The Sydney Morning Herald, 14 September 1992.

In 1993, Professor Geoffrey Blainey warned in “Pieces of the Mabo Jigsaw” (The Age):

‘Perhaps the toughest topic facing Australia over the next 20 years is Mabo. It is difficult to discuss, but if not discussed at length and understood it could have devastating results. It could even cut the nation in half and eventually turn Australia into two separate nations. It is not just a question of white versus black. There are many divisions among the Aborigines.’

He continued:

‘On present indications, sorting out Mabo may well take 20 years. If so, it will do immense harm to Australia’s economy and social fabric and, not least, will harm the standing of Aborigines.’
The other danger is that, in the long term, Mabo will become an international issue in which Australia’s sovereignty and even its territorial integrity are at stake. Some Aboriginal leaders have already made that threat. They have been aided by a succession of statements from our nation’s leaders, who are only too glad to appeal to world opinion for short-term political ends.’

Andrew Bolt had the following to say about Ken Wyatt, the first Aboriginal Minister for Indigenous Australians, whose appointment should have been a proud moment for our people. Unfortunately, Wyatt is a Pascoe supporter.

‘[Wyatt] wants us to back a change in our Constitution to give special rights to people claiming to be Aborigines, like Pascoe. How can we trust Wyatt when he says this will be good for us?’

Peter O’Brien is an Australian retired military officer who published Bitter Harvest: The illusion of Aboriginal Agriculture in Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu.

His book is a comprehensive criticism of Pascoe’s Dark Emu, in which Pascoe claims Australian Aborigines were sedentary agriculturalists with ‘skills superior to those of the white colonisers who took their land and despoiled it’, rather than nomadic hunter-gatherers.

Yet despite an almost complete lack of academic scholarship, Dark Emu has enjoyed extraordinary public and critical acclaim.

In 2016 Pascoe’s Dark Emu won the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award, and it was named Book of the Year.

On the book cover sleeve, Marcia Langton called it ‘the most important book on Australia’.

Pascoe mistruths have also been taken seriously in school texts, by the ABC, SBS and NITV, and by many of our trusted and valued public institutions, yet nothing in Dark Emu justifies its success.

Bitter Harvest forensically examines and reveals serious Pascoe omissions, distortions or mischaracterisations of vital historical facts to such an extent that it proves the claims in the book worthless.

Even worse, it promotes a divisive, victim agenda that pits one Australian against another.
In a recent Spectator article, Peter O’Brien quoted Aboriginal activist Amy McQuire:

‘You may think I am drawing rather a long bow in conflating a treatise on Aboriginal agriculture with the push for Aboriginal sovereignty though it directly addresses the myths about Australia being ‘uncultivated’ land. The lack of controversy makes me think that Australia is slow to realise this. And it makes me wonder whether the enthusiasm that greets information about Aboriginal agriculture and land management is based on intellectual curiosity, and not a willingness to deliver true justice. Recognising Aboriginal agriculture and land management not only means recognising the humanity and intelligence of Aboriginal peoples, but that this land was taken by conquest, and sovereignty has never been ceded.

McQuire notes:

This was not fully resolved in the Mabo decision, Professor Davis writes, which resulted in an ‘uneasy combination of unsettled/settled’. But she writes that it’s not the ‘fundamental issue’ — ‘Sovereignty was not passed from the Aboriginal people through any significant legal Act. The British did not ask permission to settle. Aboriginal people did not consent and none ceded. This is the source of disquiet. This is the grievance that must be addressed. The further we are from 1788, the less inclined the State will be to address this.’

But Aboriginal agriculture and land management has been accepted by white Australia; it appears that policies and legislation including the Native Title Act have been influenced by the United Nations, and now the Uluru Statement has emerged from race, which first became an issue in international diplomacy in 1961 and 1962.

Peter O’Brien is not the only Australian writer to have raised concerns. In 2016, Keith Windschuttle also wrote:

‘The Hidden Agenda of Aboriginal Sovereignty. Most Australians today regard Constitutional recognition as a courteous symbolic gesture with no real consequences. At most, the more concerned among them see it in terms of the original inhabitants being recognised as valued citizens of our tolerant and generous nation. However, a Constitutional amendment of this kind would provide a bargaining position for a local black State to exert far more influence over our national government than anyone now imagines. It would also provide a political platform from which to play to a world audience and to make allies who would not necessarily share mainstream Australian interests …Voters in the proposed referendum need to recognise that the ultimate objective of Constitutional recognition is the establishment of a politically separate race of people, and the potential breakup of Australia.’

In December 2010, Prime Minister Julia Gillard established an Expert Panel on Constitutional Recognition of Indigenous Australians.

Membership of the Committee included two Co-Chairs, Patrick Dodson and Mark Leibler AC, and panel members Marcia Langton, Noel Pearson and Megan Davis.

The Expert Panel was advised to pursue principles it considered authoritative and sometimes mandatory, because of Treatyobligations.

It was asked to establish guidelines to help recognise indigenous peoples in the Constitution. It included the 2007 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which promotes the right of Indigenous peoples to extend and build Indigenous sovereignty, which can undermine national sovereignty.

Bruce Pascoe’s essay, The Imperial Mind: How Europeans Stole the World, argues it was evidence of Western oppression of indigenous people:

‘The imposition of the West’s superiority is still alive today and was made explicit in 2007, when the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by a vote of a hundred and forty-three to four. Who were the four? The US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia: the colonial governments who have most to lose if rights are extended to the indigenous.’

In 2009, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd endorsed the UN Declaration on UNDRIP:

Since then, in international forums, Australia has committed to take actions to implement the Declaration and promote indigenous people’s enjoyment of rights on an equal basis.

Genesis of a United Australia

On Australia Day 1961, a meeting of State and Federal Ministers and officials responsible for Aboriginal welfare was held in Canberra.

This was the first time that ministers representing Australian States had met to discuss their responsibilities.

Minister Hasluck gained agreement from the ministers present to the following definition of assimilation policy to be implemented in the Northern Territory and promoted to State governments.

‘The policy of assimilation means in the view of all Australian governments that all Aborigines and part Aborigines are expected eventually to attain the same manner of living as other Australians and to live as members of a single Australian community enjoying the same rights and privileges, accepting the same responsibilities observing the same customs and influenced by the same beliefs, hopes and loyalties as other Australians.’

Paul Hasluck promoted the fact that the Aboriginal problem was a social problem, rather than a racial problem.

He was committed to social justice and to the extension of human rights to Aboriginal people. He believed improved social conditions would lead to opportunities within the Australian communities.

Eleven years earlier, in his first address to the House of Representatives, Paul Hasluck said:

‘When we enter into international discussions and raise our voice, as we should raise it in defence of human rights and the protection of human welfare, our very words are mocked by the thousands of degraded and depressed people who crouch on rubbish heaps throughout the whole of this continent. Let us cleanse this stain from our forehead or we shall run the risk that ill-intentioned people will point to it with scam.’

Relevant History

The 2008 documentary series First Australians, Episode 6, A Fair Deal for a Dark Race, was directed by Rachel Perkins and co-starred Bruce Pascoe and Marcia Langton.

In this clip there is archival footage of Faith Bandler, who was instrumental in the 1967 Referendum to count Aboriginal people. However, according to Professor Blainey, Aboriginal Australians were in fact counted more often than other Australians:

‘But that assertion is far from the truth. Indigenous peoples were counted in the census of 1961, some years before the 1967 referendum took place. They also were counted in the preceding censuses extending back and back in time.
On 30 June 1934, there was even a census in which only the Aborigines were counted. Accordingly, I feel sure in stating that slightly more attempts have been made to count Aborigines than to count mainstream Australians — if that is the right phrase — in the period since 1901. And if we look back before 1901, we discover further attempts to count the Aborigines in the official and regular censuses.’

A United Nations Global Government

In 2007, Ken Wyatt’s Deputy Departmental Head, Ian Anderson, wrote about the New World Order and argued Aboriginal people would be the fulcrum for it.

‘Global alliances driven by the political tensions of the cold war are refigured through the lens of global terror and a world order dominated by American imperialism.
There are opportunities in this for the development of several generations of transnational forms of Indigenous governance. … with perhaps the hegemony of the West being disrupted by the emergence of new economic powers such as China, there will be opportunities created for new global forms of governance.
Indigenous people may, in this emerging world order, provide the necessary fulcrum on which global futures balance.’
~ Ian Anderson, “The End of Aboriginal Self-Determination?”, Futures, 39(2), March 2007, pp. 147, 151-152.

Ian Anderson is a close associate of Marcia Langton. The story of the manipulation of the Aboriginal people and its strategy for the establishment of an Aboriginal Republic which would be under the control of globalists, otherwise known as the One World Order, is disturbing.

It is time to lift the veil. There appears to be a plot to steal our resources which has been going on for some time. Joel Kotkin highlighted the risks in his book, The Coming of Neo-Feudalism:

‘At the end of the Cold War, the world seemed to be traveling on a natural ‘arc’ to a more democratic future, but today’s new world order has instead become a promising springtime for dictators.’ (p. 23)

He continues:

‘… the merger of a wealthy tech elite with the political ruling class has created an aristocracy of intellect that replicates the historical role of the Mandarin class in Chinese culture and governance.’ (p. 47)

On 1 April 1982, the Queensland Government was so concerned about the UN influence on the Aboriginal movement that they tendered to Parliament a letter written by Phyllis Cilento, the widow of Sir Raphael West Cilento, who was a medical practitioner known for aiding post World War II refugees.

Mrs Phyllis Cilento’s letter explained that her husband informed her when he returned from the United Nations in 1950-51, that he had learned from some of his undercover associates of a Communist long-range plan to alienate Aboriginal lands from the Australian nation, so that a fragmented north could be used for subversive activities by other countries as well as for guerrilla training entries. Mrs Phyllis Cilento said,

“The sentimentalists and left-leaning academics are all brainwashed and blinded to the real issues.”

Jack Ah Kit is an Aboriginal Australian politician and was the Labor member for Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly from 1995 to 2005. He remembersLangton and Dodson at the United Nations:‘… Pat Dodson, Helen Corbett, Marcia Langton and there were others — they were all very important in ensuring that we had a place at the UN, we had an opportunity to contribute and participate. I went across in ’91 with the experienced Indigenous representatives. I saw them hold the floor of the convention for an hour and a half — almost two hours. They had orchestrated a situation where Indigenous peoples were on the agenda one after the other, so they had the then-Aboriginal Affairs Minister, Robert Tickner, confronted with these Indigenous people, all dobbing in the Australian government, saying how bad they were treating the Aboriginal people.
It was basically having the Aboriginal Coalition, the Federation, the Land Council and others, all putting their case. And they participated in the UN working group — to understand the processes of the UN and to respect the protocol just amazed me!’

As mentioned, it has been estimated by some experts that within ten years, a large amount of Australian land is expected to be under untransferable Native Title.

Warren Mundine OAM has said it would cover as much as 70%, and the Hon Dr Gary Johns said it was more likely 80%.

I interviewed Sissy King while visiting Wilcannia, who confirmed her people were not consulted about the Native Title Act. ‘No there’s no say, no.’

‘It’s like what I say, they don’t come in and listen to us. It changed attitudes in our younger generation. Before activists, we were growing up with the Church in different parts of the community. Activism went and destroyed that, they stopped that and they brought alcohol, they allowed alcohol into the community. They pushed away harmony, what we had here. And they talked about harmony, and they went and pushed ours out.
We had our relationships, we had no colour difference in this community. Non-indigenous families, they knew where we belonged, how we connected them and they still do today. They sound like them Americans about any words like mf and ff and nanny and everything, poppy-lickers and things that all comes from American anger and not their black anger. No need for it, sit down and infiltrate our kids. They try and make them someone else when they’re not.’

Native Title

The beginning of Native Title can be traced to the early human rights instruments passed by the United Nations, the Organisation of American States and the Council of Europein the period 1948 to 1970.

One of its most contentious issues is the concept of self-determination (Article 3), and the meaning is ambiguous.

The unqualified right to self-determination is viewed as open to interpretation, and possibly implies a right to secession. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) claimed, ‘the term self-determination’ should not be qualified so as to remove any possible right to secession.’

Unfortunately, Native Title is best described as a colossal failure of common sense. It was designed by the same elite group of five Aboriginal leaders, mentioned above, who also designed the Voice and who were the same group invited to negotiate the Native Title Act with Prime Minister, Paul Keating.

However, there was no adequate consultation process; Aboriginal communities must live with the consequences, and none of them can be described as sensible.

It has resulted in family feuds, which had previously not been a problem.

For example, according to my mother, who is a respected aboriginal elder, there had been only two families involved in the process, and Pacific Islander groups falsely claimed to be of Aboriginal heritage to access money.

$10 million was on offer — this group acquired it and these funds were never seen again.

From an economic perspective, Native Title has provided Aboriginal people with no independence. Simultaneously, mining titles which previously gave rights have now been diminished.

Native Title land is not transferable, which means the land cannot be sold or mortgaged. Ownership is unclear, along with geographic extent and conferred rights.

Native Title has proven useless to Aboriginal people, and the uncertainty it creates makes it difficult to attract investors.

Jawun

Jawun is an organisation which promote itself as ‘a place where corporate, government and philanthropic organisation come together with Indigenous people to affect real change.’

Noel Pearson is a Patron; Tony Berg is a Director; Ann Sherry AO is on the Board and she is Chair of UNICEF Australia and ENERO. and currently holds non-executive roles at NAB, Sydney Airport, Palladium Group, Infrastructure Victoria, Cape York Partnerships and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia.

Jawun is a not-for-profit organisation with enormous influence across the public and private sectors.

For example, two Australian government Department Heads have held Board positions, and public servants are funded to attend 6-to-12-week secondments (or in the case of listed companies, shareholders pay for these trips), which Jawun manages in order to push its Indigenous Voice agenda.

MEMBERS OF THE FAILED ELITEABORIGINAL LEADERSHIP GROUP

Professor Marcia Langton, AO

In 2016 Marcia Langton became a Professor at Melbourne University and in 2017, an Associate Provost (a senior academic administrator). Since 2000, she has held the Foundation Chair of Australian Indigenous Studies at the University of Melbourne and has been a staunch supporter of Bruce Pascoe, despite his lack of academic rigor and other evidence proving he has meddled with historical documents, as mentioned earlier in this paper.

Langton has been criticised by Tasmanian Aboriginal leader Michael Mansell for her lack of local Victorian knowledge. He argues a Queensland Aboriginal person would have no access to local Aboriginal philosophy and culture. One consequence is the fact that Melbourne University has failed to acknowledge the Victorian traditional owners. I personally wrote to the Melbourne University Vice-Chancellor pointing out that this omission was problematic and a grave oversight.

Marcia has had control over Aboriginal affairs since the 1990s. Queensland Aboriginal people have reported that Noel Pearson and Marcia Langton were close associates when she returned to her home State to work for Anne Warner, the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. At that time, Pearson was a recent law graduate and began working as a Consultant for the Goss government, in the era of heated negotiations about the Deed in Trust communities which preceded the Native Title legislation. Their association continues.

Langton was a member of the National Committee of the Communist League (CL), a Trotskyist group that campaigned for the violent overthrow of the Australian government and the implementation of a totalitarian state.

Marcia Langton’s views are recognised to be extreme, and she has been the focus of an undercover ASIO operation. Langton has been described by the Trotskyist Newspaper Direct Action as ‘one of the best-known black communist activists in Australia’:

Marcia Langton is one of the best-known activists in the Black and anti-racist movements in Australia. She initiated the Land Rights Campaign in Queensland in 1969 and was an activist in the anti-war and civil liberties movements there in the late sixties.
More recently, she has been involved in the Land Rights campaign, centred in Sydney and is a director of both the Aboriginal Medical Service and the Aboriginal Housing Service in Sydney. At present, she is working at Black Theatre and acts in the current production ‘Here Comes The Nigger’.
Langton is a member of the Black Women’s Action Group and is an editor of the Aboriginal newspaperKoorie, which has a wide distribution among blacks throughout Australia.’

In 1976, Langton, McCarthy and their fellow national committee member, Peter Robb, negotiated a merger with the Communist League leaders. As a result, they were gifted with positions on national and political committees. In October 1999, Langton was one of five Indigenous leaders granted an audience with the Queen at Buckingham Palace, to discuss Constitutional Recognition.

From 2001-2020, Langton was the Rio Tinto global indigenous expert and she collaborated with the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) on the project Racism and Public Policy, 2000-2001.

Langton also served with Noel Pearson on the Expert Panel on Constitutional Recognition of Indigenous Australians established by Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. It made recommendations for the abolition of race provisions.

‘The most crucial matter to understand about the Constitution is that when it was drafted in the 19th Century, it specifically excluded the Aboriginal people on grounds of race and it is this exclusion that lies at the heart of the state authorised discrimination that continues to this day.’

Langton argues,

‘The Constitutional tradition of treating Aborigines as a race must be replaced with the idea of First Peoples.’

Langton called Pascoe’s Dark Emu ‘the most important book on Australia’. In 1984, after completing an Honours degree in Anthropology at ANU, Langton was appointed to the Central Land Council and Cape York Land Council in northern Queensland.

In 1989 she worked on the Royal Commission into AboriginalDeaths in Custody.
Close associate Peter Rob from the Communist League helped produce I Militant. He wrote a piece about Marcia Langton in the Monthly in 2011:

‘Langton has been thinking about the Constitutional status of Indigenous Australians for even longer than she has about the life crisis in remote communities. She wants the remaining vestiges of race power wiped from the Constitution. She has been talking for 40 years about racism in Australia. Her life pivots on this word. She grew up politically in the late ’60s and has matured but never abandoned the language and style of her youthful anger.’

In 2013 Langton accused a prominent rival of racism, using an internal university mailing list to sledge a critic. According to Andrew Crook, writing for Crikey:

‘It is Langton’s third public accusation of racism in the last three months, a serious charge in the modern academy.’

In 2014, the ABC was forced to apologise to Andrew Bolt, after a Q&A session where Marcia Langton accused Bolt of heaping ‘foul abuse on indigenous woman Misty Jenkins, forcing her to withdraw from public life’. This could be construed as racist’. Langton later backtracked with a 19-page clarification of apology to Andrew Bolt.

In August 2018, Langton accused Jacinta Price of legitimising racism. In September 2018 Prime Minster Scott Morrison appointed Tony Abbott as Special Envoy on Indigenous Affairs. Langton told The Australian, ‘the appointment was a punch in the guts for indigenous Australia.’

In 2019 Langton abused a young gay man who had defended Israel Folau after he was sacked by Rugby Australia for quoting the Bible. Langton said, ‘he probably thinks he’s gay because he masturbates too much.’ When challenged on Twitter, Langton replied with more homophobic abuse,

‘Gay? I don’t think so, more like Milo. Twisted.’

Also in 2019, in response to an ABC Late Night Live comment that northern Australia had once had Ku Klux Klan, ‘who wanted Aboriginal people wiped off the face of the earth’, she added a few minutes later:

‘If the likes of Andrew Bolt don’t stop his vendetta against us (Aborigines), his racist vendetta against us, will he stop doing this to our children…
They are spiteful, vicious peddlers of hate and there’s not an original idea between the lot of them. It’s all borrowed from the Ku Klux Klan and the far right of America.’

In July 2019 in an ABC opinion piece, Langton said, ‘Australia’s moral legitimacy depends on recognising Indigenous sovereignty. In January 2020, Langton began advising the Morrison government on race relations and said on National Indigenous Television (NITV) that Professor Pascoe’s Aboriginality was settled.

Settled to Ms Langton, perhaps, but not to Aboriginal Australia.

‘We all know that it is very difficult for some Aboriginal people to prove they are Aboriginal because of lack of records … members of the family lying because of shame about having Aboriginal ancestry, because of hatred,’ she said.

In October 2019, Langton said of those who have climbed Ayers Rock: ‘A curse will fall on all of them’, and wrote (as images showed hundreds lining up for a final Uluru clamber),

‘They will remember how they defiled this sacred place until they die and history will record their contempt for Aboriginal culture.’

In June 2020 Langton was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for distinguished service to tertiary education, and as an advocate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. She told The Guardian she was ‘very pleased to accept [the award] because it is a way of turning the tide on the historical racism and low expectations that typified an older Australia, and one which I hope we can leave behind.’

In August 2020, Langton told the Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Black Lives Matter and deaths in custody in a criminal justice system that is structurally racist.’ In December 2020, the Sydney Morning Herald reported a published study led by Langton which found child protection workers made assumptions based on racist stereotypes. In February 2021, she said,

‘Eddie McGuire must go, so Collingwood Football Club can begin to repair its toxic racist past.’

In January 2021 she told The Australian, an Indigenous voice in government decision-making has ‘a right and a responsibility to advise parliament on matters impacting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.’

In May 2021, she said ‘Indigenous people want a voice now’, and warned against delaying creating the advisory body because there is no political consensus on Constitutional enshrinement.

In June 2021, Langton described the distrust of female Indigenous spirituality as ‘a national psychosis. A truth commission may serve to remedy conflicts like this in the future.’

The Sydney Harbour Federation Trust

I was appointed to the Board by Tony Abbott and have served for two terms. When I was on the Board, it considered an unsolicited email from Tony Berg who declared his interest in leasing Cockatoo Island for more than 25 years, which is not possible without legislative change.

I argued that the island is sacred to Aboriginal people and the armed forces have vested interests, as do the people of Sydney and Australia.

I did not want to witness the island transformed into an elite exclusive hub.

Tony Berg AM is a former CEO of Macquarie Bank. He is Jawun Director of Indigenous Corporate Partnerships and of the Ethics Centre.

He was a former Board member of the National Gallery of Australia for six years and remains a Director of the National Gallery of Australia Foundation, which he has chaired for seven years.

Nonetheless I opposed his proposal, arguing there needed to be a transparent procurement process.

I felt Berg was demanding special treatment, and he appeared to me to have little genuine concern about Aboriginal people and their historical interest in the island, despite his senior position at Jawun.

Since late 2017, discussions about the Berg interest dominated Board business, though they received a one-page email instead of a documented proposal.

It was not a conceptual brief, as is required. The March 2018 Sydney Harbour Federation Trust Board position paperrefers to the Berg approach.

To compound my concerns, it has been verified that Tony Berg had a relationship with a former Departmental of the Environment (governing body) Secretary.

As a result of raising concerns, I have been subjected to unacceptable treatment, and I am aware another Board member who opposed it was bullied in public.

It is unprecedented for a Secretary of a Commonwealth department to hold a position on a public Board.

After the Trust spent many months assisting Tony Berg’s group deliver a proper proposal for the development of Cockatoo Island (including our engagement of professional support), the result was a couple of paragraphs, best described as an embryonic idea.

There was no business case or conceptual brief presented. It was not possible to meet Tony Berg’s demands for exclusive negotiation rights, nor could the Board consider transferring management because it is impossible under the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust Act 2001.

Tony Berg approached the Secretary of the Department. It is strange the obvious probity issues were not considered is unprecedented.

Following this, Secretary Pratt attempted to influence the Board and CEO (which has been documented) and this has resulted in a Cabinet Review. (Based on an unpublished email written by me in May 2019

Conclusion

I intend visiting as many Aboriginal communities as possible to present an alternative Voice to Parliament. I intend to make videos with Aboriginal people and publish them on the website.

I am committed to listening to the voices of communities, and especially the wisdom and spiritual coaching of our unique Aboriginal elders.

I know most Aboriginal community members have not been consulted.

I am also committed to collecting, then publishing these stories.

I do not support treaties, “truth-telling” and/or the current Voicemodel which is being promoted by the powerful Aboriginal elite leadership group, of which most members have no substantial connections with Aboriginal communities.

I support a united Australia. It is obvious, however, if unity is to be achieved, the Australian government must reform its Aboriginal funding model, in consultation with a broad range of elders, communities and Aboriginal people.

The government must stop relying on the advice of the failed Aboriginal leadership group and start listening to the silenced voices of our people.

I encourage the government to abolish the Native Title Act, to end racial funding and replace it with an alternative funding model which upholds economic independence.

I call for the government to move away from relying on failed funding models and move towards alternative possibilities which have proven to be successful overseas.

I accept radical change will take courage and it will need broad support.

Aboriginal Australia is ready to work cooperatively with the government to create a workable, fair and inclusive consultation process which can be created to listen, discuss, plan and design our way forward, towards a united Australia.

I am committed to incorporating our proud, diverse and unique Aboriginal cultural inheritance which will be sourced from across Australia.

It is achievable and the time is ripe.

‘You can scream your head off, you can fight and no one is going to take any damn notice if they don’t want to. Someone within the system has to stand up and put forward an idea to say something is wrong. If you’re inside the system, you can influence the decision-makers. I know, I’ve done it, starting with Bartlam on Palm Island.’  

Josephine Cashman