Australian Indigenous sovereignty
Such rights are said to derive from Indigenous peoples' occupation and ownership of Australia prior to colonisation and through their continuing spiritual connection to land.
[5] According to some supporters, the recognition of the prior occupation and ownership of Australia means accepting the sovereignty of Indigenous peoples and paves the way for treaties between them and both Commonwealth and state and territory governments.
Discussion of the concept was prominent in various campaigns around the failed referendum of 14 October 2023, which would have amended the Constitution to prescribe an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
[7] When the British began the colonisation of Australia with the arrival of Governor Arthur Phillip and the First Fleet, no formal treaty was signed with the Aboriginal peoples of Port Jackson at the time.
[10] Today, Indigenous sovereignty generally relates to "inherent rights deriving from spiritual and historical connections to land".
[1] The 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart similarly expresses sovereignty as a "spiritual notion" that is "the ancestral tie between the land, or 'mother nature', and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who were born therefrom".
[12] However, this meaning of the term is not universal, with some Indigenous communities and individuals also emphasising elements of the traditional western conception of sovereignty, such as the absolute authority of a group over a particular area and the mutual recognition of equality between sovereign bodies.
[15][16] More recently, in the case of Coe v Commonwealth (1979), the High Court of Australia rejected the notion that there existed an Aboriginal Nation that exercised sovereignty of an even limited kind.
Later in Mabo v Queensland (No 2) (1992),[18] the High Court recognised the pre-colonial land interests of Indigenous Australians within the common law of Australia in the form of native title.
Others call for reparations, self-governance and the ability to live under traditional law unimpeded, with any future interactions between Australia and Indigenous nations to be at a minimum.
Only following the civil rights movement in Australia along with the passage of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) did explicit discriminatory laws end.
New activists emerged, challenging the assumptions of the previous generation by conceptualising their struggle as that of an oppressed people rather than as minority group seeking inclusion.
He raised three issues: an acknowledgement in the Constitution that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were in Australia first and also in possession of the country, when the British Crown asserted its sovereignty over the whole continent, and it follows that the land was taken without consent; the second was about issues of Aboriginal identity being respected and protected within the Constitution and Australian law; and the third element related to equal citizenship under law.
[12] In 2017, the Uluru Statement from the Heart was released which stated that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the original sovereign nations of the land of Australia.
The reforms sought are a constitutional amendment to provide for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, a Makarrata Commission to engage in agreement making between governments and First Nations, and a truth-telling process.
[50] However, government ministers, constitutional and international law scholars, and Voice advocates such as Megan Davis and Noel Pearson say that these concerns were baseless.
[1] After defecting from the Australian Greens in February 2023 ahead of the referendum, Lidia Thorpe said that she wished to lead the "Blak sovereignty" movement, and called for a treaty with First Nations to be signed before the implementation of the Voice.
