Byron Shire Council has shown its support for genuine constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people at its June meeting by unanimously supporting a Mayoral Minute to support the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
The Statement from the Heart came from the First Nations National Constitutional Convention which has held in May 2017 at Uluru in the Northern Territory.
The Convention saw more than 250 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders from around Australia discuss constitutional reform.
‘The Uluru Statement from the Heart is such a moving and powerful document that challenges us, as a nation, to move forward and I think it is entirely appropriate that our Council has publicly declared its support,’ Mayor Richardson said.
‘It’s important to note that the Statement from the Heart goes beyond changes to the constitution,’ he said.
‘It looks at legislative change with the establishment of the Makarrata Commission which would supervise a process of agreement-making with the Australian Government and ‘truth-telling’ about our history and colonisation.
‘The Statement was the largest ever consensus of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people on a proposal for substantive recognition and, on behalf of Byron Shire Council, I am proud to support the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
‘We believe it should be a national priority,’ Mayor Richardson said.
‘The last sentence of the Statement invites us to walk with a movement of the Australian people for a better future.
‘Byron Shire Council accepts the invitation,’ Mayor Richardson said.
For more information contact Byron Shire Mayor, Simon Richardson, on 0427 076 834.
Uluru Statement from the Heart
We, gathered at the 2017 National Constitutional Convention, coming from all points of the southern sky, make this statement from the heart:
Our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the first sovereign Nations of the Australian continent and its adjacent islands, and possessed it under our own laws and customs. This our ancestors did, according to the reckoning of our culture, from the Creation, according to the common law from ‘time immemorial’, and according to science more than 60,000 years ago.
This sovereignty is a spiritual notion: the ancestral tie between the land, or ‘mother nature’, and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who were born therefrom, remain attached thereto, and must one day return thither to be united with our ancestors. This link is the basis of the ownership of the soil, or better, of sovereignty. It has never been ceded or extinguished, and co-exists with the sovereignty of the Crown.
How could it be otherwise? That peoples possessed a land for sixty millennia and this sacred link disappears from world history in merely the last two hundred years?
With substantive constitutional change and structural reform, we believe this ancient sovereignty can shine through as a fuller expression of Australia’s nationhood.
Proportionally, we are the most incarcerated people on the planet. We are not an innately criminal people. Our children are aliened from their families at unprecedented rates. This cannot be because we have no love for them. And our youth languish in detention in obscene numbers. They should be our hope for the future.
These dimensions of our crisis tell plainly the structural nature of our problem. This is the torment of our powerlessness.
We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own country. When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish. They will walk in two worlds and their culture will be a gift to their country.
We call for the establishment of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution.
Makarrata is the culmination of our agenda: the coming together after a struggle. It captures our aspirations for a fair and truthful relationship with the people of Australia and a better future for our children based on justice and self-determination.
We seek a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations and truth-telling about our history.
In 1967 we were counted, in 2017 we seek to be heard. We leave base camp and start our trek across this vast country. We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future.
The Uluru statement did not include the Traditional Owners of Uluru and the Anangu Peoples where this meeting was held.
Also there are many tribes amongst our Original Peoples who do not support this constitutional recognition as this then will make them British subjects whereby they will lose all land rights and opportunity to self govern alongside the government.
Constitiutional recognition will take away their rights to Country, their Ceremonies, their Law. They will be slowly intergrated into societies in cities and such where they will eventually breed out due their genetic make-up.
Say NO to constitutional recognition
Something needs to be done. A minimum number of seats in our parliament, reserved for indigenous representatives would seem like a good idea to me. This is on top of the general seats fillable by any elected Australian citizen – indigenous or otherwise.
Seems to work in New Zealand. They seem to do a few things better across the ditch.
Supporting the Red Rock / Ayers Rock Statement / Uluru and what is written in this news report.
Actually, aboriigines were counted in the census prior to 1967 in all states bar Queensland and WA. ALSO, one has to doubt that any one tribe was here more than a few hundred years though there is a racial continuity. Hard to say because nothing more than oral history exists til we dreaded invaders arrived and helped provide over 200 years some sort of modern culture, including the dreaded white creation of text, without which there would be little or none history at all, our language, or beds. Just weeks on end of rain sometimes huddled in a cave. Facts can be hard or soft but when we ignore them, or change them on a whim, any future coherence is lost.