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Despite claims to the contrary, the decision in Love and Thoms affirms the standing of the common law, including the unassailable power of the Australian State to make and enforce law. It upholds the centuries-long common law principle of accommodation of Indigenous laws in a colonial context.
At its heart, the question was whether an Indigenous Australian who was eligible for citizenship but had never formalised it could be regarded as an alien and therefore subject to removal. In a landmark judgment, a 4:3 majority of the Court found that Indigenous Australians were not aliens, even if they were not citizens.
In the Apology to the Stolen Generations the Australian Government spoke on behalf of all Australians in recognising that it acted wrongly in removing Indigenous children from their parents. It recognised also that the reason for the removal was the disrespectful claim that its targets were defined, not by their shared humanity, but by their race. This disrespect caused lasting damage to the children and families.
At what point is the media going to realise that the Invasion Day rally, which has been going on in some form or other since 1938, is not going away and, indeed, is growing? I'm convinced the media don't want to report Invasion Day, as reminding the public to fear Indigenous people and our rights has been their practice for centuries now.
Australia Day would be wasted if it were devoted simply to self-congratulation. In the wake of the catastrophic fires we need to ask questions about how Indigenous Australians before settlement managed the land and how our agricultural and economic practices have contributed to the perilous situation in which we now find ourselves.
This would not be accepted by the extremist Catholics who threw an Amazonian indigenous icon of a pregnant indigenous woman into the Tiber River. But the Pope is right to honour the prior religious practises of the Amazonians, just as the Bishop of Darwin supports a process that has seen the development of Altyerre-Catholicism.
Any Australian who believes in four seasons is engaged in a form of climate denial. Spring, summer, autumn and winter are colonial constructs, not an objective truth. I recently visited a school which has the largest Indigenous student population in Melbourne. The kids made a mural depicting the eight seasons of greater Melbourne.
In an age where destruction of eco-systems is occurring at a fast rate and sanctioned by governments, these absurdities are lethal for collective humanity. Non-Indigenous support for the Embassy and trees reflects a desire to reverse the absurd lie that human culture and nature are not in a continual, intergenerational relationship.
According to anecdotal evidence, Pauline Hanson arrived at Uluru, climbed up to 'chicken rock', slid back down on her backside and then, later, met with some Anangu elders to 'get permission' to climb Uluru. The disrespectful farce was but one illustration of how the week went when it comes to showing respect for Indigenous rights and views.
We need to change the language from improving 'attendance' to improving 'engagement' — to reflect that schools need to be places of learning for Indigenous children, not just minding centres, and that learning comes with engagement.
Intersectionality describes the experience of overlapping oppression faced by black women. Criminologist Chris Cuneen discusses the double jeopardy faced by Indigenous women in Australia who live under both colonialism and the patriarchy. Throw in capitalism and you get a sometimes-lethal triple threat.
Constitutional reform works at two levels. It would establish the institution of the Voice so that a future Parliament could not easily get rid of it. Doing so is also symbolic — but not merely symbolic. It recognises the place of Indigenous Australians within the Australian polity. This is not a divisive action. Rather it is inclusive.
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