Liberating the Will of Australia. Geoffrey Burn
addressed by this book. I am hoping, firstly, that what is written will enable First Peoples to understand why their problems have proved so difficult to resolve, that it will be a moment of revelation and of seeing, an “Aha” moment. Further, I hope that it will embolden them to continue to demand repentance from Australia, being forthright in naming everything that must be done before forgiveness can be given. The refusal to stop speaking takes a lot of courage and resource and I hope that they will be encouraged and strengthened to keep stating what must be done. In some ways, I hope that this book will clarify and focus their demands. Secondly, I am also hoping that reading this book will also be a moment of revelation and of seeing for the rest of the peoples in Australia, that it will clarify their confusion about why harm continues to be done, even when good is intended. For this second group of people, there is also a moral imperative: there must be repentance in order to stop the perpetuation of harm into the future. Only repentance will make a safe space for the First Peoples to be able to express and to be given all that is needed in order for them flourish as peoples, to remove Galarrwuy Yunipingu’s splinter, to enable Jackie Huggins and all her people to stand refreshed and able to exercise rightful power towards their futures.
It is very early in the book to have to define terms, but the message of this book is quite subtle and care needs to be taken with the terminology that is used, so that what is being said can be clear. For example, the name Australia is commonly used to refer both to a land mass and also a nation whose establishment began at least as early as the landing of the First Fleet. People speak of “Australians,” a term which includes all citizens that the nation of Australia claims as its own, without acknowledging that some of these people, not least many First Peoples, have at least a difficult, if not an ambivalent, relationship with, or a downright denial of, the nation of Australia as it is currently constructed. It is important to use words in such a way that what is said can be as precise as possible, whilst not making accidental assimilative assertions by how language is used, and also not using language in a way that offends those who are being written about. Therefore, the following terminology will be used in the rest of this book:
•The Land will be used when writing of the whole ecosystem of the land mass that is commonly called Australia and its waters, independent of any claims of relationship to it by any people who live there. It is important that this should not be called Australia, for this confuses The Land with the nation that has established itself on The Land, with particular laws and relationships to The Land, and relationships with others who also live in The Land, who have different relationships to The Land.
•Australia will refer to the nation-state that is commonly called by this name and the states and territories of Australia and any other bodies constituted by legal systems arising from British settlements in The Land.
•Australian law will refer to the legal system, founded in British law, which has developed since the original colonization of The Land by the first British incomers, and which is the legal system of Australia. It also refers to all the legal systems of the states and territories of Australia and any other tiers of government which can pass laws that are based on the same foundations.
•First Peoples means those who are descended from those who were present in The Land when the first British people started to live there and who have chosen to identify as such. Such peoples “define themselves according to their lineages and cultures that tie them to places and ways of life that existed long before colonisation.”9 Sometimes they are also called the “Indigenous Peoples of Australia” or “Indigenous Australians,” but that risks assimilating them into the Australian national project, eliding their multiple layers of identity and overlooking the way that Australia was founded. Instead, I will use “Indigenous Peoples in Australia,” allowing them to state their own relationship to the nation of Australia.
•Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander will be used when it is important to distinguish between things pertaining to these two different First Peoples. The terms “First Peoples,” “Aboriginal,” and “Torres Strait Islanders” have become the acceptable way of referring to peoples in these groups.
•Subsequent Peoples means anyone who does not trace her primary descent as coming from the First Peoples. This includes all those descended from the first British settlers, or from those who have come subsequently, who see themselves primarily as citizens of Australia, choosing to submit themselves to Australian law. It includes those incomers who are not yet citizens. Sometimes I will speak of “we.” When I do this, I am primarily acknowledging that I too am part of the Subsequent Peoples and that this book is also being addressed to myself.
Clearly, any encounters between peoples change all of those who are involved and so these categories overlap. In particular, many First Peoples have multiple layers of identity and have varying commitments to the different parts of their heritage. Some sit easily with this but for others it is deeply traumatic.10 Whilst this is important, this fuzziness in naming has no impact on the central argument of this book, which is about how the foundational denial of the identity of the inhabitants of The Land has insinuated itself into the very fabric of the Australian nation and its legal system, and, therefore, what must be done in order to rescue not only the First Peoples, but all the peoples in Australia, from its devastating effects.
There is much emotive language used in describing the history following the arrival of the first Europeans who established themselves in The Land. This is partly because of the perspective from which the story is told but it is also because there are multiple stories to tell and no one wants their story to be lost or to be treated as secondary to the overarching narrative of someone else. What is indisputable, however, is that no treaty was made between those who were already living in The Land and those who came two and a half centuries ago. From this has grown a nation, called Australia, which is founded on a failure to recognize the full humanity of those already living in The Land. It did not recognize any of: their identities as peoples, their territorial lands, their languages, and their culture.11 This failure, right at the beginning, continues to work its way out today, and will continue to do so in the future, unless it is properly addressed. It is the reason why the First Peoples in Australia always feel as if they are under siege and why interventions, well-intentioned or otherwise, continue to fail to deliver all that is hoped of them.
Recently, it has become popular in Australia to talk about three parts of the “Australian story.” Even the final report from the Referendum Council indulges in this process of myth creation.12 The first phase was the settlement by the First Peoples; the second was the coming of the First Fleet; and the third is the arrival of generations of migrants from all parts of the world. There is a fundamental flaw in this myth, namely that, ontologically, there are only two phases: the history before the arrival of the First Fleet, and the history afterwards. The reason for this is that the arrival of the First Fleet saw the beginnings of Australian law, and all those who acknowledge this law, whether they were been born in the country or have arrived since, are essentially the same in that they live in a system founded on the Root Sin. No one who is born into the country, or who comes to the country from elsewhere, can say that they are not part of the problem, for, in accepting the notion of the nation of Australia and its legal system, they are part of continuing the problem. Further, it simply is not true when the report from the Referendum Council states that “there is no doubt our constitutional system, our system of government, the rule of law, and our public institutions inherited from Britain are the heritage of the Australian people and enure for the benefit of all of us, including the First Peoples”:13 it is exactly these institutions which continue to have a detrimental effect on the First Peoples in Australia because they are founded on the nonexistence of these peoples.
The culture in Australia is changing, with a greater willingness to acknowledge the past and a greater commitment to agreement-making and seeking to put things right. This is hard work and its value is not to be underestimated. Nevertheless, the Root Sin has not been addressed. If all the harm done to the First Peoples in Australia is like a tree that has grown from the Root Sin, then what has been happening is that some of the branches of have been lopped off, but the Root Sin is still firmly in the ground and continues to put forth more branches, whilst providing life to those branches which have not yet been removed, consequently continuing to damage the First Peoples in Australia. That is, what is happening is not enough and the roots need