We have a backup copy, but here is the 112 page document as provided by Peta Credlin on SkyNews.
From SkyNews:
https://www.skynews.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Credlin-Editorial-PDF-2.pdf
Sky News host Peta Credlin exposes Labor’s ‘lie’ on the Uluru Statement from the Heart under Freedom of Information Act
Sky News host Peta Credlin has debunked Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s claim the Uluru Statement from the Heart can be read in “about two minutes” after obtaining a lengthy document under Freedom of Information.
Peta Credlin has revealed all 26 pages of the Uluru Statement from the Heart under the Freedom of Information Act, contradicting claims made by Anthony Albanese that the declaration is no more than a two minute read.
The Prime Minister has committed to implementing all elements of the Uluru Statement “in full” which calls for “Voice, Treaty, Truth”.
If Australians were to enshrine an Indigenous Voice to Parliament in the upcoming referendum, the Makarrata Commission would be the next stage of the Uluru process.
The commission is designed to lead the process of treaty-making between governments and First Nations, and truth-telling at a national, regional and local level.
Mr Albanese has repeatedly spruiked the Uluru Statement as a “two minute read” one-page document “that invites all Australians to walk together to a better future”.
But Credlin has revealed that is not quite the case after the government was forced to release the full 26-page statement under Freedom of Information.
The whole tenor of the actual statement in full is one “of anger, grievance, separatism, and the need to undo, as far as possible, the last 240 years of Australian history”, Credlin said.
Excerpts from the lengthy document refer to the “invasion” of Botany Bay as “the fundamental grievance” of First Nations, and that the Tasmanian Genocide and the Black War was waged by “colonists”.
Another extract reads: “By making agreements at the highest level, the negotiation process with the Australian government allows First Nations to express our sovereignty”.
Credlin said the statement was at odds with Mr Albanese’s claim that treaty-making processes would be led by states and territories, rather than on a federal level.
“Contrary to PM’s current, poll-panicked claim that the Voice is not about treaties, these official documents confirm that treaties, indeed, are the Uluru Statement’s precise point,” she said.
READ THE FULL DOCUMENT HERE.
Page 13
A treaty or treaties that protect land and water rights and provide for compensation are needed. ILUAs and other agreements that already exist should be protected in the Constitution against the State government changing them without the agreement and consent of the Aboriginal group that signed them. And the Constitution should allow people to expand on those existing agreements and move into comprehensive settlements that can be enforced in the courts. Another view was that treaty might be a ‘lesser’ form of recognition at this stage until sovereign recognition is achieved in the Constitution.
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Delegates raised the idea of an First Nations Parliament, this would include elected representatives, power to draft legislation to take to the Australian parliament, veto powers and lobbying. An First Nationa Parliament would provide both symbolic and substantive recognition. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was suggested as an important standard that should underpin the process.
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Makarrata
The invasion of our land was met by resistance. But colonisation and dispossession cut deeply into our societies, and we have mourned the ancestors who died in the resistance, and the loss of land, language and culture. Through the activism of our leaders we have achieved some hard-won gains and recovered control over some of our lands. After the Mabo case, the
Australian legal system can no longer hide behind the legal fiction of terra nullius. But there is Unfinished Business to resolve. And the way to address these differences is through agreementmaking.
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‘Treaty was seen as the best form of establishing an honest relationship with government.’ (Dubbo)37
Makarrata is another word for Treaty or agreement-making. It is the culmination of our agenda.
It captures our aspirations for a fair and honest relationship with government and a better future for our children based on justice and self-determination.38
‘If the community can’t self-determine and make decisions for our own community regarding economic and social development, then we can’t be confident about the future for our children.’ (Wreck Bay)39
Through negotiated settlement, First Nations can build their cultural strength, reclaim control and make practical changes over the things that matter in their daily life.40 By making agreements at the highest level, the negotiation process with the Australian government allows First Nations to express our sovereignty – the sovereignty that we know comes from The Law.
‘The group felt strongly that the Constitution needed to recognise the traditional way of life for Aboriginal people. … It would have to acknowledge the “Tjukurrpa” – “our own Constitution”, which is what connects Aboriginal people to their creation and gives them authority.’ (Ross River)41
‘There is a potential for two sovereignties to co-exist in which both western and Indigenous values and identities are protected and given voice in policies and laws.’
(Broome)42
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GUIDING PRINCIPLES
The following guiding principles have been distilled from the Dialogues. These principles have historically underpinned declarations and calls for reform by First Nations. They are reflected, for example, in the Bark Petitions of 1963, the Barunga Statement of 1988, the Eva Valley Statement of 1993, the report on the Social Justice Package by ATSIC in 1995 and the Kirribilli Statement of 2015. They are supported by international standards pertaining to Indigenous peoples’ rights and international human rights law.
These principles governed our assessment of reform proposals:
1. Does not diminish Aboriginal sovereignty and Torres Strait Islander sovereignty.
2. Involves substantive, structural reform.
3. Advances self-determination and the standards established under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
4. Recognises the status and rights of First Nations.
5. Tells the truth of history.
6. Does not foreclose on future advancement.
7. Does not waste the opportunity of reform.
8. Provides a mechanism for First Nations agreement-making.
9. Has the support of First Nations.
10. Does not interfere with positive legal arrangements.
Page 95 – 96
2. Involves substantive, structural reform
Delegates at the First Nations Regional Dialogues stated that the reform must be substantive, meaning that minimal reform or symbolic reform is not enough. Dialogues emphasising that reform needed to be substantive and structural include: Hobart,57 Broome,58 Darwin,59 Perth,60 Sydney,61 Ross River,62 Adelaide,63 Brisbane,64 Torres Strait65 and Canberra.66
This is consistent with the Kirribilli Statement that ‘any reform must involve substantive changes to the Australian Constitution. A minimalist approach, that provides preambular recognition, removes section 25 and moderates the races power [section 51(xxvi)], does not go far enough and would not be acceptable to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’.67
This is consistent with Article 3 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: ‘Indigenous peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development’.68 In addition, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples provides that ‘Indigenous peoples have the right to the recognition, observance and enforcement of Treaties, Agreements and Other Constructive Arrangements concluded with States or their successors and to have States honour and respect such Treaties, Agreements and other Constructive Arrangements’.69
3. Advances self-determination and the standards established under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Many delegates at the First Nations Regional Dialogues referred to the importance of the right to self-determination as enshrined in Article 3 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.70 In 1988, the Barunga Statement called for the recognition of our rights ‘to self-determination and self-management, including the freedom to pursue our own economic, social, religious and cultural development.’ One of the fundamental principles
underpinning ATSIC’s report on the Social Justice Package was ‘self-determination to decide within the broad context of Australian society the priorities and the directions of their own lives, and to freely determine their own affairs.’71
Dialogues that referred to self-determination and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peoples include: Hobart,72 Broome,73 Darwin,74 Perth,75 Sydney,76 Cairns,77 Ross River,78
Adelaide,79 Brisbane,80 Torres Strait81 and Canberra.82
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8. Provides a mechanism for First Nations agreement-making
Many delegates at the First Nations Regional Dialogues stated that reform must provide a mechanism for First Nations agreement-making. Dialogues that referenced a mechanism for agreement-making include: Melbourne,130 Broome,131 Perth,132 Cairns,133 Ross River,134 Adelaide,135 Brisbane136 and Torres Strait.137
The obligation of the state to provide agreement-making mechanisms is reflected in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Article 37 proclaims, ‘Indigenous peoples have the right to the recognition, observance and enforcement of Treaties, Agreements and Other Constructive Arrangements concluded with States or their successors and to have States honour and respect such Treaties, Agreements and other Constructive Arrangements’.
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The importance of First Nations’ support is recognised by the United Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which states in Article 3, that through the right of self-determination, Indigenous peoples must be able to ‘freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development’. The Declaration also recognises in Article 19 that, before any new laws or policies affecting Indigenous peoples are adopted, ‘States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free, prior and informed consent’.