 |
 Aboriginal Provisional Government logo | |
| Abbreviation | APG |
|---|---|
| Formation | 1990 |
| Type | Aboriginal organisation |
| Legal status | Active |
| Purpose | Advocate and public voice, educator and network |
| Headquarters | Tasmania, Australia |
Region served | Australia |
Official language | English |
| Website | Aboriginal Provisional Government |
The Aboriginal Provisional Government (APG) is an Indigenous Australian independence movement.
The idea of an Aboriginal government was developed by some Aboriginal delegates of the Federation of Land Councils at its meeting at JaJa in the Northern Territory in 1990. The Federation was a powerful national body but which pretty much limited its involvement to land issues. Some Federation members felt the Aboriginal cause had to move to another level, and the name of any new body should reflect a broader horizon while complementing existing Aboriginal groups. The "Provisional" aspect was included for two reasons: first, this Aboriginal body would foster a transition from white government control to an eventual full-blown black national government. Second, the APG was not set up to govern Aboriginal people but to be a political vehicle for self-determination aspirations. Bob Weatherall, Josie Crawshaw, Geoff Clark, Clarrie Isaacs, Michael Mansell, Robbie Thorpe, Kathy Craigie, and Lyall Munro Jnr were founding members of the APG.
Charles Perkins' early efforts of freedom rides in NSW and his public arguments with politicians (and his boss at Department of Aboriginal Affairs), affected younger APG members. Perkins' later organisation of Aboriginal football carnivals led to Clark and Mansell first meeting. Development of early APG political thought to move away from Australian Government dependence took its roots in academic writings of Kevin Gilbert's "Treaty 88", Oodgeroo Noonuccal's and Jack Davis' poetry, and Paul Coe's litigation for Aboriginal sovereignty in Coe v Commonwealth in 1978.
Word quickly spread about the formation of the APG. The first public announcement of formation of the APG took place at Tranby College, Glebe, Sydney in 1990 run by Kevin Cook. In 1992 the APG held a national meeting at Hobart, Tasmania where an Elders Council was established. Queenslander Joe McGuiness, a strong unionist and campaigner for the 1967 referendum, headed up the Elders Council.
The APG issues Aboriginal passports and Aboriginal birth certificates. Passports are a way of declaring national black identity and are often used by young Aboriginals as an identity document. Birth certificates are issued so that Aboriginal children are not forced to be registered at birth with the Commonwealth of Australia. Jack Davis, a well-known Aboriginal poet from WA, gave APG permission to use part of his poem about an Aboriginal nation. The APG letterhead carries Jack's words at the bottom of the page.
The Australian government shunned the APG after the APG declared it would only meet on a government to government basis, not as a lobby group. Members of the APG eventually met with Prime Minister Paul Keating on native title legislation (as part of the 'B' Team). Michael Mansell had been involved earlier in native title deliberations after he was elected to a representative body by a national Aboriginal meeting of 400 people at Eva Valley in the Northern Territory to protect the Mabo High Court gains. However, Mansell later refused to go with his co-Aboriginal delegates to sign off on the final legislation with Keating because Mansell refused to validate invalid grants. Such validation only targeted Aboriginal native title, while leaving white land interests intact. This was a reproduction of Joh Bjelke-Petersen's attempted anti-native title law which was struck down by the High Court in Mabo. Keating and the 'A' team got around the discriminatory move by suspending the operation of the Racial Discrimination Act.
Deputy Chair Geoff Clark, was elected as national head of ATSIC. Clark advocated within ATSIC for a treaty and found widespread support. His Board established a Treaty committee and published 'Let's Treaty Now'. When John Howard was elected Australian Prime Minister, he immediately made it harder for Aborigines to get native title and sacked ATSIC. The treaty proposal lapsed.
The APG has produced 4 volumes of written materials: Vol. 1 Aboriginal Government; Vol. 2 the national conference; Vol. 3 the Australian Constitution and Vol. 4 Mabo.
The APG argues that Aborigines were a sovereign people before the white invasion in 1788 and nothing has changed to remove that sovereign status, that by virtue of their status as a distinct people, Aborigines (and Torres Strait Islanders) have the right to self-determination which includes the right to choose their own destiny, and that that choice is not limited to being subordinate to white policy makers for Aborigines are a people able to take their place among the nations of the world as equals, not as mere citizens of the invader.
The APG acknowledges the range of choices of peoples includes assimilation and self-management through to US type domestic Indian nations, a 7th State of Australia or a completely independent Aboriginal government. They hold that, as the international law constraint of territorial integrity does not apply to emerging nations, Aboriginals are free to be a partnership with Australia or politically independent of it.
The APG encourages Aboriginal groups to take advantage of reconciliation, land rights, native title or government sponsored programs provided people do not lose sight of their greater entitlements beyond welfare. The APG vigorously opposes Aboriginal advisory bodies arguing white politicians should not be deciding the fate of Aborigines no matter who advises them. The APG rejected the Julia Gillard/expert panel suggested constitutional changes as a sell-out, on the basis that the suggestions promoted white superiority (English should be official language whereas in New Zealand Maori is an official language) and failed to mention at all Aboriginal sovereignty. The APG advocates for the words, "Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders have the right to self determination" to be inserted in the constitution.
APG Volumes 1–4 Sovereign subjects, Aileen Moreton-Robinson, Allen & Unwin, 2007; Let's Treaty Now, ATSIC publication
Mabo v Queensland is a landmark decision of the High Court of Australia that recognised the existence of Native Title in Australia. It was brought by Eddie Mabo against the State of Queensland and decided on 3 June 1992. The case is notable for being the first in Australia to recognise pre-colonial land interests of Indigenous Australians within the common law of Australia.
Terra nullius is a Latin expression meaning "nobody's land". It was a principle sometimes used in international law to justify claims that territory may be acquired by a state's occupation of it. There are currently three territories sometimes claimed to be terra nullius: Bir Tawil, four pockets of land near the Danube due to the Croatia–Serbia border dispute, and parts of Antarctica, principally Marie Byrd Land.
Australian Indigenous sovereignty, also recently termed Blak sovereignty, refers to various rights claimed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples over parts or all of Australia. 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. Indigenous sovereignty is not explicitly recognised in the Australian Constitution or under Australian law.
The Aboriginal Tent Embassy is a permanent protest occupation site as a focus for representing the political rights of Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islander people. Established on 26 January 1972, and celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2022, it is the longest continuous protest for Indigenous land rights in the world.
Native title refers to rights, recognised by Australian law, held by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups or individuals to land that derive from their maintenance of their traditional laws and customs. These Aboriginal title rights were first recognised as a part of Australian common law with the decision of Mabo v Queensland in 1992. The doctrine was subsequently implemented and modified via statute with the Native Title Act 1993.
NAIDOC Week is an Australian observance lasting from the first Sunday in July until the following Sunday. The acronym NAIDOC stands for National Aborigines' and Islanders' Day Observance Committee. NAIDOC Week has its roots in the 1938 Day of Mourning, becoming a week-long event in 1975.
Indigenous land rights are the rights of Indigenous peoples to land and natural resources therein, either individually or collectively, mostly in colonised countries. Land and resource-related rights are of fundamental importance to Indigenous peoples for a range of reasons, including: the religious significance of the land, self-determination, identity, and economic factors. Land is a major economic asset, and in some Indigenous societies, using natural resources of land and sea form the basis of their household economy, so the demand for ownership derives from the need to ensure their access to these resources. Land can also be an important instrument of inheritance or a symbol of social status. In many Indigenous societies, such as among the many Aboriginal Australian peoples, the land is an essential part of their spirituality and belief systems.
Indigenous Australian self-determination, also known as Aboriginal Australian self-determination, is the power relating to self-governance by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia. It is the right of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to determine their own political status and pursue their own economic, social and cultural interests. Self-determination asserts that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples should direct and implement Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander policy formulation and provision of services. Self-determination encompasses both Aboriginal land rights and self-governance, and may also be supported by a treaty between a government and an Indigenous group in Australia.
Aboriginal title is a common law doctrine that the land rights of indigenous peoples to customary tenure persist after the assumption of sovereignty to that land by another colonising state. The requirements of proof for the recognition of aboriginal title, the content of aboriginal title, the methods of extinguishing aboriginal title, and the availability of compensation in the case of extinguishment vary significantly by jurisdiction. Nearly all jurisdictions are in agreement that aboriginal title is inalienable, and that it may be held either individually or collectively.
Michael Alexander Mansell is a Tasmanian Aboriginal leader who, as an activist and lawyer, has worked for social, political and legal changes to improve the lives and social standing of Tasmanian Aboriginal (Palawa) people.
In Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States the term treaty rights specifically refers to rights for indigenous peoples enumerated in treaties with settler societies that arose from European colonization.
R v Bonjon was a criminal court case, decided in the Supreme Court of New South Wales for the District of Port Phillip on 16 September 1841, in which Bonjon, an Aboriginal man, had been charged with murder for killing Yammowing, another Aboriginal man. The main issue in the case was whether the colonial courts had jurisdiction over offences committed by Aboriginal people inter se, that is, by one Aboriginal person against another.
An Aboriginal passport refers to various travel documents issued by the self-declared Aboriginal Provisional Government (APG), an indigenous Australian group. Such documents are not recognized as valid by the Australian government or its Australian Customs and Border Protection Service, although some people have been permitted to re-enter Australia using such documents. The documents are recognised as "fantasy passports" by the European Union.
Indigenous land rights in Australia, also known as Aboriginal land rights in Australia, are the rights and interests in land of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia; the term may also include the struggle for those rights. Connection to the land and waters is vital in Australian Aboriginal culture and to that of Torres Strait Islander people, and there has been a long battle to gain legal and moral recognition of ownership of the lands and waters occupied by the many peoples prior to colonisation of Australia starting in 1788, and the annexation of the Torres Strait Islands by the colony of Queensland in the 1870s.
The Murrawarri Republic is a micronation that declared its independence from Australia in 2013, that claims territory and sovereignty over an area straddling the border of the states of New South Wales and Queensland within Australia. The territory is the traditional homeland of the Murrawarri people, an Aboriginal people, but the population of the territory claimed now comprises mostly non-Indigenous Australians. The Government of Australia has not acknowledged the declaration of independence, and their independence has been wholly unrecognised.
Indigenous or Aboriginal self-government refers to proposals to give governments representing the Indigenous peoples in Canada greater powers of government. These proposals range from giving Aboriginal governments powers similar to that of local governments in Canada to demands that Indigenous governments be recognized as sovereign, and capable of "nation-to-nation" negotiations as legal equals to the Crown, as well as many other variations.
Indigenous treaties in Australia are proposed binding legal agreements between Australian governments and Australian First Nations. A treaty could recognise First Nations as distinct political communities, acknowledge Indigenous Sovereignty, set out mutually recognised rights and responsibilities or provide for some degree of self-government. As of 2022, no such treaties are in force, however the Commonwealth and all States except Western Australia have committed to a treaty process.
Redfern Park is a heritage-listed park at Elizabeth, Redfern, Chalmers, and Phillip Streets, Redfern, City of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It was designed by Charles O'Neill. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 21 September 2018.
Reconciliation in Australia is a process which officially began in 1991, focused on the improvement of relations between the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of Australia and the rest of the population. The Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation (CAR), created by the government for a term of ten years, laid the foundations for the process, and created the peak body for implementation of reconciliation as a government policy, Reconciliation Australia, in 2001.
