Michael Mansell

Last updated

Michael Mansell
LLB
Michael Mansell.png
Personal details
Born
Michael Alexander Mansell

(1951-06-05) 5 June 1951 (age 72)
Northern Tasmania [ where? ], Australia
Residence(s) Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
Alma mater University of Tasmania
Occupation Lawyer, activist

Michael Alexander Mansell (born 5 June 1951 in northern Tasmania [ where? ]) is a Tasmanian Aboriginal (Palawa) activist and lawyer who has campaigned for social, political and legal changes.

Contents

Mansell is partly of Palawa descent from the Trawlwoolway group on his mother's side and from the Pinterrairer group on his father's side, both of which are Indigenous groups from north-eastern Tasmania. [1]

From an early age, Mansell was a radical protester about the status and treatment of Tasmanian Aboriginal people within the community. However he discovered that mere protest was an ineffective measure to achieve his aims of land rights and improved conditions, and the radical tactics that he and other Indigenous rights protesters employed in the 1970s were abandoned.[ citation needed ]

Mansell undertook a degree in law at the University of Tasmania, graduating in 1983. He began a career as a lawyer, attempting to defend the rights of Aboriginal people, whilst pursuing an agenda of reform. Since then, he has become a qualified barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Tasmania, and the High Court of Australia.[ citation needed ]

In 1972, he and others set up the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, of which he was chairman and legal manager. [2] He was also the founding secretary of the Aboriginal Provisional Government in 1990. [3] Mansell also played senior football for North Hobart in the Tasmanian Football League [4]

Mansell was named "Aboriginal of the Year", at the 1987 National NAIDOC (National Aboriginal and Islander Day Observance Committee) Awards, and played a crucial role in the drafting of legislation for the Native Title Act 1993 that arose from the Mabo v Queensland case.[ citation needed ]

Mansell was an independent candidate to represent Tasmania in the Australian Senate at the 1987 Australian federal election held on 11 July 1987. He was unsuccessful, receiving 1,102 votes (21,451 votes were required to win a seat).[ citation needed ]

Publications

Subjects that Mansell has written about include the Australian Constitution, Aboriginal customary law, cultural and intellectual property, the Human Genome Project, land rights and Aboriginal sovereignty. In 2016 his book Treaty and Statehood: Aboriginal self-determination was published. [5] [1]

Activism and commentary

In the wider Australian community, Mansell has often been seen as controversial, having resorted to confrontational tactics to push issues of Indigenous rights and past mistreatment onto the public agenda in Tasmania.[ citation needed ] Mansell has often been involved in public confrontation with politicians and the media. One area where he is most in conflict with the Australian and Tasmanian governments is over the issue of Aboriginal Sovereignty.[ citation needed ]

In April 1987, at a conference sponsored by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in Libya called "A Conference on Peace and Revolution in the Pacific", Mansell spoke to a large international audience.

To gain international attention for the cause of Tasmanian Aboriginal people, Mansell established an alternative Aboriginal passport. In 1988 he secured recognition for the passport from Gaddafi's Libya, which declared it valid for travel to Libya. [6] Mansell said he had Gaddafi's support for the establishment of an independent Aboriginal nation. [7]

Mansell has suggested that Indigenous Australians should be granted a separate state or territory within Australia, which would be governed by Indigenous people and allow for greater self-determination [8]

In 2001 Mansell stated that "there were more phoney than real Aborigines in Tasmania and more than half the voters in the 1996 ATSIC election were not Aboriginal". [9] The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre brought court challenges against the claims of Aboriginality of a number of candidates to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission. [2]

In February 2008 Mansell said on Australian radio that although he was happy that the new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd would offer a formal public apology on behalf of all Australians for the treatment of the "Stolen Generations", he referred to it as a "half-measure" if it was without compensation. [10] On the first anniversary of the apology, Mansell said that the apology had not improved the situation of Aborigines, nor had the government stopped welfare policies based on race. [11]

Mansell was one of 16 pale-skinned Aboriginal people named in a series of articles written by Andrew Bolt and published in the Herald Sun newspaper in 2009. These articles were subsequently found by the Federal Court of Australia in the case Eatock v Bolt to have contravened Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975. [12]

In his 2016 book Treaty and Statehood: Aboriginal Self-determination, Mansell advocated for a seventh Australian state to be run by indigenous people on land currently deeded to native title, complete with its own state parliament and court system. He also said that such a state may not be created for "at least two or three decades", and felt that treaties or designated seats in the Federal Parliament are more politically likely. [13]

In January 2020, Mansell (as chairman of the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania) issued a three-page statement saying he does not believe Bruce Pascoe has Indigenous ancestry, and Pascoe should stop claiming he does. [14] [15]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aboriginal Tasmanians</span> Indigenous people of the Australian island state of Tasmania

The Aboriginal Tasmanians are the Aboriginal people of the Australian island of Tasmania, located south of the mainland. For much of the 20th century, the Tasmanian Aboriginal people were widely, and erroneously, thought of as being an extinct cultural and ethnic group that had been intentionally exterminated by white settlers. Contemporary figures (2016) for the number of people of Tasmanian Aboriginal descent vary according to the criteria used to determine this identity, ranging from 6,000 to over 23,000.

Sir Ronald Darling Wilson, was a distinguished Australian lawyer, judge and social activist serving on the High Court of Australia between 1979 and 1989 and as the President of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission between 1990 and 1997.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Australian Indigenous sovereignty</span> Concept and political movement regarding land ownership by Indigenous peoples in Australia

Australian Indigenous sovereignty, also recently termed Blak sovereignty, encompasses the various rights claimed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples within 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 recognised in the Australian Constitution or under Australian law.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Batman</span> Australian settler and explorer

John Batman was an Australian grazier, entrepreneur and explorer. He is best known for his role in the founding of Melbourne.

Andrew Bolt is an Australian conservative social and political commentator. He has worked at the News Corp-owned newspaper company The Herald and Weekly Times (HWT) for many years, for both The Herald and its successor, the Herald Sun. His current roles include blogger and columnist at the Herald Sun and host of television show The Bolt Report each weeknight. In Australia, Bolt is a controversial public figure, who has frequently been accused of abrasive demeanour, racist views and inappropriate remarks on various political and social issues.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Racial Discrimination Act 1975</span>

The Racial Discrimination Act 1975(Cth) is an Act of the Australian Parliament, which was enacted on 11 June 1975 and passed by the Whitlam government. The Act makes racial discrimination in certain contexts unlawful in Australia, and also overrides state and territory legislation to the extent of any inconsistency.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Larissa Behrendt</span> Indigenous Australian academic and writer

Larissa Yasmin Behrendt is an Australian legal academic, writer, filmmaker and Indigenous rights advocate. As of 2022 she is a professor of law and director of research and academic programs at the Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research at the University of Technology Sydney, and holds the inaugural Chair in Indigenous Research at UTS.

The Macquarie River is a major perennial river located in the Midlands region of Tasmania, Australia.

Palawa kani is a constructed language created by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre as a composite Tasmanian language, based on reconstructed vocabulary from the limited accounts of the various languages once spoken by the Aboriginal people living on the island now known as Tasmania or lutruwita.

Palawa may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aboriginal Provisional Government</span>

The Aboriginal Provisional Government (APG) is an Indigenous Australian independence movement.

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.

The Lia Pootah are a Tasmanian group who claim descent from both Tasmanian Aboriginal women of several kinship groups and European men who arrived in Van Diemen's Land from 1803 onwards. They are distinct from the Palawa, a group of Aboriginal descent whose immediate ancestors hail mostly from the islands of Bass Strait.

Bruny Island Tasmanian, or Nuenonne ("Nyunoni"), a name shared with Southeast Tasmanian, is an Aboriginal language or pair of languages of Tasmania in the reconstruction of Claire Bowern. It was spoken on Bruny Island, off the southeastern coast of Tasmania, by the Bruny tribe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bruce Pascoe</span> Australian writer

Bruce Pascoe is an Australian writer of literary fiction, non-fiction, poetry, essays and children's literature. As well as his own name, Pascoe has written under the pen names Murray Gray and Leopold Glass. Pascoe identifies as Aboriginal. Since August 2020, he has been Enterprise Professor in Indigenous Agriculture at the University of Melbourne.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leeanne Enoch</span> Australian politician

Leeanne Margaret Enoch is an Australian politician currently serving as the Queensland Minister for Communities and Housing, for the Arts, and for Digital Economy. She has also served as the Labor Party member for Algester in the Queensland Legislative Assembly since 2015.

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 2023, no such treaties are in force, however the Commonwealth and all states except Western Australia have expressed support previously for a treaty process. However, the defeat of the Voice referendum has led to a reversal by several state liberal and national parties in their support for treaty and a much more ambigious expressed position by state Labor parties and governments.

Aboriginal Australian identity, sometimes known as Aboriginality, is the perception of oneself as Aboriginal Australian, or the recognition by others of that identity. Aboriginal Australians are one of two Indigenous Australian groups of peoples, the other being Torres Strait Islanders. There has also been discussion about the use of "Indigenous" vs "Aboriginal", or more specific group names, such as Murri or Noongar (demonyms), Kaurna or Yolngu, based on language, or a clan name. Usually preference of the person(s) in question is used, if known.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre</span> Human rights organisation in Tasmania

The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre (TAC) is a human-rights and cultural organisation for Aboriginal Tasmanians. It was originally founded as the Tasmanian Information Centre in 1973 and has campaigned on land return, Aboriginal identity and return of stolen remains.

References

  1. 1 2 "Michael Mansell - Abstract". Murdoch University. 2008. Archived from the original on 7 April 2011. Retrieved 26 March 2008.
  2. 1 2 4 Corners (ABC)
  3. ↑ "ABOUT the Aboriginal Provisional Government". Aboriginal Provisional Government. Retrieved 1 February 2020.
  4. ↑ "Michael Mansell". Federaion Press.
  5. ↑ Treaty and Statehood: Aboriginal self-determination (Federation Press, November, 2016)
  6. ↑ "Desperate Times". Australian Broadcasting Corporation . Retrieved 26 March 2008.
  7. ↑ "Gaddafi sending $140,000 a year to Australian Muslims". Sydney Morning Herald. 15 December 1987. p. 1.
  8. ↑ "An Indigenous seventh state: a radical idea from a constitutional conservative". ABC News. 2 June 2017. Retrieved 12 November 2023.
  9. ↑ D Woolford (17 February 2001). "Australia: Aboriginal Identity Problems". Townsville Bulletin. p. 40.
  10. ↑ "Michael Mansell - Interview (Audio file)". Australian Broadcasting Corporation . Retrieved 26 March 2008.
  11. ↑ "Kevin Rudd's apology to stolen generations 'a shield' over indigenous failures". Archived from the original on 18 February 2009. Retrieved 19 February 2009.
  12. ↑ Eatock v Bolt [2011] FCA 1103 , (2011) 197 FCR 261, Federal Court (Australia).
  13. ↑ Australia should create seventh state run by Indigenous people, lawyer Michael Mansell says, ABC News
  14. ↑ Mansell, Michael (23 January 2020). "Bruce Pascoe Is Not Tasmanian Aboriginal". Tasmanian Times.com. Archived from the original on 24 January 2020. Retrieved 24 January 2020.
  15. ↑ Denholm, Matthew (23 January 2020). "Bruce Pascoe 'should stop claiming indigenous ancestry'". The Australian. Retrieved 23 January 2020.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.