The following is the transcript for the video at https://vimeo.com/312690051
The original video is a powerpoint style presentation with voice-over. 

Truthtelling explained

This video is part 4 of a series. I should have included truth telling as part of Makarrata video (part 2). If you read the Referendum Council report carefully, and note commentary about it, it shows that Makarrata consists of both agreement making and truth telling. 

So what does Truthtelling have to do with agreement making?

They are grouped together because truth telling is part of contract law. Let’s go back to the basics of agreement making and contract law. These reforms involve contracts, which will presumably be made under white man’s law, or under English contract Law. A contract under English contract law is when one party makes an offer and the other party accepts it by accepting the offer or by performing the offers terms. I will explain this more in my next video, where I discuss how the components of the reform package fit together. 

Legal practicalities

Before any contracts or agreement making can happen, there are 2 fundamental practical considerations that need to be established. For Australia to conduct agreement making with First Nations, they must first establish;

1. Who are the “First Nations” parties to the agreement?
2. Do each of these First Nations have the authority to enter into such an agreement?

The first of these considerations; 

1. Who are the First Nations parties to the agreement.

This is about identification of each Sovereign Nation

One of the first steps of making agreements, before negotiation even begins, is identifying the parties of the agreement. This happens in every agreement, whether it is an informal agreement to borrow your friends car, or several countries signing a trade agreement. Sometimes identifying the parties is an automatic process based on a pre-established trust, for example when you make a verbal agreement to borrow your friends car – you already know each other. Most of the time in day-to-day business it involves filling out a form with your name, date of birth and address. Other times it is more detailed – for example getting a loan from the bank usually involves a 100 point ID check.

In the case of agreement making in Makarrata, this identification process has not yet happened. No one knows in total how many First Nations sovereign groups there are, who they are and what their territory is. There is the Tindale map, but that is of language groups and not of Sovereign nations. For Australia to begin Makarrata agreement making, the identity of the groups must be established. First Nations do not have founding documents. They have oral histories, songlines and stories instead. Truth telling is the telling of songlines and stories in order to identify groups. It is the equivalent of showing identity or foundation documents.

The second point that needs to be established before agreement making can proceed;

1. Do each of the First Nations have the authority to enter into such an agreement.

A second, related legal practicality, is to establish that the particular First Nations group are legitimate sovereigns, that they have sovereign powers that they can share with the Australian federation, and to make sure they are not fraudulantly presenting themselves to be traditional owners. This ensures that the First Nation in question has the ability to enter into the agreements. Australia will not want to enter an agreement with groups who are not sovereign, as that would defeat the entire purpose of the reforms which is to acquire Aboriginal sovereignty. Ensuring that each individual First Nation has the ability to enter the agreement could be seen as the equivalent of getting a credit check and showing all your payslips when you go in to get a loan from the bank. It makes sure that the party is “good” for it.

Each of the groups will need to establish that they are the correct family traditional owners of a piece of land. They will do this by sharing their oral histories, or by truth telling. These histories must show a continuity from pre-invasion to the present day to prove continuing sovereignty. It helps if these narratives can be backed up by white man’s science and history. This must also include the not so pretty parts of history, including massacres, dispossession and removals – as these stories also help show continuation for the survivors descendants. Ideally Australia will want to have their entire claimed territory under agreements, the more comprehensive the truth telling, the more water-tight the mapping out the groups and thus the agreements.

These two points alone are necessary legal practicalities that need to be addressed before any agreement making can proceed. 

Re-writing the Zeitgeist of the Australian Republic

There is a third reason for truth telling that is not related to the agreement making, but is also necessary for the reforms to have longevity.

This reason is, that the local sovereign groups must be recognised, and their history and tie to the land as sovereigns of the soil must be emphasised in the collective consciousness of society in order to rule in the right of First Nations. This process needs to occur on all tiers of government, and it must acknowledge individual First Nation sovereign groups. For example, it cannot be merely “we recognise aboriginal peoples”, but it must be “we recognise the Birri Gubba people as the traditional owners of this land”. Sound familiar? That’s because this is already happening.

When I went to school in Queensland in the 80s, we used to sing God save the Queen at our school assembly, and we had a portrait of the Queen in every classroom. This reverence of the Queen doesn’t happen anymore, as it is planned that the sovereignty of the crown be replaced by Aboriginal sovereignty. So the formalities are changing to suit. This has been slowly progressing since terra nullius was overturned as part of the reconciliation agenda.

It has been an 180 degree change in the Zeitgeist – to go from “Aborigines don’t exist” to “We rule in the right of Aboriginal peoples”. This has already happened at a national level, but it still must drill down to the sovereign group level and become more localised. This is absolutely necessary because the individual nations are the holders of sovereignty of the soil, not the generic “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples”. Acknowledgment of country, and welcome to country, knowing who the traditional owner groups are, these formalities are replacing portraits of the Queen.

A couple of years ago I visited an Australian consulate in Frankfurt, Germany. I noticed they had a stately official portrait of Julie Bishop in the waiting room, no portrait of the Queen. I also noted that behind the counter hung an under-stated Aboriginal painting. I imagine that after the reforms go through, Aboriginal paintings will decorate the waiting room as well, and Aboriginal art will eventually be incorporated into official heraldry, seals and such. 
Truth telling is needed to appropriate Aboriginal identity into the Australian identity, and to recognise Aboriginal sovereignty. To quote the Uluru Statement:

“With substantive constitutional change and structural reform, we believe this ancient sovereignty can shine through as a fuller expression of Australia’s nationhood. “

Selling “Truth Telling”

These three aspects can all be taken care of by truth telling.

Now, Australia has been clever in dressing up this information-collecting expedition as truth telling. It resonates well with the Aboriginal community, and it makes it sound appealing to Aboriginal people. Note that Native Title also involved truth telling, as in proving that a group had a legitimate claim. However, the form of truth telling with Native Title was not appealing at all. Court processes typically ran for a decade, it was an expensive, tedious exercise, because the Australian government didn’t want to make it easy or appealing.

Compare this with something called a “Truth and Justice Commission” or “Truthtelling”. Especially to a group whose entire existence was ignored up until the 90s. It sounds far more appealing than Native Title and ILUA dramas.

But don’t be fooled, this is no social justice initiative, it is not inter-generational trauma therapy. It is merely a legal practicality with lipstick. Generally, the less onerous the process looks, the more the government wants participation. The truth must be told to make the agreements, and thus to make the new basis of the truly independent Australian state stable. 

Coming up…

My next video will be the final video of this series on the Yulara Constitutional Reforms. I will discuss how the different elements of the reform package fit together, in particular, how the so-called state-run treaty processes and the federal constitutional reforms work together. Please check back in a few weeks. This next video is especially important to anyone contemplating entering into an agreement in a state treaty process, such as the Victorian Treaties.