In the Referendum Council Final Report, some legal advice is reproduced regarding sovereignty.
Here is the advice as in the report (I broke it into chunks and added the numbers in for further reference). In the report it is on page 12.:
1. Phillip’s instructions assumed that Australia was terra nullius, or belonged to no-one.
2. The subsequent occupation of the country and land law in the new colony proceeded on the fiction of terra nullius.
3. It follows that ultimately the basis of settlement in Australia is and always has been the exertion of force by and on behalf of the British Crown. No-one asked permission to settle.
No-one consented, no-one ceded.4. Sovereignty was not passed from the Aboriginal peoples by any actions of legal significance voluntarily taken by or on behalf of them.
Referendum Council Final Report
In this post, I will go through each number, and dissect this advice and give some commentary.
1. Phillip’s instructions assumed that Australia was terra nullius, or belonged to no-one.”
Firstly, in 1788 Australia didn’t exist. Phillip’s instructions do not mention Australia, they refer to “Our Territory of New South Wales and its Dependencies”.
Secondly: The instructions use the word “Our” in “”Our Territory of New South Wales and its Dependencies”, which indicates possession. The territory is assumed to belong (or at least be reserved for) the British before the First Fleet arrives. If it belongs to the British, then it isn’t a terra nullius.
Maybe this could have been worded alternatively like – “British claim over the territory of New South Wales was made under an assumption that it was a terra nullius.” But without the British coming clean – we can’t know what they assumed.
2. The subsequent occupation of the country and land law in the new colony proceeded on the fiction of terra nullius.
The occupation proceeded based on presumed British ownership claims. We don’t know for sure if those British claims and related Acts of State were based on terra nullius – we can only speculate.
Based on my own speculation – I think colonisation proceeded in a complex and non-uniform way. The British have several different and overlapping grounds for territorial claims – some based on terra nullius, others not – even early on. Different parts of Australia were colonised in different ways. For example, the letters patent that established South Australia were not based on terra nullius. The basis of British claims over New Holland and Van Diemen’s Land were never “locked in”, because no one effectively challenged them. In other words – they got 6+ different stories ready-to-go, but never had to use them. The only stories out of these 6+ that were used are 1. ‘Captain Cook discovered Australia’, and 2. ‘terra nullius’. If the Dutch had set themselves up on the west or north coast of New Holland, British claims would have adjusted to one of the alternative stories.
What I find interesting about the advice in general, but particularly in this sentence 2., is the limitation of discourse to land law – instead of law. I think it’s because in the initial Port Jackson area, land tenure law was used as the foot-in-the-door for the reception of English law, which led to presumed British sovereignty. The cart came before the horse.
But don’t forget – it is not just our land that is under occupation – we as peoples are under occupation. They impose their law on us; on our person, on our physical bodies, on our culture, on our symbols and intellectual property. Also – territory is more than just land, so this does not address the occupation of waters and airspace which is also part of sovereignty.
3. It follows that ultimately the basis of settlement in Australia is and always has been the exertion of force by and on behalf of the British Crown. No-one asked permission to settle.
No-one consented, no-one ceded.
“No-one asked permission to settle.” Settlement: as a means of acquiring sovereignty of a no-man’s land, does not need permission – because you can’t get permission from a “no-man”. If the British got permission from Aborigines to “settle”, then it wouldn’t be settlement anymore – it would be something else. In the context of providing legal advice on sovereignty – this is a very confusing thing to write.
Maybe they are using the term ‘settlement’ to mean the domestic settling of the frontier, and not of acquiring sovereignty. But Mabo 2 uses the term “settlement” as a method to acquire sovereignty – so this just makes things confusing. Acquisition of sovereignty by settlement of a terra nullius with force = a contradiction in terms.
I have an issue with the assertion that “the exertion of force has always been ‘by and on behalf of the British Crown“. Over time, Australia has become increasingly administratively independent. The force “by and behalf of” over time has shifted towards the States and the Commonwealth and to the Australian people. It’s not all on the British Crown – let’s not forget that there is now a “Queen of Australia”. There are State governments, each with their own Crown, who forcibly extinguish Native Title. Let’s not forget there was the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADC) in 1987 which occurred after the Australia Acts 1986. The recommendations for the RCIADC were not enacted by the newly-administratively-independent local colonial administration, and this failure cost more Black lives. The claim that exertion of force is on the British Crown is very concerning to me, because I think we are being set-up so that after constitutional reform – if there are any reparations from the British Crown they will go directly to the Australian administration (who were partly responsible) instead of to the actual survivors of genocide.
“No-one consented, no-one ceded”. – This is a tricky one, I’ll get back to this at the end after I deal with 4…
4. Sovereignty was not passed from the Aboriginal peoples by any actions of legal significance voluntarily taken by or on behalf of them.
This is in regards to actions taken, or not taken by “Aboriginal peoples”. I’m assuming this here does not include Torres Strait Islander peoples, as they are in a different situation.
Note that this doesn’t say – “there was no treaty in the establishment of Australia” – because that wouldn’t be true. Australia is a treaty – it is a federation of States/colonies, the word federation derives from a word meaning treaty. Aboriginal people were never involved in any of the treaties that form the foundation of Australia.
Back to point 3 earlier – “no-one consented, no-one ceded”.
Well, it may be the case that the Dutch consented and ceded New Holland and/or Van Diemen’s Land to the British. Whether that happened or not, and whether that was valid or not, would be a technical question for an international court to determine. The question could be something like:
Did the Anglo-Dutch treaty of 1824 include the territories of New Holland and Van Diemen’s land, and did it transfer sovereignty of those territories from the Dutch to the British?
I think (if you could miraculously get it into an international court – pretty much impossible) the answer would be “no”. Firstly – the lands were not specifically mentioned in the treaty (although the actions of the British suggest they considered the lands to be part of the treaty – see video from about 26 min). Secondly – the Dutch merely had right of preemption based on the Doctrines of Discovery, they never went further than that in their claims. Thirdly – the Dutch did not have any diplomatic relationships with; did not politically represent; nor negotiate any terms in the interests of, or on behalf of; the Aboriginal inhabitants of New Holland and Van Diemen’s Land in the 1824 treaty.
For the “yes” arguments for the question above – there was a change in international recognition from the Dutch to the British. Before 1788, New Holland was Dutch in maps, and other European powers stayed clear of the place in implied recognition of Dutch claim. International recognition of British sovereignty over the territory happened gradually after 1824, as they made new establishments across the land beyond the Great Dividing Range. The treaty marked the formality behind this shift.
But the British put many of their eggs in the basket for a “yes” answer for the technical question above. They never bothered with a treaty directly with Aboriginal nations. Now they are trying to fix this by sneaking us in under the Australian political representation system so they can speak with a sovereign, autochthonous (indigenous) voice.