To start with a disclaimer just to makes things clear. I am a permanent resident in Germany, so I can’t vote in the upcoming referendum even if I wanted to. I am pro-sovereignty, and I support genuine informed self-determination. For me, this means it’s up to each sovereign nation to decide what they want to do in the referendum. Here’s some food for thought for this decision making.

Now I will start off with the assumption that voting ‘yes’ has already been ruled out as an option, because this would be a different conversion altogether. I am also going to assume that you, are a potential voter and an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander person, and you are tossing up whether to vote no or to not vote at all. I’m pro-boycott, and in this post I’m going to go through my thought process.

Pure Voting Strategy

First I want to look at it purely by the numbers and by the referendum rules. And yeah, I am talking about a change to the constitution act, which isn’t exactly what was asked for in Uluru Statement, but it seems to be what’s happening this year anyway.

Let’s take a hypothetical scenario. Suppose you were to mobilise and organise 99% of all Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander people to all vote NO in the referendum. What would the impact be? Could we realistically have a discernable impact on the final result?

In this type of referendum that modifies the constitution act, there are two hurdles to be met. One is the majority of 6 States must each vote yes. The other hurdle is an overall national simple majority must be met.

If you look on wikipedia, it has a list of all the referendums in a handy table. It’s handy because you can sort it by different columns. From playing with the table sorting a bit, you can see that some referendums failed the majority of the States test but passed the simple majority test. But there have been no referendums that passed the majority of the States test but failed the simple majority test. This would indicate that it is that the real test in a referendum is the majority of the States test. And therefore, the easiest way to defeat a referendum would be to focus on swinging a state or two towards a ‘no’ vote.

Is it possible for our hypothetical 99% no-voting block of Aboriginal people to swing a State? Let’s look at the demographics… Below is a chart showing the proportion of ‘Indigenous Australians’ [sic] in each State.

We would have a very decent chance at swinging Northern Territory to a ‘no’ vote. But unfortunately, the Northern Territory doesn’t count as one of the 6 States for the referendum. NT votes just get shoved into the nation-wide pool. So there goes that idea.

So we are starting with a very big handicap thanks to being outnumbered. We will need to campaign to others, and try to convince them to vote no. Our chances are not that good.

But maybe there’s some hope… if you go back to the wikipedia table and sort by the national majority (column called voters)tally, you will see there are quite a lot of referendums that were down-to-the-wire, with a simple nationwide result between 47% and 53%. As we are now about 3-4% of the total national tally, we could have theoretically swung these referendums. But if you sort by date, you will see these were mostly a really long time ago, before we could vote at all. You have to go back in-time by 7 referendums before you find the most recent one within a 3% margin.

Even if we were a perfectly coordinated, no-voting block, the chances are not good that we could realistically influence the result. We would need to rely on influencing others to tip the scale, and that’s not self-determination. The game is rigged.

The role of the Media

I think Aboriginal people as a political community have a complicated relationship with the media. I’m going to share some of my (unashamedly biased) impressions.

As we are such a small minority, our voices are easily drowned out. It seems that one moment, the media can throw us a lifebuoy, and the next moment they are in the pool pushing our heads under. There’s a similar dynamic between the media and celebrities. But a celebrity can at least speak authoritatively on their own behalf. We can’t always do that, because the media can always pick and chose who to listen to depending on their agenda. They can shop around for the right soundbite. And the media follow the money. Who’s paying them? Yeah, we know who.

Even in our theoretical scenario of 99% co-ordinated NO-vote… We are at a great disadvantage. Because we don’t pay the media, they are not on our side.

There’s many ways to spin a story. We show up to the polling booth and tick our name off the list. The moment we drop our ballot in the box, our vote is indistinguishable from the 97% non-Aboriginal population. There are ways to spin the end result. It wasn’t Aboriginal people voting no… it was Karen and her friends. The media can shop and pick just the right showcase electorate by demographics for such a story to make sense. They can stand outside a polling booth until they get the right voter with the right sound-bite. There’s literally hundreds of ways that our theoretical 99% coordinated no-vote can be lost inside the ballot box.

The spin has already started. Example this article; 80% of Aboriginal people support the voice. The strategy is already in place. The place that media portrays as having the biggest visible Aboriginal dissent seems to be in the NT itself. Quelle surprise – because that’s exactly where an Aboriginal vote would make a difference. They need an explanation for the big NT no-vote that’s going to happen. The media are priming the reason, and that is because the Aboriginal people in NT are Anangu, traditional old-skool who are unhappy with the misuse of their word Uluru, and they vote differently to the Aboriginal people in the other States who are going to vote predominantly yes… You know, the yes-voting city Aborigines in Victoria, sipping on fancy coffee wearing high-heals. Victoria – high absolute Aboriginal population, but low proportion compared to the general Victorian population… The city-black’s vote is the easiest to make dissapear in the bucket of ballots using the magic of stortytelling. It’s a numbers and yarn-telling game by Crosby-Textor. The absolute majority of Aboriginal people do live in the States, so the claim that 80% of Aboriginal people support the voice can logically hold up. So if you are an Aboriginal person in the higher populated States, your ‘no’ vote is already attributed to ‘Karen who watches Sky news’ before the date is even set, all thanks to media spin.

Active vs. inactive action

I have seen on social media some Aboriginal people advocate for a NO vote over a boycott for the following reason.

A ‘no vote’ is better because it is an active/assertive, not inactive/passive action. Voting NO is actually ‘doing something’, whereas a boycott is ‘doing nothing’. It’s better to ‘do something’ than ‘do nothing’.

While I respect that opinion, I argue against it for the following reasons.

An active approach is not always better than a passive approach. An (unfortunate) example is when a Aboriginal youth is dealing with the police. An active approach against the police is outright dangerous. It really depends on the situation whether a active or passive approach is better. It’s about using the right tool for the job.

Secondly, a boycott can be an active action, it depends how on it’s implemented. An active boycott in this scenario could be also double as an assertion of self-determination and sovereignty if done in a certain way. A group that identifies themselves as sovereign can band together, collectively agree as a clan/tribe/community etc. to boycott, and put out a public statement declaring that. eg. “We the xxxxx people are not participating in this referendum because yyyy plus we are not citizens of the state of QLD anyway, we are peoples under colonial occupation”. This way, you will be heard clearly. It will be difficult for the media to spin if the group of people is large enough. It may also help prevent potential election fraud (eg. if it turns out that members of your group had their names crossed off when they didn’t vote). It might also be a good idea for someone to keep track of names and/or a count of people who are under the public statement. I think it is unlikely that your people will be fined for not voting in this scenario, particularly for this referendum, because the government would need massive balls to fine your group for expressing their identity in this way – and that’s mainly to do with International laws on self-determination of colonised peoples AND also the “Indigenous rights”/UNDRIP (gammin version of self-determination).

Another way to make an active action against the referendum on the side of a boycott is by a petition to c24 as I blogged about here.

A boycott can also be passive and lazy. Just don’t turn up, and don’t say anything. That might be good for your own peace of mind. But it’s probably not going to be very effective, even if you are a high profile person with a platform and put out your own statement.

It doesn’t make sense for us to be voting anyway

It doesn’t really make sense for us Aboriginal people to be voting at all in this Australian referendum.

• At Yulara an offer was made on behalf of all First Nations[sic] people to the Australian people.
• The Australian people will accept of reject the offer. They do so by having a referendum.
• Aboriginal people shouldn’t be voting in the Australian referendum, because then they are playing both sides of the table.

If we vote in the referendum, not only are we playing both sides of the table, but it sends the wrong message about who we are.

Unlike previous referendums or elections, it is especially important for this particular referendum: high levels of Aboriginal participation could be mis-interpreted that we are asserting our identity as Australians with a right to say in the matter. When did we become Australian? If we are Australian at all, we must have always been Australian. The First Australians, under brutal Australian law.

In terms of the right to self-determination for colonial peoples determining their political status, that’s a big mistake in my opinion. We need to differentiate ourselves, and any negotiation with the occupiers needs to be from a basis of “us and them”, at least initially. As John Howard said (paraphrasing) – Australia can’t treaty with itself. If we start off-the-bat saying we are one with colony, there’s no point.

I’m playing contrarian

This one a dumb reason for a boycott, but it is one of my reasons… There are certain “grassroots leaders” who I don’t trust, because I have watched them carefully for several years, and they are consistently nudging Aboriginal people in what my analysis shows is the wrong direction. These individuals now seem to be trying to dissuade a boycott in favour of a NO vote. I see them coming a MILE away… And it feeds into my confirmation bias. Not the best reason, but a reason nonetheless.

Reasons to Vote No instead of boycott

Reading what I’ve written, I think maybe I’m too harsh on vote no. I’m trying to think of a good reason to vote no rather than boycott.

But I’m struggling… There’s only one reason I can think of, and that there’s a small possibility that it may be the difference between the referendum passing or failing. But I don’t buy lotto tickets.

Titleimage from John Hain on Pixabay

The voice to Parliament, quite simply, is voting rights.

Let’s break it down.

1. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are politically ‘seperate and distinct’ from “Australia”. This is affirmed in UN General Assembly Resolution 2625, as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are under colonial occupation, and have not yet excercised their right to self-determination in accordance with General Assembly Resolution 1514.
2. Australia is a Federation of Colonies which was enacted by the Imperial parliament in England. It was done in the authority of the English Crown with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in England. In otherwords, Australia is a political construct enacted by the English Crown and with the OK from English land-owners and the Church of England.
3. The Crown of England, and House of Lords of England have no juristiction over the territory known as Australia. Geographical Australia is not part of the English created political construct known as Australia, but it is territory that is under occupation by that political construct. Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land.
4. The Parliament of Australia, as a democratic Parliament, represents the Australian polity. The people of the English Crown jurisdiction who operate under the English occupier law.
5. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, as a collective, never agreed to become part of the Australian polity.
6. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people do not fall under the authority of the Church of England, English landowners or the English Crown.
7. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, as a collective, are not a sub-set of the Australian polity.
8. As such, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people do not have the right to representations to the Australian Parliament.
9. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people vote at the discretion of the States. This is in the Constitution Act, and can also be deduced from what changes happened after the 1967 referendum.
10. The Voice to Parliament is a request from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people for the right to make representations to the Australian Parliament.
11. The form and structure of the Voice to Parliament is to be determined by Parliament.
12. The form and structure of any voice to Parliament is already long well established in Australia and in other democracies around the world. It is usually one person, one vote.

Think about it guys…. The Voice to Parliament – in the long run – is not going to be a seperate Aboriginal-only body, with Aboriginal-only seats, to be voted on only by Aboriginal people.

IT IS VOTING RIGHTS!

We will be selling out our right to decolonise under our own terms for the right to vote.

The 141st meridian east is an interesting meridian.

It approximates the border between Papua New Guinea and the Indonesian province of West Papua. However, there is a slight interruption at the intersection of the Fly River.

Map showing the border between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. By Plucas58 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42846276

141 East also approximates the eastern border of South Australia, where South Australia borders with New South Wales and Victoria. However, south of the triangular border between South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria, the border shifts very slightly west of the 141 E meridian.

Map: OpenStreetMap contributors, CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The border in both instances appears to have been where it is because of British decisions. In this post, I am going try to find why they chose 141 E.

Brief Historical Background of these borders

1836: The province of South Australia was carved out in 1836. This is the first use of 141 E. This meridian was later used in 1859 as the western border of Queensland when the Colony Queensland was first established. For a more full understanding, see this wikipedia article for the full territorial evolution of the states.

1883: In the case of the Papua New Guinea/Indonesia border, 141E was initially chosen by the police magistrate of Queensland during an attempt to annex the eastern half of Papua. The attempt seems to have initially failed as it did not get the rubber stamp from the British crown. But then shortly after, Germany annexed the northern half of that portion, ie the north east quarter of the island. Then the British immediately stepped in and annexed the south east quarter of the island. This all happened in 1883 and I have blogged about it here. It was obviously co-ordinated between Germany and England, otherwise Germany would have annexed the entire eastern-half and not just the north-eastern quarter.

Why 141 East?

Why 141 East, and not – say – 140 which is a more round number? 141 East seems to have been plucked from thin air.

Well I think it is to do with (like many unexplained colonial executive decisions) the doctrines of discovery.

Let’s look at the island Papua/New Guinea/Irian itself. The name New Guinea was given by a Spanish explorer (and probably “first discoverer”) Inigo Ortiz de Retez. He claimed possession of the land from the mouth of the Mamberamo River. This is a massive river system, the third largest by discharge in Oceana according to wikipedia. Under the Doctrines of Discovery, if a discoverer claims the mouth of the River – he claims the river catchment.

The headwaters of this river is in very thick jungle. So it would have been very difficult for any Europeans to precicely survey the exact eastern-most point of the catchment. But 141 degrees east is actually pretty darn close to the eastern-most meridian in which the Mamberamo River catchment falls.

I don’t have a actual map of the Mamberamo River catchment, so I quickly mocked this Google earth screenshot up. You can look on Google maps or Google earth and follow the river upstream with your mouse and eyeballs. The catchment seems to sneak over the border at one point, but the eastern-most point of the catchment is pretty damn close to 141 East (marked here in yellow as the Indonesia/PNG border).

Doctrines of Discovery

So let’s look at this in terms of the Doctrines of Discovery.

The Spanish claimed and planted the flag at the mouth of the Mamberamo River in 1545. That puts the catchment under Spanish First Discovery, and also makes it a single, contiguous territory (at least until it is challenged).

The Portuguese probably had contact with the island of New Guinea before the Dutch moved in, but it seems this contact was limited to the west and outside of the Mamberamo catchment. The Dutch had treaties with the Sultanate of Tidore, who claimed to have coastal parts of New Guinea (including in the catchment) as something akin to vassal state territory.

As the Spanish had initially claimed up to 141 degrees east (even though they were not aware of the extent of their claim), any subsequent european claim encompassing parts of the river catchment would also extend to 141 east. This would include the Dutch/Tidore treaty, so in other words, the Dutch have claim of the Mamberamo catchment because of their treaties with Tidore.

So before the British (or should I say, Queensland) came along, no one had actually claimed, settled or treatied with natives east of the Mamberamo River catchment. Since the Spanish claimed discovery a very long time ago in 1545, and the Dutch never moved further east, it could be said that territory east of Mamberamo River catchment is ripe for the taking.

All up, this makes 141 east a decent candidate border for the eastern most meridian of the entire Dutch East Indies territory itself. The Dutch didn’t have any establishments east of that line. The most eastern part of their effective administration in the region was Aru Islands, well to the west of 141E.

This is probably why South Australia was established in the way that it was. South Australia was a test. It was like a provocation for the Dutch to react and challenge inpingment on their side of the 141 East meridian. This meridian was also used for the border of the Colony of Queensland for the same reason.

Also note, the western border of the Province of South Australia was initially set at 132 east – not at the Western Australia border. This left an awkward gap on the map. When Bremer stood on Coburg peninsular (near Darwin in the north) and annexed a large chunk of New Holland just after the Anglo-Dutch treaty of 1824, he stood less than 20km east of this 132 East meridian.

Map: The awkward gap west of South Australia (ignore the captions/text, it is unrelated…). By User:Golbez – Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=63611588

The northern border of South Australia was set at 26 degrees south. At this same latitude on the east coast is an area which Matthew Flinders explored in high detail (Hervey’s Bay), and I believe it is because 26 degrees south lies in-between the two following latitudes: 1. The half-way latitude between Cape York and South West Cape in Tasmania (27°09’59S) and 2. the half-way latitude between Cape York and Wilsons Prom (24°54’42). Setting SA’s border at 26 South is a hedge betting strategy for drawing a north-south, British-Dutch border.

So next thing…. what’s up with the anomolies in the borders?

The so-called Survey Error in Australia state borders

First a map to get started… Here is a map showing the 141 E meridian in red, a very roughly drawn Mamberano River catchment in white, and the Murry Darling Basin in purple-ish.

So if the Dutch East Indies eastern boundary is at 141 degrees east, there is a problem here for the British. Because the mouth of the Murray Darling is actually on the Dutch side of the line. So technically, that might mean that the entire Murray Darling catchment is part of the Dutch East Indies.

Now let’s look at the so-called survey error again;

Map: OpenStreetMap contributors, CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

It is at the Murray Darling that the “survey error” that the anomoly begins.

I think this is no survey mistake, but deliberate.

The main reason for this is to bolster the British claim of the pocket of territory that lies to the south and outside of the Murray Darling catchment – ie. roughly half of Victoria – the parts of Victoria south of the top ridgeline of the Victorian alps including Melbourne, plus a small corner of South Australia (including Mt Gambier up to Tintinara).

This is because the British can then argue that the western border of Victoria has nothing to do with 141E, but is simply an well established administrative boundary that runs through the British pocket of territory south of the Murray Darling catchment.

This “survey error” also helps a little in bolstering the claim of the Murray Darling catchment itself – by having part of the border running along the river makes the river an integral part of the border, and proves the British “know” the river and have surveryed it. (Later on the British claim on the Murray Darling catchment is further bolstered with the drawing up of the QLD/NSW border at misplaced “Point Danger”, but that’s another story that I touched on in this linked post)

With this “error” – upon Dutch challenge of the establishment of the Province of South Australia, a new (potential) international border between British colonies and the Dutch East Indies would be much more likely to run along 141 East down to near Broken Hill, where it would turn westward and follow the northern border of the Murray Darling catchment to somewhere near Adelaide. This is much preferable for the British than 1. losing the entire Murray Darling catchment to the Dutch, or 2. having the 141 east line go directly south to the south coast.

Note also

1. That Adelaide – the capital of the Province of South Australia was situated just outside to the west of the Murray Darling catchment, it is seperated from the catchment only by the Adelaide hills. This is kinda convenient also, because in case of challenge, the British could argue that they are already settled and established west of the catchment.

2. Flinders’ encounter with the French explorer Baudin in 1802 actually happened right next to the mouth of the Murray Darling, even though at the time officially Europeans supposedly didn’t know where the river mouth was. Kind of an amazing coincidence that the British and French were BOTH at such an important strategic location at the same time. I’m pretty sure Flinders knew the mouth was there, and that is also why he was scoping out the Flinders Ranges for suitable sites for a coastal settlement west of the Murray Darling catchment. He even made a rare excursion on foot to the top of the ranges, probably in the hope of seeing a massive river on the other side. Maybe the French knew about the mouth as well, I suspect they had British informants (double agents) passing them intel which is why Baudin was also there.

And the little zig-zag in PNG/Indonesia border….

I’m not exacly sure yet where the zig-zag at the Fly River came from or when it came about, but here’s my guess.

Note that the zig-zag is definitely well to the south of the Mamberamo catchment and on the British (south) side and not the German (north) side. So it would have been a British creation. The Germans didn’t care, whereas the British had high stakes due to territorial claims on mainland Australia.

I am guessing that the British re-jigged the border at some stage, and gave up a little bit of high jungle so they can later argue that the border has nothing to do with 141 east. This distances them from the doctrines of discovery and the contention with the Dutch, and makes the border simply of an administrative nature.

• sorry if my spelling/typos is bad here, I’m on German spellcheck so the whole post is red quiggly lines 😀