2019-07-15 General Committee Agenda

GENERAL COMMITTEE MEETING REPORT   15 JULY 2019

                                    Attachment 1




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GENERAL COMMITTEE MEETING REPORT                                        15 JULY 2019
                                                                         Attachment 1

                     ULURU STATEMENT FROM THE HEART

  We. gathered at the 2017 National Constitutional Convention. coming from all points of the
  southern sky, make this statement from the heart:
 Our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the first sovereign Nations of the
 Australian continent and its adjacent islands, and possessed it under our own laws and customs.
 This our ancestors did, according to the reckoning of our culture, from the Creation, according
  to the common law from ‘time immemorial’, and according to science more than 60.000 years
  ago.
  This sovereignty is a spiritual notion: the ancestral tie between the land, or ‘mother nature’,
  and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who were born therefrom, remain
  attached thereto, and must one day return thither to be united with our ancestors. This link is
  the basis of the ownership of the soil, or better, of sovereignty. It has never been ceded or
  extinguished. and co-exists with the sovereignty of the Crown.
 How could it be otherwise? That peoples possessed a land for sixty millennia and this sacred
 link disappears from world history in merely the last two hundred years?
 With substantive constitutional change and structural reform. we believe this ancient
  sovereignty can shine through as a fuller expression of Australia’s nationhood.
  Proportionally, we are the most imcarcerated people on the planet. We are not an innately
  criminal people. Our children are aliened from their families at unprecedented rates. This
  cannot be because we have no love for them. And our youth languish in detention in obscene
 numbers. They should be our hope for the future.
 These dimensions of our crisis tell plainly the structural nature of our problem. This is the
  torment of our powerlessness.
  We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own
 country. When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish. They will walk in
 two worlds and their culture will be a gift to their country.
 We call for the establishment of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution.
  Makarrata is the culmination of our agenda: the coming together after a struggle. It captures
  our aspirations for a fair and truthful relationship with the people of Australia and a better
  future for our children based on justice and self-determination.
 We seek a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement-making between
  governments and First Nations and truth-telling about our history.
  In 1967 we were counted. in 2017 we seek to be heard. We leave base camp and start our trek
  across this vast country. We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people
 for a better future.

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