Mick Mansell and I and Jamie Lowe did a seminar on treaty and sovereignty not long ago. So I’ll say a few words on sovereignty. https://www.tai.org.au/content/treaty-sovereignty-0

Sovereignty is the most fundamental question you can ask of where the ultimate political and legal authority in a society or polity is located.

We say we did not cede our sovereignty. This is undisputed. It’s been repeated by us over the centuries, decades ... it is in the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

There is no logic to the argument that constitutional reform cedes sovereignty unless you believe that sovereignty belongs to the Crown alone.

The High Court has been pretty consistent on this question. The High Court is a creation of British sovereignty. If the High Court raised questions about the legality of British sovereignty, it would be undermining its own existence.

We know that the arrival & invasion did not cede sovereignty, we know federation did not cede our sovereignty, we know the Constitution did not cede our sovereignty, we know 1967 referendum did not. Constitutional reform cannot cede our sovereignty.

Of course, this is a very legal Western assessment of sovereignty because we know from the perspective of First Nations peoples there is disagreement about whether ‘sovereignty’ is an appropriate way of describing First Nations political and legal authority.

This played out in the regional dialogues. Not everyone views the word as appropriate nor the description of what it means. Some see it as too ‘Western’, eg, exclusive rather than shared, relational, reciprocal; human-centred rather than in relation w non-human agents/phenomena.

This is an important point so when some say international courts, for example, could oversee or determine this matter, many other mob have argued, as they have in the past, that this is a far too Western legal, adversarial concept of sovereignty.

Still, others see this idea of sovereignty in its legal sense as a valid approximation of First Nations political and legal authority. And we should respect these competing ideas.

In any event, many assert the First Nations sovereignty/authority never ceded and continues to exist. And the supposed British acquisition of sovereignty over First Nations lands and waters was unlawful according to First Nations law.

Can I say too this issue is unlikely to ever be raised in the ICJ from the perspective of international law. Sovereignty is seen as supreme political, legal power over a territory via the state. “Standing” to one side, sovereignty will be viewed as belonging to Cth of Australia.

Outside the courts, sovereignty is used as a political assertion/claim. FN claims of sovereignty can be explicitly recognised by Australian politicians in public statements and even in legislation.

See preamble to Advancing the Treaty Process with Aboriginal Victorians Act 2018: ‘Victorian traditional owners maintain that their sovereignty has never been ceded’.

The Uluru Statement says the sovereignty asserted by the Crown co-exists alongside the FN sovereignty that has never been ceded. That's a model of shared sovereignty.

So where does this leave us? Mansell and I both agree that whatever sovereignty means to people (and there are different views among our people as we are not homogenous), it should not be a barrier to change in the here or now. We must not miss opportunities for reform.

Today in 2020 the world is complex and there many overlapping centres of power in the world. Even our federation is designed to split sovereignty between Cth and State governments.

On Australian sovereignty, some argue sovereignty resides with the Crown and most say sovereign authority for the Australian Constitution rests in the hands of the Australian people who can change it a referendum.

Aus is party to UN Charter, international human rights law treaties, multilateral and bilateral trade agreements that give up some Aus sovereignty. (Hello plain packaging).

It’s a long road since absolute monarchies & the concept of “sovereignty” emerged in Western political thought. The singular idea of sovereignty is the artificial in today's world. Shared sovereignty is all around us. And shared sovereignty is the message in the Uluru Statement.

Mansell is right. We shouldn’t waste opportunities for change. He deals with sov’ty early in his book. Many mob need change in the here & now and can’t wait for the great utopian ideas with zero political imperative to come to fruition. Ruminating on that is for a privileged few.

Many of our old people want peace for their country.