The Albanese government has appointed an ambassador for Australia’s Indigenous people.
Not an Australian ambassador to the United Nations, where there is a Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, but an ambassador for small groups of Australians whose interests may or may not coincide with the interests of the rest of the country.
So, the unravelling of Australia begins.
Justin Mohamed will lead the Office of First Nations Engagement in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. We are told he will work “in genuine partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people” to “progress Indigenous rights globally” and help grow “First Nations trade and investment.”
To the extent that it exists, how is First Nations trade and investment different to other Australian trade and investment? As for rights, these are secured in democracies and not otherwise. How will this indulgence in identity politics end?
An illustration of the likely end is the Waitangi Treaty in New Zealand.
Once thought to be a final settlement, the Māori side of the Waitangi Treaty regularly seek to improve their lot by updating the deal rather than concentrating on contributing to the whole of New Zealand society.
More recently, and not happy with Waitangi, the New Zealand Labour government has embarked on a radical program to reformulate its constitutional arrangements, driven largely by a desire to recognise the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and import the Treaty of Waitangi into the New Zealand Constitution.
The recent report—He Puapua—suggested a pathway to what the report calls “constitutional transformation.” This includes exploring the option of creating an upper house in Parliament to scrutinise legislation for compliance with the Waitangi Treaty and/or the United Nations Declaration.
Other options proposed include a Māori court system and the abolition of prisons.
Is this on Mohamed’s agenda?
The foreign minister, Penny Wong, fresh from telling the UK government to confront its colonial past, crows that the “First Nations people” were “this land’s first diplomats” and that the position would enable “deeper engagement with many of our closest partners including the Pacific family.”
What Has Mohamed Already Brought to the Table?
Mohamed is presently the deputy secretary of Aboriginal Justice in the Victorian government, the group steering the state to de-tribalisation via treaties between Victorians of Aboriginal descent and everyone else.He is of the mindset that the individual, their humanity, and the commonalities shared by all Australians should be ignored.
Instead, the Victorian treaty focuses on people through one prism—race. So much so that people of Aboriginal descent are assumed to think alike and that their needs and aspirations can, and must, be addressed as a group.
The modern Victorian Indigenous person does not speak an Aboriginal language, and they mostly reside in suburbia. On what basis could these groups be regarded as sovereign, let alone nations? Is this the mindset that Mohamed will bring when he represents Australia?
Further, while there is as yet no treaty in Victoria, a Treaty Negotiation Framework has been established, which has specified who can enter treaty negotiations, how negotiations are conducted, and what the subject matter of these negotiations cover—likely including state-wide negotiations and existing local traditional owner treaties.
In addition, a Self Determination Fund has been established to provide “First Nations peoples” with “equal standing” with the state in negotiations.
The complexity of this exercise is extraordinary, and for fewer than 60,000 residents in the state, most of whom live alongside their fellow Victorians and are, indeed, married to other Victorians. This thinking may well infect foreign affairs and will not end well for Australian interests.
Also, Mohamed was previously CEO for Reconciliation Australia, the group charged with finding a path to reconciliation, which has ended in a treaty talk via the Uluru statement that is bound to lead to the re-tribalisation of Australia.
His approach will be steeped in the language of ethnic identity and disparage Australian unity at the very time the country faces serious threats to its sovereignty from foreign regimes like the Chinese Communist Party.
