The future is in our hands: Reconciliation direction 2001

As Prime Minister, Mr Howard should be seeking to resolve the division. Any dictionary will tell him the word treaty can also apply to any agreement or compact.

Nevertheless, Indigenous people will not agree to any document or documents of reconciliation that compromise our assertions of sovereignty. The reason is simple and the facts of history are clear on this.

Governor Phillip arrived in Australia with instructions to settle this country "with the consent" of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Consent was never given.

We never gave up our lands. They were taken from us. This is the black hole in the heart of Australian history. From the moment the British established a penal colony at Sydney Cove on 26 January 1788, all thinking about Indigenous peoples in Australia was dominated by the notion of terra nullius.

This was despite the fact it had been the practice of European colonial powers in Africa, the Americas, Africa, Asia and New Zealand at the time to seek to negotiate treaties with the Indigenous peoples.

It was not long, however, before the British settlers had to adjust their ideas about the Indigenous peoples.

By the end of the nineteenth century, enough was known of the law and governance of Aboriginal tribes to suggest a society that had exercised sovereignty prior to the arrival of Europeans.

Yet it was not until the courageous 1992 Mabo case that the High Court finally rid us of the doctrine of terra nullius. When this country, through its highest court, finally recognised what we have always known - that our Indigenous laws and customs are the source of our rights. When your system finally said this was true under common law as well.

The Court, however, did not explicitly address the question of original Aboriginal sovereignty. And there remains no constitutional or other document that records the consent of Australia's Indigenous peoples about the terms of our relationship with non-Indigenous Australians.

This is what we are seeking.

Recognition that we possess distinct rights arising from our status as first peoples, from our relationships with our territories and waters, and our own systems of law and governance.

In this regard, Australia is well behind developments in other countries. There are a range of contemporary agreements negotiated overseas between Indigenous peoples and non-indigenous and colonial states.