No, Shireen. Apartheid in Australia is a real danger
Shireen Morris today claims it is "irrational" to believe that to constitutionally recognise Aborigines and give them extra rights leads logically to claims that those rights should include forms of sovereignty.
She's not just wrong, of course. She even makes a no-but-yes argument in claiming almost no Aborigines argue for sovereignty. Really?
Morris says she's met almost no activists wanting sovereignty:
In my experience, having talked with indigenous people about constitutional recognition for almost six years, very few indigenous Australians want a separate state in the international sense, as Windschuttle suggests. Few feel this is desirable, let alone feasible.
But in the very next paragraph Morris suggests she's in fact met so many that she can tell us what "most" actually think:
Indeed, contrary to his suggestion that indigenous sovereignty campaigners see constitutional recognition as a step towards separate sovereign status, most indigenous activists who harbour aspirations for separate-state sovereignty in the international sense tend not to support constitutional recognition for precisely this reason: such recognition is inclusive and, to genuine separatists, it is problematically integrationist.
First, I don't know why Morris wants to narrow our concern to merely claims for "a separate state in the international sense". Any form of sovereignty on racial grounds is a danger, opening us to apartheid - as I have told Morris personally in discussions.
Second, the argument is not whether recognition is a legal step closer to sovereignty but a logical and emotional step. Legally it is not, but logically and emotionally it clearly is - not least because it is in the nature of a grievance industry to always move the goal posts.
And, thirdly, shooting a documentary on recognition for the ABC I met an astonishing number of activists arguing for or contemplating some form of sovereignty.
I interviewed Michael Mansell, who wants a "seventh state" for Aborigines.
I met the Rev. Dr. Djiniyini Gondarra, chairman of the Arnhem Land Progress Aboriginal Corporation, who wants Aboriginal self-government for Arnhem Land.
I met the Foreign Minister of the Yidindji Nation.
I have also discussed the case of the Aboriginal Provisional Government, which promotes its own passports.
And even the expert panel appointed by the Labor Government to advise on recognition concluded:
In a survey conducted by the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples in July 2011, the three most important policy areas for members were health, education and sovereignty; 88 per cent of Congress members identified constitutional recognition and sovereignty as a top priority.