Vice-President (First Nations) Professor Peter Yu delivered the keynote speech at the Stronger Smarter Institute's Stronger Smarter Together Summit in Meeanjin (Brisbane) on Friday 8 May.
Professor Yu addressed the conference theme of 'Reimagining Sovereignty'. "The seminal 1992 case of Mabo 2 did not, beyond rejecting the repugnant fiction of the Terra Nullius lie that we were vacant country, address the question of our legal sovereignty. The High Court feared that any recognition of Indigenous sovereignty would fracture the legal skeleton of the Australian state," Professor Yu said. "However, for us today, we must begin to focus less on prescriptive legal definitions of ‘sovereignty’ and instead ask on what premise do we continue to assert and identify ourselves as Indigenous peoples?”
Earlier Professor Yu spoke about supporting sovereignty by getting First Nations businesses better access to financial capital. "There are historical and other barriers that exist in terms of accessing finance from normal financial institutions, banks," he said. "A level of discrimination and prejudice exists." Professor Yu said Australian Government specialist investment vehicles like the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), Housing Australia and the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF) could be mandated to support more Indigenous-owned enterprises.
Read the keynote speech here.
