Severe shortcomings in our intelligence agencies’ priorities and oversight regards Indigenous Peoples include:

• ASIS bugging of East Timor’s parliament for oil and gas;
• Assistance in suppression of indigenous people in West Papua, Indonesia for copper, gold, gas and more; and
• Failure to act to prevent damage to indigenous cultural site Juukan Gorge, WA for iron ore.

It is time to vote Yes on The Voice.

The below is an excerpt of a submission made to the Australian parliament Joint Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs in February 2023 – RE: Inquiry into the application of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in Australia.

Australia ratified the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in 2009 under Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

[A link to the full submission is below]

(1) Overview

In the spirit and requirements of UNDRIP Australia should make reforms in specific areas discussed below to better serve the interests of indigenous people both at home and through its interactions with indigenous people offshore.

Strengthening Australia’s support for and implementation of the principles of UNDRIP will require review, and likely amendment of security legislation which is excessively partial to the status quo; and secondly, oversight of Australian intelligence agencies should be strengthened to ensure UNDRIP principles are respected and complied with by the agencies – specifically, a standing royal commission into the Australian intelligence agencies with broad terms of reference that encompasses the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS), ought to be implemented as recommended by Justice Hope which was a key recommendation of his royal commission into the intelligence agencies in the 1970s but never implemented.

Australian intentions to adopt and support UNDRIP have been and continue to be undermined by Australian intelligence agencies that operate within an outdated mindset and insular worldview with counterproductive results that negatively impact broader national security interests. Our agencies, most notably ASIS and ASIO prioritise economic interests and vague notions of protecting “relationships” often ignoring or working against Indigenous people’s rights.

Examples of our intelligence agency shortcomings include:

1. Australia’s covert bugging of the East Timor parliament by ASIS to gain financial advantage. Even in the widely publicised case of Witness K and Bernard Collaery’s exposure of ASIS’s egregious, illegal bugging of East Timor’s parliament and Australia’s subsequent fraudulent misappropriation of a significant portion of East Timor’s oil and gas revenues, Australian regulators, most notably IGIS, did nothing to remedy the matter.

2. Australian intelligence agencies have played a central role in the political and military alliance against West Papuans in subjugating Melanesian traditional owners to Indonesian rule, a matter that is deeply divisive within the wider region. Many of our island neighbours are Melanesian and identify closely with aspirations of West Papuan indigenous people for a fair plebiscite. The military annexation of West Papua was deemed illegal by many of our neighbours after a rigged plebiscite in 1969 that was conducted under Indonesian military coercion and an unrepresentative process that undermined the integrity of the vote, according to reports by UN observers. Adding insult to injury, West Papua was a staunch WWII ally of America and its annexation is widely viewed as a betrayal by American, UK, and Australian governments. Australia has provided funds and military hardware to Indonesia knowing it was highly probable these would be used in the oppression of Melanesian West Papuan indigenous people,

3. Australian agencies failed to protect, and prevent the destruction of, 46,000 year old caves at the Juukan Gorge in the Pilbara region of Western Australia in May 2020.

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[The below link is a slightly modified version of my submission to JACATSIA Australian Parliamentary Inquiry. At the Committee’s discretion, the submission was not accepted as a formal “submission” for public disclosure. It was, however, accepted as correspondence for private review by the Committee and staffers.]

A full copy of the submission is available for download here:

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