Gabrielle’s statement in Parliament about Camp Sovereignty. Full Transcript:
On 26 January First Nations leaders re-established Camp Sovereignty. Hundreds now sit on top of a small, quiet hill just down the road at Kings Domain. But the land that they occupy is not the domain of some distant monarch. It is a burial site with the remains of Indigenous people from 38 Indigenous nations. It is sacred land. What a privilege it was last week to be invited to listen and learn with the world’s oldest continuing culture. In the middle there was a small fire. Two people smoothed the sand around it in circles, and I was reminded that every day is Invasion Day. Just yesterday a coronial inquest into the death of a Yorta Yorta and Gunnai/Kurnai man in police custody reported that he called out ‘I’m dying’ just before becoming unresponsive. It took 17 minutes for him to get medical attention.
The decisions that we make in this place are decisions of life and death. Camp Sovereignty is an invitation to move forward together. They call for an acknowledgement that genocide has taken place and that sovereignty was never ceded, for Kings Domain to be returned to its traditional owners, for the right for Indigenous people to light fires on their own land and for treaty and justice for all Indigenous people and First Nations people.
