Indigenous sovereignty and the Australian state: Relations in a globalising era

Globalisation brings with it the international marketplace, the primacy of market forces and private property rights, privatisation, a commitment to reducing state regulation and control, and the ascension of neo-liberalism as the dominant policy paradigm across all areas of social, political and economic life. This chapter discusses the unprecedented challenges to Indigenous sovereignty posed by globalisation. The societal change wrought by the process of globalisation has direct repercussions for Indigenous sovereignty and Indigenous rights. While fundamentally intertwined, these dimensions are discussed separately to demonstrate the complexity and depth of the impact of globalisation on Indigenous sovereignty and rights. This juxtaposition of Indigenous Australia’s interests with those of ‘others’ such as migrants and refugees indicates an overt move away from any political or social policy recognition of either Indigenous sovereignty or specific Indigenous rights. The problem for Indigenous sovereignty and Indigenous rights, however, lies in the vacuum left by the abolition of the only existing national Indigenous sovereignty advocacy body.