Indigenous activist Murrumu has fought the law this week. But who will win?
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Version 0 of 1. Police officers, magistrates, court security officials and journalists might be forgiven for thinking that they have entered an alternative universe when they come up against Murrumu Walubara Yidindji. Or should that be Jeremy Geia? If you’ve been following the saga of Murrumu since Guardian Australia highlighted it a year ago, you’ll know this Indigenous man has renounced his Australian citizenship, having divested of the documentation – passport, Medicare card, driver’s licence and much else – that entitle Australians to the rights and benefits of the commonwealth, its states and territories. You’ll know he doesn’t carry money (it’s always your shout!), that he gave up a superannuation entitlement built over decades as a journalist and that he is, apparently, quite serious when he says he is trying to live by the laws and customs of his Yidindji people of north Queensland. That is not without practical difficulty, of course. Not least because since soon after the European invasion in 1788 settlers, miners and pastoralists began staking their claim to Yidindji land. The first peoples were massacred in droves well into the 19th century (most notably at Skeleton Creek in the 1880s) and the vast provincial farming and tourist mecca of Cairns continues to sprawl across Yidindji land. Related: The man who renounced Australia Today the apparatus and structures of the commonwealth and the state of Queensland – most relevantly in the case of Murrumu, perhaps, the judiciary and the state police force, its patrol cars and officers – are all over Yidindji land. There has been no settlement. And the Yidindji – like all of this continent’s original inhabitants – have not been recognised in the commonwealth of Australia’s 1901 constitution. So, the clash between the commonwealth and Queensland on the one hand, and Murrumu’s self-declared Yidindji nation on the other, would seem as inevitable as it has proven to be. That is why those of you who’ve been following the story of this man who I’d say is in his early 40s (ask him and he’ll tell you he’s as old as the people of his continent – so roughly 60,000) will know about his multiple clashes with the law in both the Australian Capital Territory (where Geia once lived and worked in the federal parliamentary press gallery as a journalist) and Queensland. Murrumu’s critics (evidenced by the social media responses and comments on articles about him) dismiss him as a self-serving publicity seeker. Regardless, his actions have sharpened focus on unresolved questions of Indigenous sovereignty at a time when Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders are debating the merits and potential wording of constitutional recognition in the leadup to a proposed 2017 referendum. While Murrumu did come up against law in the ACT in relation to a Yidindji embassy that he and others had established in public housing, it’s fair to say his greatest friction with the police and, subsequently, the courts has related to alleged driving offences. This is where it gets more complicated. In Canberra in January federal police confiscated the black and gold number plates from the otherwise inconspicuous Ford Ka that Murrumu had driven from Cairns to the nation’s capital (friends and supporters pay for petrol). Four months later in Gordanvale, Queensland, police arrested and charged Jeremy Geia, after a man who identified himself as Murrumu Walubara Yidindji was found driving a Yidindji-registered car with a licence also issued in the name of his nation. The man was bailed pending a further court hearing at which neither Geia nor Murrumu showed. Last weekend police arrested a man (they apparently identified him as Geia) in relation to a number of charges, including breaching bail. He appeared before a magistrate, Jane Bentley, at Cairns local court on Monday and refused to acknowledge the name Jeremy Geia. Murrumu and his supporters interpret the magistrate’s words as highly significant Asked if he was Geia, he replied, “I am Murrumu in the appropriate persona,” and insisted he had been detained and held in captivity against his will. He questioned the court’s jurisdiction over him as a Yidindji man because “the Yidindji were excluded from the Commonwealth Constitution Act of 1901”. Bentley remanded the man in custody until Tuesday morning, explaining she could not bail him because “this person, he says, is not him”. For the Yidindji – and other Indigenous peoples of the continent – who either wish to or have asserted their sovereignty over traditional lands, his reappearance in court on Tuesday was, perhaps, more significant. He argued with the magistrate about why he should identify himself, and reasserted that because his people were not subject to Australian law he had, therefore, been illegally detained. After initially ordering him to be taken back into custody, the magistrate, Robert Spencer, subsequently ordered the man to be released and adjourned the case. An interesting exchange with a court officer ensued in which the Yidindji man asked the court officer who was cuffing him: “Are you engaging in slavery right now?” The officer is reported to have replied, “I’m cuffing you for our safety.” The magistrate is reported to have said: “I’ll take it on that basis that effectively you are not Jeremy David Joseph Geia.” Murrumu and his supporters interpret the magistrate’s words as highly significant. Murrumu says he has correspondence from senior federal government officials addressed to him as “Murrumu Walubara Yidindji”. He interprets this as an acknowledgment of his identity as a Yidindji citizen. I asked Murrumu to elaborate. Gaan-Yarra Yalambara, the Yidindji nation’s attorney general (Murrumu is foreign minister) replied on Murrumu’s behalf because, he explained: “Murrumu is taking a bit of a break at present after a stressful week.” (Court officials and police might empathise.) Yalambara explained: “The magistrate told the man he was free to leave but Geia will be receiving bail terms by mail. The magistrate’s comment was to the effect he could take it that the man before him was not the surety for the legal identity Geia. “This action by the entity called the state of Queensland displayed that the Yidindji nation is foreign to the state of Queensland and or the commonwealth of Australia – this could be further construed as a form of recognition. The very fact that the Australian government is writing to a legal identity created by the authority of another society of peoples is in accord with the ‘constitutive theory of recognition’. “The following internationally recognised legal definition (from the Dictionary of International and Comparative Law, 3rd edition) clearly outlines the current situation – that a community does not become a state merely by asserting its statehood, but is rather ‘constituted’ by the willingness of other states to deal with it as a new state.” A dozen or so people have followed Murrumu in renouncing their Australian citizenship to join the Yidindji nation. Others are set to follow at forthcoming citizenship ceremonies. A year after Murrumu “jumped off the Australian citizen ship” he and his supporters are well and truly on the radar of the commonwealth attorney general and his state and territory counterparts. |