Aboriginal Provisional Government

Aboriginal Provisional Government

Aboriginal Provisional Government logo
Abbreviation	APG
Formation	1990
Type	Aboriginal organisation
Legal status	active
Purpose	advocate and public voice, educator and network
Headquarters	Tasmania, Australia
Region served	Australia
Official language	English
Website	Aboriginal Provisional Government

The Aboriginal Provisional Government (APG) is an Indigenous Australian independence movement.

The idea of an Aboriginal government was developed by some Aboriginal delegates of the Federation of Land Councils at its meeting at JaJa in the Northern Territory in 1990. The Federation was a powerful national body but which pretty much limited its involvement to land issues. Some Federation members felt the Aboriginal cause had to move to another level and the name of any new body should reflect a broader horizon while complementing existing Aboriginal groups. The "Provisional" aspect was included for two reasons: first, this Aboriginal body would foster a transition from white government control to an eventual full blown black national government. Second, the APG was not set up to govern Aboriginal people but to be a political vehicle for self-determination aspirations. Bob Weatherall, Josie Crawshaw, Geoff Clark, Clarrie Isaacs, Michael Mansell, Robbie Thorpe, Kathy Craigie and Lyall Munro Jnr were founding members of the APG.

Charles Perkins' early efforts of freedom rides in NSW and his public arguments with politicians (and his boss at Department of Aboriginal Affairs), affected younger APG members. Perkins' later organization of Aboriginal football carnivals led to Geoff Clark and Michael Mansell first meeting. Development of early APG political thought to move away from Australian government dependence took its roots in academic writings of Kevin Gilbert's Treaty 88, Oodgeroo Noonuccal and Jack Davis's poetry and Paul Coe's litigation for Aboriginal sovereignty in Coe v Commonwealth in 1978.

Word quickly spread about the formation of the APG. The first public announcement of formation of the APG took place at Tranby College, Glebe, Sydney in 1990 run by Kevin Cook. In 1992 the APG held a national meeting at Hobart, Tasmania where an Elders Council was established. Queenslander Joe McGuiness, a strong unionist and campaigner for the 1967 referendum, headed up the Elders Council.

The APG issues Aboriginal passports and Aboriginal birth certificates. Passports are a way of declaring national black identity and are often used by young Aboriginals as an identity document. Birth certificates are issued so that Aboriginal children are not forced to be registered at birth with the white nation of Australia. Jack Davis, a well-known Aboriginal poet from WA, gave APG permission to use part of his poem about an Aboriginal nation. The APG letterhead carries Jack's words at the bottom of the page.

The Australian government shunned the APG after the APG declared it would only meet on a government to government basis, not as a lobby group. Members of the APG eventually met with Prime Minister Paul Keating on native title legislation (as part of the 'B' Team). Michael Mansell had been involved earlier in native title deliberations after he was elected to a representative body by a national Aboriginal meeting of 400 people at Eva Valley in the Northern Territory to protect the Mabo High Court gains. However, Mansell later refused to go with his co-Aboriginal delegates to sign off on the final legislation with Keating because Mansell refused to validate invalid grants. Such validation only targeted Aboriginal native title, while leaving white land interests intact. This was a reproduction of Jo Bjelke-Peterson's attempted anti-native title law which was struck down by the High Court in Mabo. Keating and the 'A' team got around the discriminatory move by suspending the operation of the Racial Discrimination Act.