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Presenter	Sue Stanton [mailto:sstanton@uow.edu.au]
Title	Theme 3 - 'The Challenge for Australia'
Abstract	Abstract The challenge for Australia at the commencement of the 21^st century is to recognise, and to accept, that sovereignty and development are the defining concepts for understanding the status and structural position of Aboriginal people. While it is recognised that they have been encompassed within the boundaries of the Australian colonial state, and that they have progressively, and not always unwillingly, been incorporated into the capitalist world economy, they essentially still regard themselves as having separate, and legitimate rights by which they should have some control over what is left of their lands, and over their own social institutions. Australia’s challenge is for it to have genuine, full and uncompromising respect for Aboriginal people’s legal rights and for the historical truths that were clearly established in Mabo and to accept that these are not negotiable. It has to be clearly understood that further denial and threats of extinguishment of rights that their own highest institution the High Court has declared, will only erode the relationship further as well as render impotent those recently gained rights, thus making a mockery of its own institutions and adding to its further moral decay as a society.
Bio	Sue Stanton is a Kungarakan-Gurindji woman from the NT currently working as a Lecturer in Aboriginal Studies at University of Wollongong - and a final year PhD (Australian History/Aboriginal Studies) enrolled at the NTU. Sue did her MA at University of Arizona with Rob Williams whereshe studied Federal Indian Law & International Indigenous Human Rights Law - She has an interest in comparative issues in relation to the treaty dialogue

Abstract