Indigenous Aspirations and Structural Reform in Australia

"Can the Australian state be restructured to empower Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and ensure that their distinct interests are considered in the processes of government? This book provides an answer to that question for Australia and provides guidance for all states that claim jurisdiction and authority over the traditional lands of Indigenous peoples. This includes Canada, New Zealand, and the United States, as well as those less often considered, such as Scandinavian and South American states. By engaging directly with Indigenous Australians' nuanced and complex aspirations, this book presents a viable model for structural reform. It does so by adopting a distinctive and innovative approach: drawing on Indigenous scholarship globally it presents a coherent and compelling account of Indigenous peoples' political aspirations through the concept of sovereignty. It then articulates those themes into a set of criteria legible to Australia's system of governance. This original perspective produces a culturally informed metric to assess institutional mechanisms and processes designed to empower Indigenous peoples. Reflecting the Uluru Statement from the Heart's call for