One should not celebrate the victory of the No side winning in the Voice referendum for too long, as the globalist elites behind all of this, are not resting and is pressing on with its agenda for the dispossession of traditional Australians, using indigenous people as pawns in the game. Here is an item from the ABC, pushing the line that autonomy and self-governance for the Torres Strait people is the next big thing.
Well, if so, will they be setting up their own army, air force and navy to defend against communist China? Or will perhaps, the people decide that communist China is better than the dreaded white Australians?
“When Milton Savage looks out on the turquoise waters of the Torres Strait, he sees a path for his people to take greater control over their futures.
The Kaurareg nation includes Possession Island, where Captain Cook claimed the Australian east coast for the British crown in 1770.
Since then, the nations of the Torres Strait have been locked in a battle for greater self-determination and regional autonomy, of which Saturday's referendum on a Voice to Parliament was merely the latest chapter.
"This is a black country, you know," Mr Savage says
Localised results from the referendum reveal just how differently Torres Strait Islanders saw their future compared with many other voters in Queensland, the state their homelands became annexed to in 1879.
Two polling booths on the archipelago's largest settlement of Waiben, or Thursday Island, recorded Yes votes above 72 per cent, a near-reverse image of the statewide figure.
Two remote mobile polling teams that covered the outer Torres Strait Islands collected even higher percentage figures for Yes.
"The Voice to me was a stepping stone for addressing many other issues relating to the struggles of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in this country," Mr Savage says.
Not the first rejection
With the Voice defeated, Mr Savage and other Torres Strait Islanders will look elsewhere for the greater self-governance they desire.
Perina Drummond, whose ancestors hail from Mer Island, returned to her birthplace of Waiben during the pandemic, and took on the job of leading the Yes campaign locally.
Torres Strait Islanders, she says, showed they "definitely want change".
"We still have the same issues we had to address from yesterday," Ms Drummond says.
A shortage of suitable housing for families to live in and young people to move back to limited access to healthcare, and a bureaucracy stifling people's ability to control their own land are chief among the concerns of people here.
"It's not the first time we've been said 'no' to before," Ms Drummond says.
"It's not the first time we've been in this position where we have to keep fighting for our communities, our families, our home."
"We'll come up with something else."
A voice from the deep
What that something else looks like depends on who you ask.
Many leaders in the Torres Strait, including the heads of the two local councils, have championed the Masig Statement.
A four-point plan also titled Malungu yangu wakay, or the "voice from the deep", the statement aims to secure regional sovereignty for the Torres Strait by 2037 — a century after the first conference of regional island councillors.
"By virtue of our sovereign right," it states, "we have the right to freely determine our political status and to freely pursue our economic, social, and cultural development."
Robert Sagigi, a Wakaid elder whose clan is one of three on Badu Island, voted no to the Voice to Parliament, which he saw as "somebody talking on our behalf without consent".
"Don't set up an organisation to manage us because the organisation that you're going to create is a monster that will absorb all the goodness," he says.
His vision, which he has also championed for decades, is of the Torres Strait as an autonomous territory in free association with Australia — a model similar to some island nations in the Pacific.
In 2004, he was part of a group of Torres Strait Islander leaders who asked then-Queensland premier Peter Beattie to table a request for greater autonomy at a meeting of the Commonwealth of Australian Governments.
"We're isolated and we want to run our affairs," Mr Sagigi says.
"We're tribal people. Now, we've got to action things based on the needs of our people, and if you can't assist that need — if the kitchen is hot — get out."
A Kaurareg traditional owner, Mr Savage says individual island communities in the Torres Strait are "crying out to establish their own economy" but he is open to a different approach.
"I am thinking I should just focus on my people and my own kingdom because it's a waste of time for me to try and stand up, include, address and support issues that are being rejected by lower-minded people," he says.
The Kaurareg people are setting up a prescribed body corporate to manage sea country in accordance with lore and custom.