First Nations Peoples and Public Law

map of Australia

Our researchers examine past, current and future interactions between Australia’s First Nations peoples and the rules and institutions of public law.

This includes the consequences of colonisation as well as ongoing movements towards structural reform including voice and treaty.

Project outputs

  • Submissions
    • Cornelia Koch, Anne Carter, Laura Grenfell, Geoff Lindell, Anna Olijnyk, Rosemary Owens, Matthew Stubbs and John Williams, Submission to the Joint Select Committee on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice Referendum (2023) 
    • Cornelia Koch, Laura Grenfell, Lisa Hill, Jonathon Louth, Anna Olijnyk, Matthew Stubbs and Major “Moogy” Sumner AM, Submission on the draft Bill for a First Nations Voice to South Australia’s Parliament

  • Peer reviewed journal articles
    • Shane Chalmers, ‘Metaphoric Sovereignty and the Australian Settler Colonial State’ (2022) Law Text Culture 26
    • Shane Chalmers, ‘The Festival as Constitutional Event and as Jurisdictional Encounter: Colonial Victoria and the Independent Order of Black Fellows’ (2021) 30(4) Griffith Law Review 557 
    • Shane Chalmers, ‘Native Dignity’ (2020) 29(2) Griffith Law Review 175
    • Shane Chalmers, ‘Terra Nullius? Temporal Legal Pluralism in an Australian Colony’ (2020) 29(4) Social and Legal Studies 463

  • Academic talks, presentations and panels
    • Anna Olijnyk, ‘A Voice to Parliament and Government: State and Federal’, Australian Association of Constitutional Law seminar, Adelaide, 24 May 2023 (alongside the Honourable Kyam Maher MLC, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs)