A fresh warrant has been issued for the arrest of an Aboriginal elder who thinks the n law does not apply to him after he again refused to show up in court.
Jim Everett-Puralia Meenamatta, 81, was meant to appear in court on Monday to face charges over anti-logging action by the Bob Brown Foundation in Tasmania.
But Everett said he had no intention of appearing in a ‘colonial court’ and claimed it ‘doesn’t have any jurisdiction over Aboriginal people protecting our country’.
‘We’ve never made any agreements to be citizens,’ he said.
Former federal Greens leader Bob Brown defended Everett, saying ‘Jim’s a wise old man’.
‘(He) is sheeting home the twin facts that First ns never ceded this country and so logging of native forests is for them illegal,’ he told The n.
Everett was arrested and charged with trespassing in March over an anti-forestry protest in the Styx Valley of the Giants in southern Tasmania.
His matter was listed in the Hobart Magistrates Court in June, but he did not appear, prompting magistrate Glenn Hay to issue an arrest warrant for the activist.
‘There was no need to show up,’ Everett said at the time, adding that he intended to continue with his actions.
He also said he was not bothered by the prospect of jail time or a fine.
‘They’ll either catch up with me before I get much else done… or they don’t,’ he said.
‘I’ll probably get fined and then complete what I’m doing and keep building up this issue.
‘There’s no use standing up and arguing with a colonial government and expecting they’re going to listen the first time you jump up and down about it.
‘I’m going to keep pushing.’
Having again failed to show up in court on Monday, Everett faces being arrested and held in custody.
But the police first have to find him on the remote, Aboriginal-owned Bass Strait island of Cape Barren, which is 478sq km in size and located 216km from mainland Tasmania.
Forestry Tasmania, the state’s public forestry company, was logging in the Styx Valley of the Giants area at the time of Everett’s arrest.
As part of his bail conditions, he has been banned from entering Forestry Tasmania’s permanent timber production land, which constitutes over 800,000 hectares of public forest in the state.
But Everett said he would continue to protest native logging.
‘I have every sovereign right to go there and protect my country, and they have no jurisdiction to stop me,’ he said.
‘They’ll have to take me by the arms into court.’
He said he would refuse to make a plea in ‘a colonial court’ and instead tell the magistrate they were standing on his sovereignty.
‘They’ll do as they will. I could be fined for contempt of court, it could be a whole range of things, it doesn’t matter,’ Everett said.
‘We’ll keep getting arrested until this issue is raised right across the country, and the government is forced to address the matter of citizenship.’
Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre campaign manager Nala Mansell called for the trespass charge to be dropped.
‘The power that white people have over Aborigines, our lives, culture and cultural responsibilities has to have some flexibility,’ she said in a statement.
‘White people can govern and manage themselves but their laws shouldn’t apply to Aboriginal people.’
Everett, a pakana plangermairreenner man who has written poetry, plays, political and academic papers and short stories, has visited many remote Aboriginal communities.
‘If you understand what being Aboriginal is, it is being part of country,’ he said.
‘If you hurt country, you are hurting our community.
‘Much research has been done on the generational trauma, because of the destruction of our country.’
Daily Mail contacted Bob Brown for further comment.