There is an old adage in journalism that facts tell the story so much more effectively than words of persuasion or derision. This editorial saying from days of yore immediately came to my mind when I recently discovered that a delegation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island activists had recently travelled to New York without any heraldry to once again put their case to the United Nations on the “right” of First Nations’ people to “obtain self-government,” to “manage their economic and cultural future,” run their “own country, ” and to “self-determine” their future.

This latest move by a cross-section of Australia’s Indigenous organisations follows the failure last year of the nation-wide Referendum aimed at giving all Aboriginal and T.S.I citizens a “Voice to Parliament” in Canberra.

It is also consistent with the U.N. target calling on Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, South America and other countries with Indigenous people to award them self-government by the year 2030.

A special U.N. Declaration to this effect also specifies the need for all Indigenous people to be compensated within the next six years by their largely White governments for the use of their Aboriginal lands.

Among the Australian Aboriginal delegates to the U.N.’s 23rd session of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues were five young people representing Aboriginal youth under the umbrella of the National Native Council.

Other Australian organisations represented at the meeting in New York included the First Nations’ Legal and Research Service, the Aboriginal Corporation and a long list of other Aboriginal and T.S.I. groups from various parts of Australia.

In an address to the U.N., an Australian Aboriginal spokesman, Elias Jarvis, told the world delegates in attendance that the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Aboriginal People had not as yet been implemented in his country in accordance with the U.N. Council’s wishes. This was in spite of only six years still to go before the target date.

He said that the Declaration — signed off by the then Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, in 2008 — was needed to uphold the right to Australian Aboriginal and T.S.I. self-determination with the backing of official legislation and regulations not as yet publicly considered by the current Government or by its Opposition.

As I explained at the beginning of this week’s column, the presentation of facts is far more telling than one’s own views on a particular subject.

With that in mind, we have to remember that the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People was originally adopted without fanfare by the U.N. General Assembly in September 2007.

This document is, in fact, the most comprehensive international legal instrument ever devised on the claimed rights of Indigenous people anywhere on earth.

The Declaration establishes a universal framework of minimum standards for the “survival, dignity and wellbeing of all Indigenous people” and elaborates on existing human rights standards as they apply to First Nations’ people.

In considering whether or not present or future Australian Governments will support the U.N. Declaration within the next six years is a matter of conjecture. One also has a right to ask what has become of the extensive Aboriginal plans for official land compensation put forward last year by Indigenous activists to support their failed 2023 Referendum.

One thing, however, is very obvious to me. The United Nations is well and truly behind the Indigenous people’s case for financial and other compensation.

Not only were Australia’s Aboriginal and T.S.I. people recently invited to and welcomed by the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, but the original Declaration was partly planned and supported by Australia’s Aboriginal and T.S.I. leaders prior to it being passed by the General Assembly in 2008.

My particular quandary is that this ongoing subject is not going to evaporate over time and must of necessity be faced head-on, one way or the other, before it is too late and encourages other measures to be used.