‘Sovereignty never ceded’ – more than a simple slogan

In front of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra, letters planted in the ground spell out ‘SOVEREIGNTY’.

It’s a reminder of ‘Sovereignty never ceded’, a phrase you’ll see at any protest action in support of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rights.

Eddie Synot is a Wamba Wamba First Nations person who writes about Indigenous experience at the intersections of law, culture and society.

Synot, an academic lawyer and researcher with the Griffith Law School, wrote in a piece for The Conversation that in Australia there are two competing claims to sovereignty, the Crown and Indigenous peoples.