Aboriginal spiritual connection to land no bar to deportation, Morrison government says

The Morrison government says that Aboriginal connection to land is insufficient to create a special relationship with the Commonwealth of Australia. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

The high court should overturn a landmark decision finding Aboriginal Australians cannot be aliens because it threatens to confer “political sovereignty on Aboriginal societies”, the Morrison government has argued.

Government lawyers made the claim in an appeal, warning that the Love and Thoms decision barring the deportation of Aboriginal non-citizens threatened the principle that Aboriginal sovereignty did not survive the colonisation of Australia.