UBI papers over settler colonialism and renders it a past event making assimilation and violence inevitable.

A UBI in place of such workfare policies would be a vast improvement on these punitive social security provisions, both in terms of agency, economic security and distribution. However, if such a UBI is framed and understood not simply as an improved welfare or tax and transfer system, but rather as a form of distributive justice, then in this context it does not seem just or rightful that all people in Australia are entitled to claim the same share of collective wealth. A universal share of wealth funded by taxation would help redistribute material privilege, including to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Yet a UBI would not account for or recognize the violence, displacement of nationhood and denial of sovereignty that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples endure within the political economy of settler society. It also would not account for the ongoing attempts at assimilation by the settler state. Not accounting for the dark side of the making and maintenance of the Australian nation in calculations of what is rightful effectively renders settler colonialism as a past event, not an ongoing process. It is therefore important to think about reparations not just in terms of material redistribution, but also as a redistribution of power and control via sovereignty, as well as the unravelling of contemporary and ongoing structures of settler colonialism.