With the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, Indigenous people have taken to social media to criticise the late monarch and her family for their role of colonisation within Australia and the ongoing impacts on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Another rather curious observation was government buildings half masting the flags.

I couldn't help but ask myself why the Aboriginal and the Torres Strait islander flags were also at half-mast.

The central question on this is who consulted Indigenous people as to whether they support an institution such as the monarchy who had historically subjugated our people?

It could be argued also that the Aboriginal flag doesn't belong to Aboriginal people, but I can speak on what I know in Western Australia and that is a lot of Aboriginal people do identify themselves by it.

When we travel the world we take it with us and proudly post photos of us in locations as the colonial entities would have mostly likely done if they had a camera to document every experience so effortlessly.

https://www.nit.com.au/indigenous-reactions-to-queen-elizabeth-iis-death-from-australia-and-around-the-world/

Luke Currie-Richardson a storyteller, dancer, poet and photographer shared his own personal experience on social media about how regretful he is for his past performance in front of the royal family.

"To this day, this is my low light of my career," he said.

"I didnt have the guts to walk away from this trash."

"This is good blacks putting on a show for the institution that is to blame for all the atrocities that have happened to our peoples."

Saying what he has said is true, there are times when we do stuff we might not agree with because have become dependant on those people we work with for survival.

We go against our own moral judgement and say yes to not bite the hand that feeds us.

To think back on the past and share a bit about myself and my naval career, when I swore an oath to Her Majesty I threw myself into an environment where I became dependant on people sharing opinions that go against my own.

But as to not rock the boat too much, I went with it and accepted a more moderate opinion, I stood for the National Anthem and toed the line.

Clothing the Gaps is an Indigenous clothing organisation which has suggested now would be time to become a Republic.

Although I believe that the idea of a referendum to become a republic is possible within our own life time it still doesn't change much.

Becoming a republic would most likely leave us with the same ideological white leaders and Indigenous Australian people still trying to seek recognition and sovereignty in their own country.

It could also be completely different and have Indigenous people written into any constitution with treaties attached, assuming we can move away from this attitude of divisiveness when establishing traditional boundaries using aerial maps which make it nearly impossible for Indigenous people to definitively draw lines between areas with no room for discrepancy.

But with the possibility of a republic coming into conversations I want to take a position on Indigenous sovereignty, or at the very least land rights which again at the very least give Indigenous people and representative bodies determining rights over areas under there control.

In the end though, what changes at this moment, one monarch dies and another takes their place, with both belonging to the same social and ideological circles their whole life on the other side of the world.

• Tamati Smith is a Yamaji man and journalist for the National Indigenous Times