A treaty with who? The very first of the first dispossessed Australians, which later generations of first Australians took by force! And the only reason one can find Tasmanian Aborigines in Tasmania!

There was a reason that Australia was a land peopled by no less than 500 separate nations, with over 500 separate languages and customs, when whites first appeared.

Customs, which by the way included systematic routine burning, which turned a land once covered from shore to shore in verdant forest, to mostly one covered by desert or barely marginal land!

And destruction on a Continental scale, all accomplished with so called traditional fire!

Perhaps before giving the Lawyers an instrument that could be used to sue for compensation for dispossessing the original owners of their traditional land?

It might be useful to decide who were the actual original owners really were, and how much they are owed by those who burnt their tradition original home, virtually to the ground!?

Personally, I think it would be far more useful to educate and skill many more Aboriginals, all the kids ASAP; and in so doing, give them the only real road and complete economic independence/self sufficiency that's currently doable!

Getting Aboriginals to agree on anything, but particularly, that they, as "responsible Parents", need to get their kids to attend school; is just too hard, unless it's compelled by withheld government handouts/white charity!

Education by the way, is the very cornerstone of self determination; and for anyone!

Even so, perhaps so called native title ought to be exclusively reserved for the very first of the first Australians, given they alone can successfully claim, they and they alone did not acquire their holdings at either the point of a spear or a gun; but rather had all that they once owned, taken from them by mobs of both!

Or perhaps native title is extinguished for everyone by separation from their traditional land for not less than three successive generations?

It would certainly resolve most of Israel's current problems; created it would seem, by literal centuries of exile for some?
Rhrosty.

Hi Gary,

'The following formulation was contained in the Gillard government Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Recognition Act 2013.

“The people of Australia, recognises that the continent and the islands now known as Australia were first occupied by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ­peoples.”

They were here first. Beyond that, there should be nothing.'

Yep, that should do it. Pass that, then we can get back to the real issues - the unemployment in remote and rural 'communities', the lack of serious vocational training and education, violence, abuse, suicide, short lives, and utter human degradation.

That raises a question: to what extent should Indigenous 'leaders' ever concern themselves with nutting out some of the prescriptions tov solve those ghastly problems ? Or should they abdicate from any concern with those crucial issues - after all, some may say, some of those problems were caused by colonialism [which strangely seemed to have far more impact in remote areas, where people have always been on their own land, than in the cities] ?

And of course the bottom line is: what are the people themselves doing about their own problems ? Or should we sympathise with them, since after all, they are incapable (or various other equally racist excuses) ?

No, let's have enough respect for all Indigenous people to assume that they have the ability to solve their own problems, sine- ultimately - they must be active participants, at least, in those solutions.

Thanks, Gary.

Joe
www.firstsources.info

Hi Rhosty,

About land-holding, or land ownership: it's a bit more complicated than merely 500 groups - clans, or extended families, or local descent groups, whatever one calls them now - were the land-holding groups, not those over-arching language groups. Amongst the Ngarrindjeri in SA, for instance, there were something like 140 descent groups, each jealously guarding their strips of country and deciding who could make use of the resources there.

So there may have been tens of thousands of such groups across Australia. The difficulty - the impossibility - is that, in most of Australia, those links have been lost, or allowed to fade away.

Either way, who has the authority to put their names to most of the multitude of treaties required ? The whole mess is a recipe for very long-lasting disputes between claimants, when there are manifestly far more important and immediate issues confronting Aboriginal people.

Joe

I'm in complete agreement with the author; particularly with his very last line.

What is it with Australian politicians that they come up with such stupid, divisive plots? This one is worse than usual - bi-partisan idiocy.

I'd like to see the "Welcome to county" speech written down in one of the c.250 native languages and then see how many of those people claiming to have aboriginality and come from the same tribe as the author tested as to what the meaning of each word is(not in the same order as the speech). Beyond the author I got the feeling there would be hardly a soul who would know the meaning of any of the words...a bit like the what we had with the signer at Nelson Mandela's commemoration stadium gathering.

As far as I know there is no complete reference (or anything approaching it) to any of the c.250 language groups that were supposed to exist in this country.

Hi Roscop,

Yes, 'welcome to country' ceremonies must be close to thirty years old now. Time passes: the Earth Mother is almost forty years old ! The Hindmarsh Island Secret Women's Business is now more than twenty years old.

New myths work because they resonate with what we already believe. We've been working on transcribing and indexing the 1000 pages of evidence of the 1935 Moseley Royal commission in Western Australia, we've got about a week to go, and we've been keeping our eyes peeled for the slightest mention of any rabbit-proof fence story. So far, nothing. But it's a great story, isn't it ?

Similarly, working on the SA Protector's letters, and mission journals and letters and school records, etc., I tried to find any evidence of 'countless thousands of children being removed', but again, nothing. Well, no more than one would expect amongst white kids, 4-5 % in total. I was gob-smacked to realise how few Aboriginal kids were ever taken into care: Aboriginal family life - at least in South Australia up to 1913 - seemed to have been far more stable than I ever dreamt.

If the yarns aren't actually true, then what ? Massacres ? Maybe, maybe not. People herded onto missions ? Not the slightest shred of evidence, quite the reverse: coppers are admonished to 'keep people in their own districts'. People being pushed off their lands ? Not in South Australia: pastoralists needed labour and, in fact, opposed the existence of missions precisely for that reason.

What then ? The right to use the land in traditional ways; access to a ration system, especially for the vulnerable; exposure to the multitude of new ways, new foods, new forms of clothing, grog, tobacco, etc., etc. Replacement of stone axes by steel axes for just a few hours of farm-work; flour given out instead of having to forage for seed all day, then grind it. Matches. Blankets. Kids looked after, and schooled. Famine never ever again. Fishing gear, boats, guns, sometimes free and repaired free. Sweet !

Time for a re-think.

Joe