Jesus, where do I even start with this atrocious article, could it simply be that Australians (by that I, and the author mean people of mixed European heritage) have an innate connection to the land of their birth and that since our culture contains no "appropriations" whatsoever from the pre 1788, stone age lifestyles that this whole article is only a manifestation of some old duffer's daydreams?
So much of what's described as "Aboriginal Culture" is an invention of the romantics among the Colonial Whites anyway, as Dallas Scott puts it:

"I used to dance as a kid. Most of the kids who grew up in our house did it, but I have no intention of my own children doing the same. My reluctance has nothing to do with them being of mixed heritage though, and everything to do with cultural appropriation. I said I used to ‘dance’ as a kid, because that is really all it was. I was dressed in a lap-lap and painted up, was taught the moves the rest of the kids were doing, but it was all just a show. The dances were not ones passed on to us from our Elders, performed for a specific reason or during a time of unique and special celebration that led me to understand my culture in a meaningful way, but rather a collection of dance moves put together by a choreographer who may or may not have had a distant Aboriginal ancestor she found out about in her mid-thirties."

Rob appropriation of the Aboriginal psyche by Osmosis is not a real thing and "connection to country" is a common feeling among normal, well adjusted people, we rarely give it a second thought.
I do however understand the feelings and emotions stirred up by a return to one's ancestral lands, I've been spending a lot more time in Central Victoria of late and as I said to my mother last weekend, it's amazing just how different I feel when I'm on my own country surrounded by my own people as opposed to living in a multicultural urban environment.

Hi Rob,

Maybe we all tend to have strong feelings about whatever country or landscapes we were raised in, and played in, especially those we experienced as young children. I have those sorts of feelings, a craving really, whenever I see film or pictures of (or think of) the beautiful Royal National Park, the Blue Mountains and what used to be paper-bark scrub around Bass Hill (probably all under Housing Commission houses now). And maybe that lovely country around Wagga.

I suppose that's the point - what counts for each of us as 'lovely country' ?

I don't have any particular yearning for southern Scotland or northern England - we see enough of that on ITV to turn us off - 'rainy skies and gales', 'watching the mist roll through the dell': no thanks. Well, just a little, but more out of solidarity and sympathy for the poor buggers who have to live there.

So where's 'home' ? Where would you like some of your ashes scattered, or your body laid out for the wedgies ?

Joe

Who cares about such silly self-examination? I'm a third generation Australian. My ancestors, not me, chose the country. It's a good place to live, but I fear it is going downhill fast, thanks to stupid people and even more stupid politicans. I am Australian first, but I am pleased that I am a Celtic/Anglo Saxon Australian. That's it. Blathering about 'spiritual feelings I leave to posers.

Well Rob, nothing wrong with travelling the wide brown land for over twenty five years. Many people I know a fanatical about its allure too.

I'm not so armoured to it though, I think it is because, to me, working in rural Australia taught me to face reality, and very quickly. Flies bloody flies. Swarms upon swarms, and the heat in summer is unimaginable to most people calling Australia home.

I think the best for the outback is to leave it as it is, sparsely inhabited by tough natives who have been born into a sustainable ability to survive this harsh and unforgiving environment.

Spiritual? Guess at night it comes close!

For me, I'll take the ocean floor any day. That is spiritual silent and awesome, that is Australia to me and ninety percent of the sensible, who cling to its magical coastline!

We can take pride in who we are just by once again making stuff and doing better than all the rest!

What's missing is the aforementioned national pride and doing it for ourselves, rather than relying on price gouging foreigners?

Excused by asserting we've always relied on foreign capital!

Maybe, but do we need the here today gone tomorow asset stripping foreiners that usually accompany it?

We make cars as good or better than anyone and lead the world in molded carbon fibre.

How much could we get the build cost down, by making all the component parts on the one site; and therefore adding just the one tax liability to the end price?

And rolled out as a government enabled employee cooperatives and enabling half price industrial power!?

Power rolled out as cheaper than coal, thorium connected to individual industry serving microgrids!?

Ditto ship and sub building, finally relieved of all that makes our own currently uneconomical!?

An inland shipping canal and lock gate controlled massive northern tides, would enable the creation of a new dual lane inland shipping canal, and also function as a new source of endlessly renewed reliable water.

Taken as newly cost effective desal water, and create a wide green land as it gets done!

Can't died in a cornfield over a century ago!

Won't is alive and well in the corridors of power, and likely the principal reason we're having this discussion?

I know where there's a lazy 60 billions per, or 600 billions in the next decade, that we could conscript to get most or all of these changes happening/started!
Rhrosty.

Rob, I believe that you've experienced a reality of being, unlike many posters who seem to be moulded by the artificial imagery of possession and imitation.

I, too, have feelings of awe, wonder, and belonging to my land every time I leave the falsity of "civilisation" behind me, and go outback.

I absorbed this enormously years ago when I trekked the Canning Stock Route and sat next to my campfire at sunset enthralled by the vista of sandhills rolling into a setting sun, and when I entered a sacred Aboriginal cavern complex in the hills near Durba Springs; spirits and presence engulfed me with joy and gratitude of being a part of the land which owned me.
We are priveleged to be an offspring of this 'wide brown land'.