Firstly, all white people born in Tasmania are "indiginous".

Secondly, there are no "original inhabitants" in Tasmania, the last one was Truganini, and she died a long time ago. The present people claiming enhanced social status and government funding are at the very least half white. One of the most notorious even has blond hair and blue eyes.

Thirdly, comparing a hillside which "may" have stone tools buried in it to the Pyramids, is like comparing an outhouse dunny to the Opera House.

Fourthly, Tasmania is covered in hillsides which "may" have a lot of stone tools buried in them, but they still ned to build roads, railways and bridges in order to keep the economy functioning, so that they can pay blond haired and blue eyed "indiginous" people their "sit down money."

"Sorry is a word; nothing more"

how bloody ungrateful!

After all the carry on for years, the insults, the marches the huffing and puffing, it comes to this?

"we want, we want, we want .." like a bunch of kids

You can't save everything, even if it has historical value, regularly in civilized parts of the world, older things get built on, life goes on .. we're not living in a museum you know.

"We pay homage to the Aboriginal people when any event takes place and when any meeting or parliamentary session is commissioned. We do this out of respect for the original landowners "

We do for political correctness and nothing more, it's an insult to Australians, all of us to have this stupid farcical BS that was only invented recently anyway.

Put it to a vote and see what happens.

All manner of crap is thrust upon us by lobby groups and those with an overblown sense of entitlement. We also have those who think they know what the community wants .. "we do this out of respect", what complete and utter crap, do you think we respect the con men who dress up and talk to whales, that live in cities and tweet about their country cousins? They are like anyone else int he community, except they hide behind politically correct barricades.

There is nothing any more noble about aborigines than any other Australian and to say there is such a difference is racist.

Thank you David,
I feel saddened by some of the comments here. Unfortunately the aftermath of the "White Australia policy" very much still remains in this country. Slowly with education people will learn and respect what this country has to offer and understand that Australian history is at least 170,000 years old. Eventually people will know, respect, understand and feel pride in the rich history of this country and not just focus on the last 200 years.

Thank you for your article and pointing out the importance of actions, not just words. I don't understand the comments about what people look like in teh comments to your article. I can go to Uni or follow my traditional culture or use twitter and no one judges me on who I identify as. I can be French and Australian and look any way I please. It is the experience and that of my family and community that is my identification. So why is it different for Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander peoples?

And comparing one culture to another is difficult as well. How sad that traditional culture in Australia is disrespected with such emotion. Is it that people do not want to acknowledge what happened in Australia? Wouldn't the fact that there are no more people identifying as Tasmanian Aboriginal people make it more important to preserve the culture? How as a country can we not acknowledge the massacres which occurred in Tasmania?

Thanks again for trying to get across the importance of preserving our country and its past for all Australians

It was never the intention to suggest that Indigenous people are any better or worse than any other Australian, that innuendo was yours, rpg. There is however a hypocrisy in saying sorry and then paying homage to the original landowners whilst allowing desecration of a site to take place.

The fact that many aboriginal people are no longer black or that they have blue eyes and blonde hair does not make them un-aboriginal anymore than a it makes a German ex-patriot un-Australian. The original inhabitants of Tasmania were mostly exiled to the islands, have interbred and have now returned to their land. They have maintained spiritual ties, through their culture and like any other caring person, want their history preserved. It makes very little difference in the scheme of things whether this road moves to the left or the right but makes a lot of difference to these people. I am not a city dweller as suggested and I am certainly not a bleeding heart. I do however despise hypocrisy and even more political agenda, for the sake of big business.

David, Oh dear.

So what started this little hissy fit off then? The good news is you can always turn to something you can understand, like film making perhaps?

Sorry was never going to be enough. It was a populist, tokenistic and cynical political ploy perpetrated by a government comprising those very same values. It was however done with good grace and supported by many with great sincerity.

Sadly it is those same values from academia, celebrity advocates and urban elites that have consistently and repeatedly driven our aboriginal communities into the national disgrace to which we have subjected them to today.

Every conceivable form of “recognition and acknowledgement” we have been asked to give has been accommodated unconditionally. Now we must ask why this is not working and who asked for it to be done? We ask this because it was clearly wrong in the first place.

When we assist and encourage the creation of agreed goals by these communities, for these communities and respect those decisions, great progress will have been made. Until then we will continue to ignore their wishes, impose our goals, our values, create division amongst them and then blame them for failure.

Indigenous communities are not entirely blameless of course, particularly those who have been exposed to our education system and unfortunately, have adopted the “victim nation” values. At some stage, educated indigenous youth must stop espousing and excusing victimhood and strongly promote self determination within the existing systems.

Why do we retain democracy for ourselves and deny it to our indigenous communities

“The archaeological surveyors claim that there could be up to 3-million artefacts on the site and that this would make it one of the oldest Aboriginal sites in Tasmania and possibly one of the oldest in the southern hemisphere.”

That’s a bit mind-blowing.

“Sorry is a word; nothing more…”

Yes it becomes nothing more than a word if harm continues.

I am amazed at how incredibly resilient the Aboriginal peoples really are and anything done to preserve and respect their heritage shouldn’t be in question. I’ve met a few with blond hair and blue eyes, I didn't think it diluted who they are.