ttbn Quote "that living remotely, without education, jobs, health care and facilities is no sort of life at all."

What you have described translates in probably a very large proportion of the population to a slave to the bankers you have to work to get things then virtually for lifer you are a slave to repay the house, car and credit card debts.

Loose your job and can't repay they take it away and in some cases put you in jail and take it away.

I loose sympathy for protesters when they burn the Australian flag....they should be shot!

The author seems to assume all guilt is European in origin. I don't.
Noting that most Aborigines have European ancestors, that implies both guilty ancestors and victim ancestors.
How do we sort that out for the poor petals forever denigrating the origins of this great nation, and probably with their hands out for the dole or grants from productive people? My view is to simply acknowledge the past but look to the future. I won't be apologising or compensating anyone for anything any ancestor did, and neither should anybody else.
On language, since when did "indigenous" become a proper noun and hence require the upper case I as in "Indigenous" used exclusively in this piece? Have we invented a new word? It's not in my dictionary. What was wrong with the all-inclusive "Aborigine" which encompassed all people native to Australia?
And finally, God how I wish we could lose forever the necessity to have a "conversation" every time something needs to be agreed. It's such a weaselly weak word and incessantly used by lefties who have forgotten, it seems, how to debate, or even just talk. Instead they think they are having a conversation when they are talking, but that doesn't apply to any need to listen.

In my opinion t's a genuine issue, and we don't have the luxury of being complacent if we value national unity and reconciliation.
We could just ignore it, but the issue isn't going to go away.
We'll be having these same discussions every year.

Whilst no individual is responsible for anything that happened before they were born, period; the society we celebrate today was originally built upon the indigenous' subjagation and displacement.

Whilst none of us are personally responsible for what happened to them we enjoy the benefits of it and we can't have our cake and eat it too.

I'm going to reiterate a few things I recently said on another thread:

Every year to those who identify as indigenous, we're essentially celebrating the invasion of their homeland; their peoples subjugation and their cultures demise.
And whether we actually see it that way ourselves doesn't really matter, because that's obviously how they see it.
I guess it'd be like continually ripping open a semi-healed wound... (whilst talking about reconciliation and equality is like lecturing people on proper healthcare when you hypocritically keep ripping open your own wounds...)

To end Australia Day, for many of us would also be like wiping out our own heritage and identity in this country, just as was done to them, is it not?
If we keep Australia Day and simply change the day, is it not just celebrating the same 'invasion' thing just on a different day?

Alan B,
"Those who live in the past have no future!"
I'm sure you'd also agree that 'those who fail to learn from the past are destined to make the same mistakes'.

What other date in the last 100,000 years is as significant on this Island continent ?

Captain Col, the use of the capital 'I' when using the term Indigenous denotes that the person using it is referring specifically to Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It is a 'catch all' and the capital is used in the same manner as the capitalisation of Aboriginal or Aborigine, which again shows the usage is referring to Australian Aboriginal people. Using lower case letters in both instances is disrespectful and also regarded as an insult. Also, Torres Strait Islanders are not referred to as Aborigines or Aboriginal people...they are a completely different group of people...hence the use if Indigenous when including both.

Bazz, if you want a couple of dates with more appropriate and inclusive significance than the 26th of January then I suggest January 1st, when Australia became a united nation of federated states in 1901; or 3rd of March when in 1986 Australia finally became an independent nation.