Brilliantly explained. An important component of Mabo that greens and land management bureaucrats don't recognise is No Terra Nullius = No Wilderness, and the whole idea of National Parks management by neglect is nonsense. Wherever you go in Australia, or whenever you turn the telly on, you see dying trees and scrub because our landscape lacks sustaining fire. This has been and continues to be the major cause of extinctions and loss of biodiversity since European settlement.

“The Prime Minister wants to keep Australia Day as it is ….”. All sensible, normal Australians want to keep Australia Day as it is. A person like Malcolm Turnbull should not be used as an example of anything worth while. And, 'international law' is an ass that cannot override Australian law unless gutless, globalist politicians allow it to.

Invasion or settlement. The whole discussion is a nonsense, just as discussions on Anzac Day, Christmas and everything else that is well established in Australia, and preserved by the majority, is nonsense. The people agitating for change all the time are galahs with not much to think about.

And, waffling on about international law and the UN adds nothing intelligent to an already unintelligent and childish waste time

" .... international law recognises all territories acquired through invasion and annexation by force, prior to World War II, as lawful conquests."

Really ? In the interminable wars across Europe over the past thousand years, that may have been the practice earlier (viz. William's seizure of all English land and parcelling it out to his lords - hence the Domesday Book) but in the past few hundred years, invasion did not deprive people of their land. Yes, invasion meant the replacement of one sovereign power by another, but not seizure of lands.

Alsace-Lorraine may be a good example of this: did the invasion of German lands by France, or French lands by Germany, mean that the ownership of land changed hands ? I don't know, but I doubt it.

When Britain took over, 'invaded', territory in India or Africa, the pre-existing land ownership and land-use systems were adopted. Read C. K. Meek's 'Land Law and Custom in the Colonies' (1945/1948), available on: www.firstsources.info on the 'Land Page'.

Joe

If the Author's take on Native Title as born out via the Mabo case, then those like a very divise Green leader, need to stop and hope they can't get what they're wishing for!?

For if this country was invaded and the inhabitants therefore a conquered people? Then any special rights to Native title are automatically erased, rendered null and void.

It's time the divide and rule merchants, like an obvious power junkie i.e., the Greens leader, need to stop quite deliberately fomenting unrest.

And the black armband urban activists need to put a sock in it! As for them, if they aint got indigenous Tasmanian blood running through their veins, then they also are living on stolen land!

My great grandfather traditionally drove a horse and cart. As his grandad and his before him. Fire was used by aborigines, not because it was superior land management but through observed custom that assisted hunting, and because they'd never domesticated grazing animals for a better fuel reduction method.

Fire destroys all understory, much of which like legumes, is absolutely essential to superior land management. As is ground aerated by earthworms and dung beetles etc. Land baked by fire as land management assists runoff and little else. Well aerated ground assists water (rainfall) absorption! As does short term intensive cell grazing, which breaks open baked ground, all while quite dramatically reducing the fuel load! Plus spreading beneficial seed!

There is not a white way, a black way, just a right way!

Even so a few folk (firebugs/asonists) will trot out fire management, as best practice, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

An inability to look at the evidence and having done so arrive a conclusions that are neither pedantic or absolutism. Is virtually all that separates the ignorant savage from his civilised counterpart.

Was this land invaded or settled!? And is there but one race, the human race!?
Alan B.

Correction and apologies, inability ought be read as ability.
Alan.

Alan B land baked by fire is a consequence of modern infrequent, moderate to high intensity prescribed fires and modern extreme megafires as a consequence of previous. These generate dense leguminous scrubs of acacia and casuarina that exacerbate soil changes with lack of mild sustaining fire, and reinforce eucalypt decline, pestilence and development of 3 dimensionally continuous fuels that explode into firestorms every time there's an ignition during bad weather. Unnatural accumulation of nitrogen drives loss of biodiversity around the world through atmospheric pollution, pasture improvement, lack of mild, sustaining fire in native veg etc. As leading Aboriginal fire expert, Victor Steffensen, says we have upside down country - thin on top and thick underneath. Read Firestick Ecology: fairdinkum science in plain English, and improve your education

If articles were countries that one would be a classic 'sh1thole'. For starters, the Mabo decision was in relation solely to Mer (Murray) Island and its annexation by Queensland in 1869. It had nothing to with native title around the rest of the country. That was established by the Native Title legislation by the Keating government as a response to the gaping holes in the Mabo decision. And Native Title is seperate from Land Rights.

In the judgement (a long read) the Justices who found in favour are clearly cautious with their use of settlement and use quotation marks on it constantly. A clear indication they were not happy with the term being used to mark any peaceful form of colonisation.

That is reinforced by the consistent reference to violent encounters and occupation. That is recognised as happening from the very early days of invasion; 'As time passed, the connection between different tribes or groups and particular areas of land began to emerge. The Europeans took possession of more and more of the lands in the areas nearest to Sydney Cove. Inevitably, the Aborigines resented being dispossessed. Increasingly there was violence as they sought to retain, or continue to use, their traditional lands.'

That clearly describes invasion. As does this: "The dispossession of the indigenous inhabitants of Australia was not worked by a transfer of beneficial ownership when sovereignty was acquired by the Crown, but by the recurrent exercise of a paramount power to exclude the indigenous inhabitants from their traditional lands... Dispossession is attributable not to a failure of native title to survive the acquisition of sovereignty, but to its subsequent extinction by a paramount power."

Source: http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/cases/cth/high_ct/175clr1.html?stem=0&synonyms=0&query=^%20mabo%201992

In regards to Governor Phillip's 'benevolence' towards Aboriginal people the author does not seem to know about, or deliberately ignores, the kidnapping of Arabanoo who was kept in shackles in order to ensure he didn't escape. Arabanoo later died in the smallpox outbreak that killed around 80% of the Aborigines in the local Port Jackson area. A disease brought by the invaders and possibly used as a biological weapon.

Then there were the orders by Phillip to massacre 12 Aborigines and have their heads returned to him. That was in retaliation for the killing of his gamekeeper, a convict who on his deathbed admitted to interfering with Aboriginal women and stealing from them.

How about the Tasmanian experience where war was officially declared? It seems the author is either ignorant of the war or again deliberately ignores it in order to present a false argument. Or just perpetuating outright lies.

Evidence uncovered recently by historian Nicholas Brodie clearly shows the administration in Tasmania organised and co-ordinated roving parties in order to eliminate the Aboriginal 'threat'. The administration wanted to be rid of the Aborigines and did what they could to ensure that happened. That included offering bounties and declaring martial law with a shoot on sight order for any Aborigine found to be in a 'settled' area...it was unclear where the boundaries of settled and unsettled lay though.

For the author to state violent clashes were 'the exception' is stating an outright lie. And it was laughable that only one instance of a massacre actually having a just outcome was given as an example. Massacres, other indiscriminate killings, rapes and other crimes against Aboriginal people was common across many parts of the frontiers. In most case there was no law on those frontiers.

And from the Mabo Judgement: In an earlier despatch to King, Hobart had expressly acknowledged(279) ibid., vol.4, p 684 the extent to which the practice in the Colony had departed from "the wise and humane instructions" of his "predecessors" and that the Aborigines had been "too often" subjected to "unjustifiable injuries"

Yes, there were certainly many atrocities committed against an aboriginal population, none worse than the attempted extermination of a whole people, the Tasmanian aborigine.

And not for the first time nor exclusively at the hands of the English invader, who'd already annexed Irish and Scottish lands and enslaved the original inhabitants. Many of who made up the number of the forcibly exiled and transported halfway around the world numbers.

Where they ultimately were forced to fight for their right to survive; and against all comers, some more belligerent, with just cause perhaps, than others.

There are some recorded instances of white invaders, distributing blankets known to be contaminated with smallpox and leprosy to the American Indian. But not here as a deliberate act.

There's no way to justify the annexation of other people's sovereign land, but has been common (legal) practise for millennia and here and before white settlement!

None of which can ever be reversed or adequately compensated for by succeeding generations!

The only percentage that has anything going for it, is to embrace the white man's culture and education, advances in science and health care etc. And then strive to lead in all of the above and politics!

No other path presents even a snowflake's chance in hell of even coming remotely close to addressing past wrongs! Simply put, those that live in the past, have no future let alone a viable one!

As for little's assertions, well he would say that wouldn't he. And in no way has the corroborating article confirmed anything? Except a confirmation bias toward an unchangeable, set in concrete, position. Which lacks scientific rigor or a few pertinent facts.

One of which is climate change and consequently, nigh on impossible cool burns? Which instead, can be fanned by stronger wind factors and get completely out of control in minutes.

As they have in countless past times to contribute to deforestation and desertification of a landscape once verdant forest, from the pacific coastline to the Indian.

Moreover, abuse is not debate, just obnoxious abuse!
Alan B.

Alan B Your obnoxious abuse is a case of the pot calling the kettle. Climate change has got nothing to do with out of control burns. Dense scrub is too damp and shady to burn under mild conditions. If it's hot and dry and windy enough to ignite, it explodes into unstoppable fire storms. In December 1792, when blackfellas still maintained open woodland on the Hawkesbury Sandstone country, fires were burning northwest of Parramatta under howling dry northwesterly gales and temps in excess of 43 C. Settlers at Parramatta/Toongabbie beat the fires out with green branches. Yesterday, in dense, unnatural scrub in Royal National park, with moderate temps and a humid northeasterly breeze, all the airtankers and fire engines and paramilitaries couldn't control the fires, and the the econazi dictators in the Rewards for Failure Service couldn't work out why.

If the descendants of the first convicts went back to England and demanded
title to English land, do you think it would be granted I dont think so.

It may be wrong, it may be wicked and unfair but nobody ever gives up control
of land and countries, without a war or civil war.

After all, control of land and countries is what they fight over in the first place.

Countries wouldnt keep armies if they didnt care who overran their countries.

Mabo never had any connection with mainland Australia, & should never have been applied to aboriginals in any way.

It was entirely a decision regarding islander tenure in Torres strait islands. The islanders are a totally different people, & their tenure & customs of land occupation is completely foreign to Australian aboriginals.

If this lady can get this so far wrong, there is no value in any of her opinions.

There is no doubt in my mind that if the British did just come ashore and were immediately accepted, it was a very short lived welcome.

If my take on events is right, it seems that the British were engaged in a similar 'war' as we all are today. I see little difference between the random attacks of ISIS on the world and the random attacks of the abo's on the Poms back then.

The Poms were settled in some form of structure like we are today (our homes). The abo's would come out of the bush attack at random and if they survived the retaliatory barrage of bullets, would return to their respective place of domicile somewhere in the bush.

No different than our terrorists of today. There is no doubt in my mind, semantics and interpretations aside, that the poms invaded, even if you call it a 'soft invasion'.

We are still tolerating the abo terrorists still today. Whether all the greens and lefties like it or not, QEII owns Australia, yes, OWNS.

I did not give my consent for that blithering bastard of a stupid moron Keating to 'give' anything to the abo's, let alone give anything 'back' to them.

The bloody left together with the greens has absolutely no grasp on politics and running a country. In fact ALL these poly mongrels think it's a popularity contest as to who can give away the most lollies.

The bastards are like pedophiles.

So it is clear Australia was invaded! Not settled! The proof has been on-going from the time the Poms first landed, and we are still being attacked. How stupid can people be if they cannot see the facts/truth.

Hi Alt Rave,

Why don't you tell us what you really think ?

Joe

Now hang on folks, we are talking about 18th and 19th Century mentalities. My Grandfather came with the Royal Navy in 1892 and 1894. They returned some island folk on their way to the Queensland cane fields, as slavery was illegal. But they mentioned that there were officers of the government that were in charge of proper treatment of Aborigines. Also they considered most Aborigines as technically well behind Europeans. And they were, but Aborigines were better adapted to Australian conditions than the Europeans were we would find out to our chagrin.

Captain Cook did not invade Australia. His orders were to come to some agreement with any indigenous (inhabited) land owners but Aborigines were still hunter and gatherers and not agriculturalists which meant land ownership as Europeans viewed it, i.e., fencing, wasn't in force. Although Aborigines did have territorial claims between clans for hunting, etc.

The Missions, some religious bodies, treated Aboriginal boys and girls, the Stolen Generation horribly.

Yes, Aborigines have not been treated properly in their world view of events in the past. And now with a greater understanding we judge this by 21st Century mentalities and moral judgements.

But don't blame it on Captain Cook. It was not an invasion, Governor Phillip tried to come to some understanding and reconciliation with the local Aboriginal people,even after he was wounded. He took one back to England, where he died of pneumonia. It was a clash of cultures and the more dominant and coordinated culture eventually won over.

Australia Day, includes all Australians or permanent residents, as far
as we know the British were not the first Europeans to come to
Australia, The Dutch, French, Chinese, and Macasans all made their mark here, but the British won that right of permanent colonisation.

I've listened to the bleeding hearts and the softies, and the one thing that seems to be avoided, and that is.

By the abo's own admission they do not own the land, in fact they say, 'no one' owns the land.

So tell me this, why have we 'given' them 'back', 'their' land. To quote a famous actress, 'What a fuckin liberty'.

No one consulted or asked me for my opinion. So why are we 'giving' land to people who clearly don't and never owned it.

These politicians are clearly making big money out of these disgusting decisions, and we just have to sit back and take it.

Oh the time will come and I hope I will be there at the forefront of it all.

marksmith, WTF are you on about? I may not be the brightest light in the room, but think you may be off topic. You may wish to locate the topic you seek and re-post accordingly.
Good luck.

Dear ALTRAV,

Oh it is always edifying to read the lovely slang and slurs employed by your ilk. Let me have a go and see what you think.

Listen here mate. Why on earth do you think that as some clueless second generation immigrant you get to sling off at anybody. You lot are a real pain in the arse. Yours was the highest demographic who voted No in the vote on same sex marriage when the majority of real Australians did the fair bloody thing and voted Yes. Not because they had a dog in the fight but because they knew, as fair dinkum Aussies, it was the right thing to do.

As a pissant newcomer you should learn some bloody manners and put a sock in it. I am fifth and sixth generation Australian and absolutely sick of new arrivals like your family educating their kids not to know their place.

And what the hell was this? "No one consulted or asked me for my opinion." Why? Because it just doesn't count mate. You have a hell of a long way to go before you have anything worth contributing so how about putting a sock in it and leaving it to the true blue Aussies. Going and learning some history about this country would be one hell of a good start. Come back when you are a little more educated.

Clown!

There mate, how did I go? Good?

Dear Alan B.

You wrote;

“Fire destroys all understory, much of which like legumes, is absolutely essential to superior land management. As is ground aerated by earthworms and dung beetles etc.”

That is really pretty clueless my friend.

Aboriginal fire practices, at least in my area, are far less damaging than current CFA methods in fuel reduction. Just a couple of months ago there was a particular site that was split in two for the purposes of comparison for some fuel reduction. One was burnt using traditional methods and the other using current methods.

The traditional method required twice as many people and took twice to conduct, but the intensity was far less. The CFA was far quicker on the day however due to the intensity of the fire they had to monitor it over the next few days returning twice to attend to smoldering remnants.

We are in an area that was rich with murnong, a indigenous daisy yam, and it stretched for nearly 100 kilometers. The first explorers remarked on the endless fields of yellow murnong flowers. The murnong was a vital part of the traditional diet and fire was employed to keep these vast fields open for the propagation of it and the native grasslands.

This gives lie to the notion that indigenous fire practices in the area were scorching the earth and destroying legumes.

Given Arthur Phillip's friendly attitude towards the aboriginals (though sorely tested when they killed his gamekeeper), it is unlikely that he treated the Aboriginals as Conan would. That is :"To crush your enemies. See them driven before you. And to hear the lamentations of their women."

Invasion day idiocy only confirms the need to sell the out of control ABC and cut funds to all "Studies..." courses at the Leftie preschool called Uni.

SteeleRedux, mate your exactly the reason this place is in the sh!t. You are a typically ignorant, arrogant, troglodyte with nothing to say or contribute of any kind.

You quote the poofter vote as if it is something to be proud of. You moron, have you looked outside your own backyard lately to what these fu(&wits are doing to society?

Get your head out of your arse and do some research about what's actually going on out there, instead of watching bloody sports all day.

While we're at it, if it wasn't for the post war immigrants, you'd still be sitting in your own faeces, wondering what to do next.

You really need to get real. Before you go shooting your mouth off any further, be aware that not just myself but my family, more specifically, my father was responsible for many new and innovative products which helped the Australian expansion into the mining and road transport industries, long before you realised you had half your brain missing.

I've got products out there and scores on the board.

Show me yours? No? Typical. Typical Aussie, shoot your mouth off thinking you know what your talking about. To another moronic Aussie, you would make perfect sense.

People like myself who are not sucked in to current fads and fantasies are a little more intelligent and mature and we burnt the Politically Correct book years ago, because we only speak, 'Correct'.

So luckily, I grew up with crap like you and being far more intelligent than you, I was already on the high ground. It appears you, on the other hand have chosen to go even further than the low ground, to below ground.

As for learning the history on this sh!thole, I've learned more than I care to know. And there really isn't anything worth knowing, until the post war migrants began arriving and doing things worth knowing.

To quote a well documented moron;

Come back when you are a little more educated.

Clown!

There mate, how did I do, Good?

Dear ALTRAV,

How did you go? Well let's see. I'm afraid repetition doesn't earn you too many points. Here let me show you. You went with sh!t, poofter, arse, faeces, crap, sh!thole. But I suppose there is a high likelihood there is something subliminal happening. Closeted maybe? Then there is this set; moron, moronic, moron. You see where I'm coming from, hardly the product of an inventive mind.

However I do give you credit for managing to alienate most of the posters on this forum who tend to be proudly typical Aussies even if they probably not in modern Australia. That was reasonable work so it elevates a ”D” to a substantial 'C” or possibly a “C+”.

Okay my turn.

My father served in the Australian armed forces in Korea and the Malayian Emergency. He later worked on the Snowy River Hydro scheme and helped with the construction of infrastructure like the Hobart Bridge and huge mining wharves around the country. Do you really think that without some reffo like your dad coming out and elbowing out hard working honest true blue Aussies out of a job we wouldn't have been able to do it ourselves? Bollocks.

What a self-entitled, obnoxious, upstart you are proving to be! How dare you slam the average Australian as moronic. And what about this?

“As for learning the history on this sh!thole, I've learned more than I care to know. And there really isn't anything worth knowing”

Cont...

Cont...

So mate, nah withdraw the mate. So you pompous little new arrival, you come in here tell us we are all moronic, call the place a sh!thole, then on top of it all you feel you need to be consulted first before we return land to those who have been here for tens of thousands of years and have demonstrated far more love of country in their little finger than you could ever muster in a lifetime.

What makes you think you are entitled to even have a say in this? Or to refer to our indigenous brothers as abos? Or to even call yourself and Australian when you obviously don't have a single drop of fair go in your entire body?

You have a bloody nerve I will give you that. I have no idea why you weren't sorted out at school because slinging around the rubbish you have here in my day would have seen some sense knocked into you.

Why don't you pick up that over-entitled, totally ungrateful attitude and take it back to when you lot came from. I don't detect much Australian in you just a hell of a lot of discontent and we all know the risk discontented second generation immigrants can be to the county.

Better?

Steele, I think I'm in love :). When are you next in Adelaide ? Now that there is SSM .......

Joe

Pass the popcorn.

//being far more intelligent than you//

Fake news.

SteeleR, not withstanding the work your father did, this is civil engineering, manual work that I would suggest had a fair number of wogs and assorted migrants somewhere in the mix.

What my father and I did was to design and construct new equipment and technology which is still in use today, for many industries today such as mining and road transport.

Oh, and BTW, my father didn't fight in any wars, he was POW'ed at the pleasure of Hitler and the Nazis, the wogs did not agree with Musolini.

The reason I come out fighting is because it WAS morons like you who gave me and other wogs a hard time when we were young. You see as much as you don't want to hear it, I was born here, so if you don't think I should have a say just because you say so, tough and shut up.

I had enough of your kind as a kid so I definitely don't need reminding that the morons still exist. BTW if I say your a moron, you're a moron, only because you demonstrated that you are.

Had you not come out spewing your gibberish I would have had no knowledge of your leftist red neck views. So I wanted to be sure you knew that I got your message and responded in the manner you obviously understand.

I had to dig pretty low and deep, and way out of my comfort zone to find those words, but I knew you'd appreciate it and it would be a little easier for you to understand.

I am pleased to see I got it right and you seem to have understood as if it was your first language. BTW my first language is English, just so you know, and I can count beyond ten, with my shoes on.

//it WAS morons like you who gave me and other wogs a hard time when we were young//

And now it's morons like you giving Aboriginals, recent immigrants and their descendants, older immigrants and their descendants, homosexuals, women, merchant seamen, trade unionists, people who like sport, et al. a hard time.

Seems that you're very happy to dish it out, but you come over all sooky when you have to take it.

Poor little snowflakes. It must so difficult for these people to reconcile their self-image of being big, manly, macho MEN! with their tendency to carry on like a six-year old girl with a grazed knee whenever they are rebuked too harshly. And yet somehow, they manage it.

Tut! Tut! Steele.

" majority of real Australians did the fair bloody thing and voted Yes"

The majority of Australians did not vote 'Yes', the majority of registered Australian voters voted 'Yes', which is an entirely different thing.

Dear ALTRAV,

Sorry young lad, got pulled up by a post limit.

Anyway a little better for sure and the pull for sympathy was a nice touch. See you are getting the hang. More targeted and a degree better than the bombastic claptrap you normally dish out on this forum. I did like the 'leftist redneck' but 3 morons in the one paragraph did remove some gloss. Still, upgrade to a 'B'.

Okay my turn.

Cry me a bloody river about your school days you bloody miserable little sook. I was one of only four white kids at a Filipino military college in the early 70s and the first year was damn tough. Gave as good as I got but got sick of cleaning blood off my shirt before the next class. One thing I will say about Filipinos though, they tended to fight fair.

So what if you copped the odd thump, you have said that women who get grabbed by the genitalia shouldn't complain because it was just natural. Well mate there is nothing more natural than some smart-arsed newcomer slagging off about Australia getting some manners knocked into them. Suck it up you little princess.

And how dare you compare my father to yours. Mine put his life on the line for this country while yours was an economic refugee who wasn't here to “build this nation” as he probably believed it was a sh!thole as well, but was here to earn a buck just like you did. You weren't doctors, or teachers, or servicemen, or even public servants, you were both after the dollars. Which is fine as long as you don't try and spin it into something it wasn't.

Now what do you mean you came out fighting? I copied the language and attitude of your earlier post and you came to play.

You really are a weak minded, petulant snowflake of a child hiding behind a keyboard lashing out at the world at large for some imagined injustice you think occurred.

Tosser!

There. This is fun. I await your next effort. Good luck.

The whole change the date discussion is silly.
Tell me what date in aborigine history was more significant than 26 January 1788 ?
On that date the whole aborigine race was brought into the whole world family.
Up to then only a few Indonesians knew of a few aborigines.
The vast majority knew nothing of the rest of humanity.
They had verbal stories of Cooks arrival 18 years previously.
Did they have any concept of the globe on which they lived ?

It was a new beginning, an opening up of the horizon.