The Constitution might be seen as a 'living document', and there could be reasons to change it. But this raced-based Voice abomination is not one of them. No particular group of people should be 'recognised' or permitted special treatment via a document that sets the rules for governance of the country.

Continuing discussion on the Voice is a waste of time. If people haven't already made up their minds one way or the other, they are nincompoops without a mind to make up. There is a clear cut choice: you want to see power handed over to an unelected group of people just because of their race - a mere 3% of the population - or you do not.

And, the Opposition's weasel 'recognition' of people for merely being the descendants of the first to occupy the continent (or believed to be so) is pretty damn stupid as well. The Stone Age culture being waffled about has done nothing whatsoever for Australia. And its activists are nothing but a pain in the arse, and a threat to the harmony of what is touted as a 'multicultural country'.

Any change to the Constitution should be desirable, irresistible and inevitable. The Albanese government, the media, and the virtue-signalling corporates have failed to prove that these requirements exist.

Those who have lived closely among Aboriginals, don’t fear them, as do obviously, the political class of the over-pampered, that seek to impose their own fear and personal misgivings of Aboriginals, onto the rest of us through constitutional changes that disadvantage the majority.

The author wrote: "To make it a more perfect Constitution two issues must be resolved: the question of defining our sovereignty and the question of Indigenous recognition."

There are no degrees of perfection. Either something is perfect or it isn't perfect.

The constitution is not carved in stone and ought to change to reflect the will of the majority, as needs be, from time to time.

I say yes to the voice and recognition and reconciliation. With that done the indigenous community will not have superior rights and better welfare than other members of the Australian community at large.

Other changes to the constitution are warranted and that's a bill of irrevocable human rights and true equality before the law!
Alan B.

As an author, what I like about Online Opinion is that it reflects views across the spectrum. At this stage I will offer a brief reply to comments with a longer reply later in the week if it appears warranted.
Little I say to ‘ttbn’ will change his mind. The proportion of people identifying as Indigenous in the last census was closer to 4% and approaching 1 million people. At the Federal level there are 11 indigenous people in the two Federal houses, which amounts to 5%.
I think it is a long shot for ‘diver dan’ to say that people voting considering voting “Yes” are motivated by ‘their own fear and misgivings’. Their hope is that a Yes vote will contribute to improving the situation for a group of Australians who have a far longer history than us later settlers. Whether it will lead to improvement remains to be seen. I think it is the NO voters who are dominated by ‘fears and misgivings’
Thanks ‘david f’ for your clarification. Perhaps what I should have said was they are stages in moving towards a perfect constitution, but realising that such a goal will never be reached.
Obviously I agree with ‘Alan B’ on the Referendum, but I have concerns about ever making human rights fixed in a Constitution. What seems ‘right’ at some time can change later- eg ‘The right to bear arms” as the classic example.
Ian Keese

As to the author's concluding remark I'd say if it ain't broke don't fix it. Today's aborigines use smart phones and some have blue eyes and red hair, not the case in 1901. If the referendum succeeds I predict no end of trouble unlike the grudging acceptance by many of the same sex marriage poll. Most of the noise on aboriginal affairs will come from urban based and mostly Caucasian 'aborigines'. They will blame everyone but themselves if the remote area disadvantage metrics don't improve.

Another outcome that is likely to jar middle Australia is stopping resource projects at the same time asking for more money. Examples include Barossa offshore gas, Beetaloo fracking and closing Burrup Peninsula. Middle Australia who would like prices not to increase so much might wonder if they should also have a say. Recent migrants might wonder what they did wrong to be short changed. You also have to wonder if this is all a beat up by the woke crowd who seemingly have no answers to issues like housing affordability and power prices.

I think Ian misses the point. There is little opposition to indigenous recognition in the Constitution – both major parties support this. And though changes are rare, I haven’t seen anyone argue that the Constitution should not be changed in principle. All constitutions are “living documents”.

There are many arguments in the “No” case, and some are mutually incompatible – Jacinta Price’s reasons are very different from Lidia Thorpe’s, for example. I have yet to make up my mind on this issue, as I think there are strong arguments on both sides. These seem to me the strongest arguments against:

1. it is a core principle of liberal democracy that people do not get different rights under the constitution based on race.

2. All past attempts at providing indigenous peoples’ input into political decision making have failed (e.g. ATSIC). The Voice will be no different, and enshrining it in the constitution will make it much harder to abolish or reform if it proves another failure.

3. Claims that it will close the gap and end indigenous disadvantage are wildly optimistic.

4. We do not have enough information on how it will work. Questions such as who will participate in the Voice and how they will be chosen are not mere matters of minor detail. These are properly addressed in legislation not in the constitutional amendment, but that is no good reason not to be transparent about what is envisaged.

5. the scope has progressively widened. “Matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples” could be any matter considered by government. Extending representation to executive government as well as parliament opens up the possibility of obstructive lawfare and could create a large additional burden on the bureaucracy.

6. The Calma-Langton model envisaged an interacting network of local and regional Voices as well as a national one. By focussing on the national level, a bottom-up model is replaced by a top-down one that may not deliver the type of representation First Nations people want.

Constitutional recognition of Australia's first peoples is overdue, and should have been in the original document. Fear of change is in the minds of those conservatives opposed to any change. How much of the opposition is motivated by preexisting prejudices towards Aboriginal people is uncertain, but I am sure there is a "Liberal" amount of bigotry and racism involved.

Because I know what type of characters are pushing for the VOICE I’ll vote No if there is no paper published on how this VOICE will work before it is accepted.
Just because Academics & bureaudroids of unproven merit & heritage are saying that they’ll support it (only because they can smell $$) is no proof that they have the good for the future of the indigenous in mind. I for one do not believe them at all ! I have witnessed their antics first hand for too long !

According to Jacinta Price (I never read what the BS artists themselves say, being a 100% dinkum NO voter) the expensive first yes campaign doesn't even mention the Voice.

They are "too scared to say the words 'Voice to Parliament'." They know that people are waking up this is not just the 'modest', 'close the gap' crap the Albanese is lying about.

I was reminded by David Flint that the YES mob don't have the guts to have a convention, where real people - not activists and politicians - are elected to discuss the matter prior to any referendum being staged.

"And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons."
[Genesis 3:7]

An illegitimate regime with an illegitimate constitution is trying to decorate itself, to present itself as if it was a legitimate guardian of the original people of this continent. They never asked the real people who live in this continent, new or old, whether we wanted to have them and their constitution at all to begin with.

No cover for you, bastards, we can see your nakedness behind all your presentations.

What a mealy-mouthed pile of platitudes.

The Constitution is not meant to be a "living document", so it is deliberately hard to change.

A screw up here is a screw up that will affect generations.

Kudos ShadowMinister- as you said the Constitution is not meant to be a living document.

I wish people would stop living in the past.
Most of what happened more than two hundred years ago is of little importance now.
Our legal system was established when the first settlers arrived.
Laws could not apply to anything before then.
Laws can never really be retrospective.

In the animal kingdom there are many groups which 'establish' their territory.
They patrol regularly, and actively defend that territory against invaders.
This can involve physical conflict with an intruder.
Alternatively, some animals simply occupy and use a vacant area.
They are ready to move on if a 'superior' force arrives.

This country was occupied by many native groups?
Did they (collectively?) define the boundaries of this land?
Did they let bordering countries know?
Did they actively patrol and protect those boundaries?
No?
There seems to be no proof that anything like that happened?
They exercised no control over the land as a whole.

This means they didn't 'own' the land in the sense we would define ownership.
They merely occupied small areas of it.
So of course the early settlers decided to move in.
There was plenty of room.
And that was, and still is, the way of the world.

We must live life as it is now.
We must make decisions based on what is happening now.
Not on what our ancestors did more than two hundred years ago.
I wouldn't like to eat two hundred year old egg on toast!

Hi IF,

You take a typical conservative view of past events, when they are uncomfortable, simply mitigating and convoluting past history, then applying some alternate rationale to justify the whole sorry episode. What is important is truth telling, learning from past mistakes, and ensuring a better way forward is found.

BTW, genocide by neglect continued well into the 1960's for Aboriginal people, it didn't end 200 years ago as you would have us believe, but its all part of that mitigation you so desire, is it not.

I think that Aboriginals benefited more than they were disadvantaged by British Colonialism. If they don't agree then they can give up the things that British Colonialism brought to Australia. As the progressive group the Eureka Stockaders and their Left Wing/ Proto-Communist- Chartist Principles said we mine it we own it- and we built it we own it. British Australian's built Australia's infrastructure from nothing.

Canem Malum wrote:

"British Australian's built Australia's infrastructure from nothing."

That is more of the Terra Nullius nonsense. There were people here when the British came. They were feeding themselves. They had a spiritual life. The British forced Christian superstitions on them to replace Aboriginal superstitions. The British took their land on which they were surviving to build cattle stations and other structures supporting their society. The war that is not mentioned in the Australian War Memorial is the original war in which the British took the Aboriginal land. The British did not build Australia's infrastructure from nothing. They replaced one society with another society and tried to force the original inhabitants to accept new superstitions and be servants to the new society.

David

perhaps you could point to any structure pre civilization in Australia

Dear shadow minister,

You don't have to have an elaborate structure to have a society. The Aborigines had humpies which provided sufficient shelter for them. You apparently have a similar mindset to Canem Malum. The elementary forms of Religious life used one case study in depth, the Australian aborigines. Durkheim choose this group because he felt they represented the most basic, elementary forms of religion within a culture. To say there was nothing denies that culture. Presumably, if the Aborigines had been left alone they would be living as their ancestors did. Canem Malum and you consider it nothing. Our ancestors lived in similar circumstances. As far as we know since the beginning of humanity humans have lived in some of society. It is wrong to call it nothing if it is not the same kind of society that you are used to.

Adding insult to injury, it has become fashionable to refer to aboriginal people as "first nations", as if they too were afflicted by that white-man's disease.

Before white man came they had no alcohol hence no alcoholism, no nation hence no nationalism - these are the cursed ills brought over by the white man!

Thank you david f, a man of my soul. Unfortunately saying that, it wont win you any "kudos" from the Kudos Kid, but maybe another one of his quotes from That renowned Greek philosopher and Souvlaki shop owner Demetrius Arsethrottle. "Ah, you'a wanna up-size.... only a dollar extra!" I found that quote rather profound, particularly late on a boozy Friday night in Marrickville... what do you think?

"You don't have to have an elaborate structure to have a society. "

Well that's true, if you stretch the meaning of 'society' beyond recognition. But you do have to have a structure to have infrastructure which was Canem's original point.

We've been down this road before. The aboriginals were a stone age people who lived unchanged for millennia apart from thoroughly altering the landscape in their original guise. Like most stone age peoples, their lives were short and brutish, war was prevalent, women little better than chattels, kids even less, the entire tribe one bad season away from disaster.

A dead-end as far as human development is concerned.

Dear mhaze,

Is human development more important than being free? The development was of their masters - those who took their land - those who forced them to be maids and stockmen - those who pushed an alien religion on them - those who introduced syphilis and smallpox to them. Who was developing? The benefits of development were the rewards of their masters for their enslavement. They couldn't even keep their own myths. The nonsense of the Rainbow Serpent was replaced by the nonsense of a 3-in-1 god, a virgin having babies and life after death. Instead of introducing them to reason the occupiers replaced their primitive fantasies with other primitive fantasies, massacred them and took the fruits of the labour of the survivors.

The White Mans Burden;

"The task, believed by white colonisers to be incumbent upon them, of imposing Western civilisation on the inhabitants of European colonies."

This much discredited 19th century philosophy is not dead and buried as one might have expected in the 21st century, but rather is alive and well here on this little old forum of OLO. A hearty band of the 'Usual Suspects' have resurrected it to denigrate pre-colonial Aboriginal society. In fact they know all about what happened millennia before the arrival of the European, to put it into colloquial terms; "Aboriginals were on the bones of their arse" according to them, and for 60,000 years were staring at extinction with every turn, and it was for 60,000 years no less, what lucky, lucky, bastards!

If Australia is going to take its place as a progressive (oh! how the old fellas hate that word) in the modern 21st century world, then lets hope the people of Australia deliver a resounding 'YES' vote when the Referendum on 'The Voice' is decided later this year.

David,

You claimed that "The British did not build Australia's infrastructure from nothing." You have yet to back up that claim. Society is not infrastructure, Chimpanzees have societies as do wild dogs. And humpies are not infrastructure either. I think that you are in need of a dictionary.

Paul,

Neither do you have any idea of what Aboriginals did 1000 years ago

david f,

I know that many who base their information on this are informed by so-called native advocates, but much of what you claim is really a Disneyfied whitewashing (deliberate pun!) of the real nature of aboriginal 'society', if that's the word you want to inappropriately use.

These people weren't free. They lived in a highly structured grouping where only elderly males had any real power, with all others effectively serfs of the small leadership group. To compare great things to small, you might think of the male elders as the aristocracy in a feudal society.

For a start, women had no power and no freedom. They were chattel belonging to their male elders, who could be beaten, raped and sold as needed. Equally, children had no freedom and lived at the mercy of the leadership with young women being especially endangered. (In the early days of the Port Jackson settlement it was reported how an aboriginal man was found to have euthanised his young daughter because the mother had died and there was no-one to carry the children as they 'nomaded'.

I think you are confusing Australian conditions with the American experience. There is now ample evidence that diseases such as smallpox came here not from Europeans but from Indonesia and China who had been visiting the northern Australia for centuries to trade all sorts of goods including aboriginal women who were prized in the Chinese courts. (Did I mention (free) aboriginal women could be sold - almost like they were slaves!?)

Aboriginal apologists might lament the loss of what is laughingly called aboriginal civilisation, but the fact is no one wants to return to that civilisation. Everything these days is about closing the gap with European culture - ie becoming more European and less stone age.

Dear mhaze,

The Aborigines didn't have a civilisation. They were primitive hunter gatherers. I am aware of what they were. They abused their women, and I don't romanticize them. However, it still wasn't right to declare the lands they were living 'Terra Nullius', massacre them and force an alien, nonsense religion on them with virgins having babies, a 3 in 1 god and dead people living on. At the time the English settled Australia English women couldn't vote, and married women couldn't hold property in their own name. English women weren't free. At the time Australia was settled English were making fortunes from the slave trade. Great strides have been made in civilising the English since then. The Aborigines were a primitive, hunter-gatherer stone age people when the English came. However, stone age people should be treated with consideration as should any other people, and the English behaved in a criminal manner toward them.

It was how the world worked back then.
And it still is to a large extent.
Bullying and brute force.
Look around you.

But let us stick to facts.
The early settlers came and found a largely unoccupied land.
So of course they decided to stay.
In retrospect, the methods they used to establish themselves might seem harsh.
.
However, I am sure they didn't plan to go out and kill every non-white they found.
The 'non-whites' quite rightly didn't want them to stay.
So they waged a kind of war on the 'whites'.
The 'whites' responded.

But none of us were there.
This includes the present day descendants of the 'non-whites'.
Nobody alive today was here 65,000, or even 200, years ago.
To say so is a 'sleight of hand' technique, using words to convey an inaccurate 'truth'.

The bottom line is that we cannot change the past.
No one alive today is responsible for anything which happened a long time ago.
We are here together today, and we are all just Australians.
We should all comply with laws, and try to make life better for others.

Those who are trying to split Australia along 'racist' lines are disgraceful.
They are executing a kind of SCAM on the Australian Public.
Their 'sleight of hand' technique is aided by a government wearing blinkers.
IT IS TIME TO TALK ABOUT DEMOCRACY, AND WHAT IT REALLY MEANS.

Dear Ipso Fatso,

My understanding of democracy is that it means rule by the majority and also recognition of the fact that certain parts of the population have been treated unfairly in the past. We cannot magically erase the past or do anything for those who are no longer with us. However, the descendants of those treated unfairly are still with us. The effects of the unfair treatment of their ancestors still linger. One way to make up for the effects that the treatment of their ancestors is to give them a voice. It is an imperfect solution, and I believe there is no perfect solution. However, I think it is the best option.

A nice bit of Goebbelism there, associate Aboriginal people with chimpanzees and wild dogs. Why not just refer to them as non-human and be done with it. Like some others here, I do not pretend or profess to have intricate knowledge of Aboriginal society and culture pre-colonisation. Regardless of whether it was primitive, or sophisticated, there is no justification for the genocide perpetrated for 200 years under colonialism.

IF, simply wanting to apply some kind of collective amnesia is the game, then it doesn't wash. As I've said truth telling of past history is important if we are going to learn from past mistakes. Recognition of the First Australians in the overall development of the Australian continent is paramount, and needs to be constructively recognised in the modern Australian Constitution.

Well david, you started off asserting that it was wrong to absorb the aboriginal people into the empire since they were already a free people. Then I point out that they weren't free and you hurry to accede to that point. Yet, somehow, even though your reason was shown to be false you hold fast to your original assertion. Logic takes a holiday.

Paul on the other hand talks of "collective amnesia" which is pretty funny since he insists on ignoring anything that puts the natives into anything other a perfect light.

mhaze,

Other than your own prejudice, what is the basis for your claim that in pre-colonial times; "(Aboriginal) women had no power and no freedom. They were chattel belonging to their male elders, who could be beaten, raped and sold as needed. Equally, children had no freedom and lived at the mercy of the leadership with young women being especially endangered." I say you as I, have no knowledge of such, and your claim is a biased assumption on your part. It might have been so, but then again it might have been entirely different. Care to offer some evidence?

None of you know what it was like 250 years ago.
You weren't there then, and neither was anybody else who is alive now.
So it is mostly conjecture?
And they already have adequate representation in parliament.
About eleven members if my memory serves me correctly?

If we each look back in our family tree, I am certain we could all find someone we thought was treated unfairly.
That is life.
And such trouble should not cast a long shadow.
I cannot, and should not, live my life with some long distant family dispute being the cause of disquiet today.
I cannot live life under that kind of cloud.
And it is all so uncertain.
Time to put it behind us.
Time to live life in the present.
History is informative, but otherwise of absolutely no consequence.
Useful information and solid infrastructure are the only things which should stay with us from the past.

And I remind you again: I am older than most of those making these false claims.
They are the newcomers.
I want them to comply with the law and cease agitating for something they don't need or deserve.
Otherwise, I want them to get on a boat and sail away.
Get out of MY country, and stay out.
I don't want you here causing trouble.

Paul,

This is now the 5th time you've asked me for evidence of my mentioning that aboriginal women were simply chattel and could be and were sold by the males in their group. Each time you profess ignorance of this and assert that no evidence exists.

On the previous 4 occasions, I've provide the evidence via all sorts of historical records. On all 4 previous occasions you've then ignored that evidence and either dropped out of the thread or sought to change the subject.

I don't propose to go through the effort to provide you with evidence all over again which you will then ignore and promptly forget or memory-hole. If you want the evidence go back to one of the previous threads where you asked and I answered.

mhaze,

You have never provided any such pre-colonial evidence what so ever, it doesn't exist, not even one time, let alone four times, now your are being purposely obtuse knowing no such evidence exists. What is it in the writing of Confucius, no, more to the point it is in mhaze's writings of Confusion. YOU MADE IT UP SUNSHINE!

I left Paul to go back and find the evidence I've previously listed showing the status of women in aboriginal society, but then it occurred that that is probably an effort that is beyond poor old Paul.

So I did a quick check and found one such post....

"
1. Lyndal Ryan (a bleeding-heart for aboriginals) wrote in Aboriginal Tasmanians (page 79 in my edition)..." Aboriginal society faced its first major upheaval with Europeans over the 'gift' of women ....in return for Europeans provisions. [Some tribes] found themselves with only a small number of women, having lost many to neighbouring bands who appropriated them for exchange with the Europeans. The loss of women led to an immediate decline in the birth rate." Elsewhere she talks of how the women held by sealers on the various islands avoided the European diseases and that consequently almost all surviving Tasmanians descended from these sealer male-aboriginal female unions.

2. Blainey (Triumph of the Nomads) has an extensive discussion about Chinese traders, who mainly came south for sandalwood, also returned with aboriginal women. These no record of that in Australia because, as you might know, they didn't write. But there are such records in Chinese archives. Macau, for various reasons seems to have had a sizeable number of such women.

I'd also recommend you read Windschuttle's 'Fabrication' on this same issue, but I don't see much chance of that."

Paul now tries to change the issue by calling for pre-colonial evidence. This might surprise Paul but there is little such evidence because (and stop me if you've heard this before) aboriginals didn't have writing.

As I've written previously, the main reason aboriginal women in Australia suffer domestic violence at rates that far exceed any other group, is that their culture allows for and condones such violence over the millennia. Indeed, archaeology shows that the recovered bones of aboriginal females have fractures, breaks and wounds (especially around the head region) that are only explicable in a society where women were regularly beaten.

mhaze,

I would describe your evidence as scant at best. How does it relate to British colonisation of Australia and the subsequent treatment of the inhabitants. Was it more of that good old British altruism, selfless sacrifice of wanting to do good for the "unfortunates" of the world. AND, I must say at a great cost to themselves.

BTW, where does the concept of "terra nullius", sit with you, if you accept that concept, then there was no violence towards Aboriginal women, as there were no women to be violent towards!

For crying out loud !
Stop comparing the mentality of humans of 250 years ago with the indoctrination of today !
Get it into your thick, void craniums that if 250 years is not enough time to wake up then no amount of money will make you spoiled-brat activists think let alone close this gap you don’t want closed anyway !
To move along with the rest of the World takes a bit more than just the ability to speak ! The animal Kingdom is starting to look more adaptable than activists !

Just saw a Facebook post by a Torres Strait Islander who wrote Yuck,Yuck under Camilla’s photo. Imagine the feigned indignation & uproar & cries of discrimination if a Caucasian Australian did this about an Aborigine ?

Indy,

"Yuckyuck" I do believe is pigeonwhidgon for; "very beautiful HORSE!"

Reminds me of a time in Fiji, when attending a friends relations "restaurant". As we were pursing the joint, my wife said to me in Maori; "Paru, paru" The owner said to me what is paru? I said; "Ah... humm... um ...well, in Maori it means VERY NICE!", nothing could be further from the truth...it means "DIRTY", but not wishing to offend.

Paul1405,
I have on a few occasions drawn attention to what a few Australian Indigenous but most of the pseudo indigenous call the non indigenous.
The only reason why this is not an issue is because the non indigenous haven’t a clue what they’re being called.
It just goes to show that the Indigenous are no different to the rest of us, they just demand to be seen as different because that’s where the money for no effort is & without the responsibility of decency !

Indy, you don't have to be white skinned to be racists and bigoted, its not a prerequisite. I was visiting a friend last evening, we were discussing the situation in Sri Lanka and the hostility between the Sinhalese (75%) majority, and the Tamil (10%) minority, and racism plays its part in that conflict. We may say "they're all Indians to us" but not so to them, there are big differences. BTW, my friend is an Indian Tamil, and can't speak Hindi, and also doesn't like Bollywood movies.

Earlier I wrote that Paul "either dropped out of the thread or sought to change the subject."

And here is is trying to change the subject. And in a year or so, he'll be back exclaiming that no evidence for aboriginal slavery exists and demanding I provide it. The more things change....

He calls the evidence "scant" which at least is a step up from his earlier assertions that there was no evidence. Of course, there is way more evidence than I can provide here, but why bother especially to someone who will reject it no matter how extensive. All stone age peoples probably practiced slavery and wherever evidence exists it proves that point. And, if I haven't mentioned it before, the Australian aboriginals were the quintessential stone age peoples.


"where does the concept of "terra nullius", sit with you, if you accept that concept, then there was no violence towards Aboriginal women, as there were no women to be violent towards!"

Unfortunately (not the least unusually) you've misunderstood the term. It doesn't mean there were no people. It means there was no sovereignty over the land. And that is an issue that is very much in the eye of the beholder.

mhaze,

"terra nullius" meaning "land that is legally deemed to be unoccupied or uninhabited"

Now you have a new word to add to the meaning "sovereignty". No, the word sovereignty is not included in any worthwhile definition, and yours is not a worthwhile definition. Are you agreeing with the High Court of Australia that "terra nullius" was a false concept, and Aboriginal people did indeed hold sovereignty over the land at the time of the British invasion. Who in the British government prior to 1788 was considering the possibility of Aboriginal sovereignty over the land they called New South Wales. AND how was Cook in his couple of short landfalls able to establish no one held such sovereignty over said land, considering he did not observe even 0.00001% of the land mass or its people.

BTW, there is plenty of evidence that Aboriginal people, built and launched the first successful man landing on the Sun 8th May 43,256BC. The evidence is the same as yours, a little bit scant.

"legally deemed to be unoccupied or uninhabited"

Yes, legally unoccupied. But not ACTUALLY unoccupied which was your original assertion when you incorrectly used the term.

I didn't add 'sovereignty' as a new word. Its integral to the notion of terra nullius. eg

"The only territory which can be the object of occupation is that which does not already belong to another state, whether it is uninhabited, or inhabited by persons whose community is not considered to be a state; for individuals may live on as territory without forming themselves into a state proper exercising sovereignty over such territory." Oppenheim's International Law.

I can't be bothered educating you on this. You'll just have to read past the headlines all by yourself.

mhaze,

How did the British government prior to 1788 determine that no people held sovereignty over the lands of the east coast of the continent. And I did ask, who in the British government considered the issue of sovereignty before dispatching Phillip? I'm not much interested in the 'Oppenheim Definition' which I am familiar with, rather I am my interested in what the High Court of Australia had to say, and they declared "terra nullius" as applied to Australia invalid.

I'll help you out, Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney, played a leading political roll in establishing the British colony in New South Wales, and as far as I am aware good old Sid had nothing to say about Aboriginal sovereignty! They knew there were people occupying the land, but with Cook's account they believed a small attachment of marines would be able to deal with any resistance from the inhabitants. It was not long before the colonisers under government direction were conducting "punishment" raids against the Aboriginal people.

Dearie me Paul,

You originally thought terra nullius meant the absence of people. Now you claim to be conversant in International Law. I call bullsh!t.

Nowhere did I argue for or against terra nullius as it applied to Australia. Whether it was the basis for the British occupation or not is immaterial these days - a mere historic curiosity. The Brits were coming no matter what. If they used terra nullius as an excuse (and there's some doubt about that, at least in the early days), it was just window dressing to give a veneer of legality to it. In these grand affairs of state, legality runs a very distant last to expediency and power politics.

Might I point out that you've only raised this as a way to change the subject away from the fact that aboriginal women were abysmally treated in what is laughingly called aboriginal culture.

The British only ever deemed Australia as terra nullius due to the absence of buildings & any other missing signs of what they would have called society.
I’m not aware of any other country they either invaded or colonised & which they described as terra nullius.
Even the nomadic tribes & the Bedouins had evidence of some sort of society. The Australian Indigenous did not hence the term terra nullius !

Whether 'Australia' was occupied or not is of no consequence.
The white settlers moved in and occupied land.
Any problem this caused is confined to the people who were alive then.
It is absolutely no concern of ours more than two centuries later.

The fact is that there is a predominantly white population now.
Most of us were born here, and have no intention of moving away.
WE are not responsible for any harm experienced by their distant ancestors,
Those who somehow think they are owed something because of that had better get over it.

The fact is that we owe them nothing.
If they have genuine difficulty adjusting to modern society, then that society should assist them.
But they must make a genuine effort to fit in.
I think most of them do.

I suppose when Cook landed, there was no sovereign government to deal with only illiterate nomadic tribes whose administration was non existent.

SM,

That might have been most fortunate for the locals, given the fact when Cook landed in Aotearoa, on the first day he shot dead one of the natives. Captain James Cook shot the first Aborigine to resist his arrival at Sydney's Botany Bay - before the famed British explorer had even set foot on Australian soil. If you were a local, you wouldn't want to be in the greeting party when Cookie arrives.

"In 1770 Captain James Cook met few Aboriginal people on the Eastern Australian shoreline. Because they did not grow crops and because he assumed there were no inland fishable rivers, he concluded that Australia’s interior was empty. Sir Joseph Banks thought the Aboriginal people would run away and abandon their rights to land. They were both wrong, as the Gadigal and other local Aboriginal people later proved by ambushing the convicts who were often sent to work into the bush."

"The diaries and journals of the First Fleeters provide descriptions of the locals as ‘native’, ‘primitive’, ‘barbaric’ and even ‘stupid’. There was no recognition that the cultures and social structures of Aboriginal people in Sydney were as rich, diverse and complex as other nations around the world today. Ironically, the first Europeans would rely on Aboriginal knowledge of the area for their survival at various times, and the complexity of the Aboriginal languages is often likened to the complexities of Latin."

The First Fleeter have much in common with our resident Trumpster, they think alike.

Paul,

With you have stated that there are no valid records prior to James Cook's landing you quote an opinion piece that claims "There was no recognition that the cultures and social structures of Aboriginal people in Sydney were as rich, diverse and complex as other nations around the world today."

Maybe because there was no evidence of it?

Are you the resident Trumpster? I've heard you sing his praises.

Dear Ipso Fatso,

«If they have genuine difficulty adjusting to modern society, then that society should assist them.»

Why should they want to "adjust" to the evils and foolishness of modern society which was forced on them?

Modern society in its laziness of seeking quick comforts, has sacrificed itself and is now being taken over by machines. Soon, possibly in a decade or two, machines will take over completely and disallow any human-to-human interaction, pushing humans into a meaningless existence, that before eventually getting rid of humans altogether. Australia's next king/head-of-state is likely to be a robot, certainly the one after him/her.

The aboriginals could have faced scarcity and hard manual labor, but that way they remained free and survived for some 50-70,000 years, whereas Western/white civilisation will only survive for some 3,000-5,000 years (depending where one starts to count) before destroying itself.

ShadowMinister wrote:

«I suppose when Cook landed, there was no sovereign government to deal with only illiterate nomadic tribes whose administration was non existent.»

And Paul commented:
«That might have been most fortunate for the locals,»

That was indeed their fortune - not just because Cook did not kill them, but in itself, they were free while white-Westerners lived and suffered under the heavy yoke of administration for centuries, at least since Roman times.

White man and his junk civilisation is guilty.
I do hope some aboriginals will be able to survive out in the outback and remain free to tell the tale once both white people and aboriginal traitors who adapted and "adjusted" to their ways are subdued and finished by the monsters they created.