“Two hundred years after the "change of sovereignty" of 1788, the "law of the land" in the whole area of reconciliation between the new dominant "settled" society and the old immemorial system of communal land ownership of the indigenous was legally laid down by the High Court in the Mabo case (1992).”

I’m no lawyer, but I have read other “learned” opinion that the Mabo judgement does nothing of the kind, and it has been used wrongly to deal with other cases since. Mabo was for Mabo.

I don’t think that we should necessarily take Ms. Hocking’s word on that one.

The government is probably “still not sorry”, but there is no logical or humane reason why they should be sorry. I wish descendants of the original (as far as we know) inhabitants all the best – certainly no worse conditions than the rest of us have. But, please, they have the same opportunities as everyone else, and only some of them need help with education so that they can lift themselves up. Most have already done it for themselves.

And, it is the few who have necessitated the return to “colonial practices” the author waffles on about. Anyone objecting to what the Government has belatedly done cannot expect to be taken seriously when they claim to have aboriginal welfare at heart.

I really despair for Aboriginal welfare if a Rudd government is again captured by idealogues like this.

Barbara, forget returning to colonial times. Your ilk are determined to keep Aborigines in the Stone Age.

According to the "West"in some dysfunctional communities, aboriginal children are so malnourished, they are suckling dogs.And little ones as young as eighteen months are displaying severe sexual diseases.
No one should be permitted to treat children this way and if the only way to stop it is with intervention ,the sooner the better.
Those of the so called "stolen generation" were far more fortunate than today's poor little kids.
Tomorrow's Australians could well be saying "sorry" for allowing this disgusting abuse to go on.And let us not forget the abuse is by aboriginals on other aboriginals.

While Barbara Hocking's article is not without faults, I agree with her general drift. In particular, since the announcement of Brough's military solution to Aboriginal child abuse, I've wondered why on earth that the confiscation of Aboriginal land is apparently a necessary part of it.

Leigh and mickijo, I agree with what you said.

Lets just get on with where we are. There's no future in the past. What earlier generations in Australia did, they largely did for good reasons - there was no malevolance. We have nothing to be sorry for. Were the Normans still wringing their hands in 1266 about the poor displaced Saxons?

Let's stop this divisiveness - we are one country, and should be one people! After all, every Homo sapiens in this country is the descendant of someone who came here from somewhere else - the only difference is the arrival time. Those of us who trace our lineage back six or seven generations in Australia are expected to share (and are mostly willing to share) equally with someone who only arrived yesterday. So why should time since arrival be relevant to anything?

Thank you, Barbara Hocking - a well expressed and rather scary analysis.
But - the encouraging thing is - that while our greedy resource companies, and politicians, and bigwigs with the ear of Howard (- Hugh Morgan, Michael Angwin, Ron Walker, John White etc) while they spruik and plot on - indigenous people are awake-up.

In Australia, and in other countries world-wide - it is the indigenous people who have copped and are copping the degradation of their land through uranium mining, and in many cases, the dumping of toxic wastes, including nuclear.

White Australians, who voted overwhelmingly in the past, to give aborigines citizenship, are becoming aware of this nuclear con - especially the waste dump idea.

The growing wave of people's opposition to the dirty dangerous nuclear industry is joining with the growing consciousness of indigenous people and others, world-wide, of indigenous land rights and of respect for indigenous cultures.
The mining companies and their friends in government are not going to find it so easy.
Christina Macpherson www.antinuclearaustralia.com