Anyone who even mentions Henry Reynolds, let alone quotes his bodgie figures, has to be viewed with deep suspicion.

There was no ‘genocide’ as in deliberate wiping out of aboriginals to fail to “recognise”. Some aboriginals were treated very badly by some white settlers, and most aboriginal tribes treated each other very, very badly, spending a great deal of their time killing each other in ‘turf wars’.

There is no “myth” about Australia day. It commemorates white settlement of a land now called Australia. “Invasion” is an emotional word totally inappropriate to the mores and standards of 200 plus years ago. And, as an enlightened nation, Britain treated the aborigines much better than any other colonisers of the time. There were specific instructions for them to do so.

Anyone who talks about the “invasion” of the NT last year to “further the destruction of our Indigenous people’s links to their land and culture…” has to be taking something pretty strong; unless, of course, this author equates protecting children from perverts, starvation and disease with genocide. This is more likely to be the case than is drug induced ranting because anyone who talks genocide in relation to British settlement and aborigines is a complete nutter.

This particular nutter now wants to mobilise a ‘huge’ 4% of the Australian population (most of whom are more interested in running the lives they have like the rest us than in rallying to ratbag causes) and their “millions of supporters”. What a load of mouth-frothing madness!

If John Passant is so concerned about this issue he should bang his head against the wall harder than he is now and finish his misery.

Leigh, you say "no genocide".

What is your *enlightened* interpretation of the mass killings of aboriginals in Tasmania to the point of extermination?

If you delve, there is indeed evidence to back up Henry Reynold's view of Australian history.
We have just got rid of a government that tried its damndest to rewrite our history as so much "nicer" than it really was.
We do indeed carry today the load of our genocidal past.

And - we, white Australians, are about to carry on that shameful tradition.
How many of us have shares in companies that are destroying in a few short years, land that was aboriginal land for 40,000 years?

How many greedy investors are thinking of the money that might flow from having international radioactive waste dumps on that land?

We, mindless Australians - preoccupied with our superannuation, our second car, our backyard barbecue - do we notice that the supposedly great bonanza of uranium mining would lead inevitably to other countries having dangerous nuclear reactors, and more nuclear weapons.

While we piously say "no nuclear power plants here" - Australian do not seem to recognise the hypocrisy of our position on uranium mining.

As to the health and environmental ill-effects of uranium mining - well, it's not our problem much - its only a few abos, isn't it?

Invasion Day, January 26th should give us an opportunity to reflect on our current situation, as top greenhouse gas polluters, and mindless energy consumers.
From the original owners of this land, we might learn some ways to respect this land, and work together to restore both the dignity of those original owners, and our precious fragile environment.
Christina Macpherson www.antinuclear.net

I am pleased to see that there is still someone like Leigh who has the guts to stand up and put a counterpoint to the overwhelming, politically-correct garbage on this subject that pervades related discourse. I am also heartily sick of hearing "activists" like Passant, who by implication claim to be the legitimate voice of Australia's aboriginal population (which, by ABS statistics, comprises 1.93% of the Australian population) - using language more appropriate to Che Guevara, rather than the menial ravings of some biased social reformer from the backwoods “with his thumbnail dipped in tar”.

Whether Passant likes (or even knows) it, the history of this planet is written in the blood of nations that have been conquered aggressively by the armies of more powerful nations. Every hundred years or so, for the last two millennia, the countries of Europe and their national boundaries and the people who politically controlled them and the fate of their populations have changed drastically, under the force of arms. Without wishing to agree with it as a methodology, it nevertheless is the way of history.

It was a similar historical process by which Australia was founded. The only reason that Australia's history does not mirror the complication of Europe's is because of its geographical isolation and a smaller and more homogeneous population. That doesn't mean, because we can see it more clearly, that there is any obligation to "give it back".

I, personally, do not carry the slightest historical guilt for what came before me in the history of this country. However, it is a play to this historical guilt upon which the political opportunists rely in constructing their politically-correct "solutions" to their self-serving agendas. And they can be quite persuasive. It was just such a process that led to the political "stacking" of the High Court as a forerunner to that travesty of justice called ‘the Mabo Decision’ on Aboriginal land rights. I am a great believer in land rights for Aboriginals. They can have exactly the same rights that I do: get a job, work hard and buy it!

From the article “20,000 Aboriginal people fell defending their land in an ongoing war against the invaders.”

Yes, defeated by colonial acquisition. People die in “War”

The world of 200 years ago was then. This is now.

As a “protestant” (of sorts), I will never understand why Irishmen parade up and down celebrating
the battle of the Boyne, which saw the defence of the Protestant King of England’s sovereignty over a predominantly Catholic Ireland. It all happened a few years before the colonisation of Australia under the British flag.

That was then, this is now.

Grow up, pretending that Australia is some backwater continent where previous aboriginal settlers will eternally moan on about their ancestral dispossession is as pointless and irritating as celebrating the battle of the Boyne, ancient Britain’s complaining about the Saxon invasion or the French moaning on about their defeat at Agincourt or England protesting to the Court of Human Rights for repayment of Dane-geld from Denmark.

As for “Australia Day perpetuates our founding myths and enslaves our Aboriginal brothers and sisters. In the spirit of true reconciliation let’s abolish this celebration of genocide.”

Like I said, get over it, the “war of colonisation”, if that’s what you want to call it was a resounding victory for the “colonists”.

It is time for John Passant to accept the permanency of post colonial settlement and join mainstream Australia in the celebration of federation and thank his lucky stars Australia was colonised by the British. The alternative of say Dutch, Belgium, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German or (more pertinent of recent history) Japanese (1942) or late 20th century Indonesian, colonisation (if East Timor is any guide) would have produced a far harsher outcome for the indigenous native.

Darn it, Doc Holliday,

. . . you beat me to the draw !

From my understanding many of the Aboriginals were killed by other Aboriginals. Sure they were given guns by white people but it was the black finger that pulled the trigger. This was especially the case in Queensland. Its called tribal warfare.

The author said that "There is a shocking 17-year gap in life expectancy between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians." But since Europeans have arrived I would say Aboriginal life expectancy has risen by between 60 - 100%. Is this a bad thing?