"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!"
And do you, Doc, support the right of your children to inherit the land you worked hard for, and bought?
How about the right of your government to declare the land you worked hard for and bought, was actually vacant land -despite all your protestations- and could therefore be legally sold by the government to anyone with the money, and pay you nothing?

The article is not worthy of comment, but why am I not surprised that the author is very familiar with the writings of Marx.

It is the Candberra journalists who have collective amnesia, not white Australians.

If white people had not settled Australia and turned it into one of the best and freest countries in the world, Australia today would look like an Antipodean verson of black Africa. Think of Arukun or Palm Island on a continental scale, and you get the idea.

Although, at least Arukun and Palm Island have a few white police to try to keep the drunken aborigines from screwing too many of their own kids, and killing too many of their own women. And at least the white police can stop the aborigines from reverting to the savagry we see in black Africa today where hundreds of thousands get murdered by machetes and "necklacing". Without white police, white welfare workers, and white medical services, 50% of aborigines would now have AIDS, just like in Africa.

Since some of the former members of ATSIC could probably teach Mugabe, Mobutu, and Idi Amin a thing or two about stealing everything from their own people, it hardly takes a Mensa to figure out that Australia would be just another series of mutually hostile failed black states where Kalashnikov carrying crazies extort money from white Western Aid agencies, who are in there to stop the blacks from starving to death.

In South Africa today, even little black female babies are being raped because of a belief among black men that screwing virgins cures AIDS. Is it wrong for me to conclude that these people are not real bright, and they need a bit of guidance from people who are a lot more intelligent and mature? Look at the way aborigines behave and make the same conclusion.

But if you are hung up on the concept that all races are equal, then I suppose that you always have to find creative ways to blame white people for everything that goes wrong with black people. The trouble is, that such a racist explanation just happens to make you as big a racist as I am.

Well, this is bringing the scorpions out from under the rocks, isn't it? On the one hand we having the genocide deniers (Leigh)and on the other, the "blood of nations" pragmatism of Doc Holliday. Sitting in the middle is ol' Col Rouge with his "so what?" indifference. And then along comes Redneck...and the little cabal of professional whites is complete.

Kenny, I feel no guilt about the genocide either, but only because I acknowledge it and condemn it. My ancestors were unsettlers but that was their crime, not mine. "Self-loathing"? Come off it mate, I'm loving life and I'm proud to have the values I hold. I've got my feet planted in the great progressive traditions of this country: I'm in the union, Jack's as good as his master (in fact, he'd be a bloody sight better off without him!), and I'll always stick up for the underdog against the arrogance of the superior man, of the swell, of the toff, of the white supremacist and the boss.

Bring on the Treaty, damn the genocide. The real Australia Day was December 4, 1854!

Apparently going by some of our Posts, forgetting is the same as being forgiven.

Pathetically juvenile really, very similar to the Roman idea of peace. As Tacitus wrote, peace to us Romans, is the quietness achieved when what is left of the enemy are slaughtered after battle.

Remember what happened to the Tasmanian Aborigines.

Not changed much - or have we?

Cheers - BB, WA.

Good question BB – it does raise many issues and would appreciate your thoughts.

I tend to agree with John Passant. However, compensation is sticky.

We can feel regret (and a representative government can say sorry) for past wrongdoings … but we all must move forward, as other countries and first nation peoples have. Ergo, why is Oz so backward?

For those of the ‘stolen generation’, if there has been real and substantive *damage* to their well-being as a result of their experience – then yes, some form of compensation would be appropriate.

The Catholic Church is not exonerated from paying compensation to those who it abused so why should not the government departments for their abusive policies?

However, compensation for the land … that is another issue and there are legal processes in place.