Before I leave this discussion I would
like to wish everyone a "Happy Australia Day!"
May you all enjoy the day!

"Buying bread from a man in Brussels
He was six-foot-four and full of muscles
I said, "Do you speak-a my language?"
He just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich..."
(Men at Work).

o sung wu,

Were you stationed at Bankstown when some character decided to shoot up the police station.
The husband of one of my cousins was a detective there at the time, he was a bit put out as he was very close to retirement!!

SPQR,
"The point --that you are very conveniently overlooking --is that every white on black infringement is presented and represented and represented again as evidence of the evils of white settlement--but black on black infringements are brushed under the table."
Most black on black infringements are resolved. The Aboriginal tribes had their own system for dealing with such conflicts, and they enforced it. The British legal system was not so effective in dealing with crimes against Aborigines, and took over two centuries to recognise that the Aboriginal inhabitants were ever the owners of the land. So there's still a lot of unresolved issues between Aboriginal and white Australians.

"And just look at the effect that that has on the poor impressible souls in the Greens.They genuinely believe that Oz was an earthly paradise before those dastardly whites arrived."
Have you any evidence for that claim? Or are you just assuming that people in the Greens are of that opinion?

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Is Mise,

"Just as what my ancestors may or may'nt have done has no bearing on the status of Aboriginal people now, except that their actions have brought the Aboriginals into the modern world."
If that had been the case, there wouldn't be most of the big problems that there now are. But the way the modern world was brought to the Aboriginal people didn't often give them much opportunity for them to participate in it, and was hugely disruptive, needlessly separating families.

Things have since improved, though not yet to the stage where historical disadvantage is completely overcome. But we will get there eventually.

Many people don't realise that Australia Day was celebrated in very early times. Visit the Trove website (newspaper records online) and do an advanced search - you can see what many towns and cities did across the country re Australia Day. One example in 1915 (from the site) is at:

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/166930683?searchTerm=Australia%20Day&searchLimits=exactPhrase|||anyWords|||notWords|||requestHandler|||dateFrom|||dateTo|||sortby

"The White racism profiteers need to portray Aborigines as eternal victims, objects who are always acted upon by Whites...." Some in universities/government departments and charities take this line, but so do journalists and writers in the Australian newspaper, members of parliament or those on Andrew Bolt's TV show.

Personally it makes me annoyed being related to Aboriginal people myself (I have two direct nephews) - and then having many cultural backgrounds myself. Aboriginal people are portrayed as people all in crisis - when a lot are in fact doing well. I know myself, being related and seeing them.

My view has always been white is the sheet of paper I put into a printer and black is the ink printed onto it. Neither exist in terms of the description of a human and so such a description is cheap.

Australia day is not a day off work, time to have a barbeque or play cricket or as one person put it - a time to mow the lawn - it should now be a time to reconsider how our society works - and not be so "socially correct" - where we tell people what they should be, what they can or cannot wear or tell people what they can or cannot do at a basic level. Just be yourself.

Aidan,

The big problems would have been overcome if they had not been continued by the "Aboriginal Industry" wherein many people profited by keeping the Aboriginal people down.

In 1967 the people of Australia voted for all Aboriginal people to be treated no differently to the rest of the citizens, had the wishes of the people been followed, instead of keeping Aboriginals dependent, then today there would be no problem.

That hallmark referendum was held forty-eight (48) years ago.

Nathan J, a great way of looking at things.