Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

I don't quiet understand what all the fuss is about.

If our Indigenous people want to be recognised in the
Constitution - give it to them. Because history and
anthropology records show the fact that the original
inhabitants of the Australian continent have resided
in this land for approx. 50,000 years.

All other arrived much later.

For us not to recognise the original inhabitants seems
unjust.

Really?
I recall Mungo Man... and then there were also apparently pigmies in Northern Queensland.

In the study of human evolution, the skeletal record has thrown up a few spanners in the works that may one day transform beliefs about where humans came from.

One of these spanners is Mungo Man, who was discovered in 1974 in the dry lake bed of Lake Mungo in west NSW. Mungo Man was a hominin who was estimated to have died 62,000 years ago. Anatomically, Mungo Man's bones were distinct from other human skeletons being unearthed in Australia. Unlike the younger skeletons that had big-brows and thick-skulls, Mungo Man's skeleton was finer, and more like modern humans.

The ANU's John Curtin School of Medical Research found that Mungo Man's skeleton's contained a small section of mitochondrial DNA. After analysing the DNA, the school found that Mungo Man's DNA bore no similarity to the other ancient skeletons, modern Aborigines and modern Europeans.

Furthermore, his mitochondrial DNA had become extinct. The results called into question the 'Out of Africa' theory of human evolution. If Mungo Man was descended from a person who had left Africa in the past 200,000 years, then his mitochondrial DNA should have looked like all of the other samples.

So the question is should Aboriginals be considered the first "Australians" after all.

Dearest Foxy,

How wonderful to have you back with us, discussion has been quite dull without you (no offense, fellas) !

The Constitution doesn't mention any group of people, that's not its purpose: it's a document of rules between States, and how the country is to be governed. It could be argued that it would be inappropriate to insert any mention of any group of Australians, to the exclusion of others.

Hi T800,

Are you suggesting that Mungo Man wasn't actually human ? That his DNA has no resemblance to that of any other human being anywhere ?

Actually, I thought that his skeleton was dated to about 32,000 years ago, after a long warm period (perhaps twenty thousand years) of lush growth across Australia, when most of the interior was well-watered and forested, and when humans were much more likely to be gracile, lean and tall, rather than short and stocky, or robust, like those found in Kow Swamp in Victoria from twenty thousand years later, after the Ice Age.

Are you suggesting that there have been successive invasions of different groups, that the groups of which Mungo man was a part were wiped out ? You would need a bit more evidence, because that wouldn't be the only possible conclusion to draw: 'Mungo People', if we could use that term, may have formed a very small, isolated group and died out when the Ice Age hit a couple of thousand years later.

Either way, nobody is surely arguing that SOME people were here in Australia long before Europeans arrived ? Whether it was a hundred or a thousand or ten thousand years, is not really relevant.

But still, the Constitution may not be the sort of document which deals with that, that may not be what it's for.

Cheers,

Joe

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

Thank You for the "Welcome Back."
I've missed you too.

I cam across the following website which explains
what Indigenous Constitutional recognition means and
why we should do it. I'd be interested in what you
think of it?

http://www.theconversation.com/explainer-what-indigenous-constitutional-recognition-means-31770

Dearest Foxy,

Yes, by all means, let's get rid of any clauses in the constitution which mention 'race'. I fully agree. And NOT to put something back in which does.

There are possibly enormous implications in every proposal to insert something into the Constitution, and obviously this would also be the case with a Treaty (with one single Indigenous entity, or with each of the hundreds of nations) or any move towards Indigenous sovereignty. Even something as innocuous as a sentence in the Preamble about Indigenous languages and cultures would have far-reaching implications, if interpreted as such by courts, for school curricula, social policy, tourism, etc.

If you can get hold of Keith Windschuttle's new book, 'The Break-Up of Australia', or read his articles in the last two editions of Quadrant, you may get a better idea of what could happen.

I'm all for full equal rights for all people in Australia, including Indigenous people. Whatever makes attainment of those rights easier, I'll stand on the battlements for. But not for any half-arsed, half-thought-out, neo-Apartheid notion of driving (or 'encouraging') urban Indigenous people out to some god-forsaken desert 'State' in the sticks where nobody, even now, seems to be able to make anything work. Dumb, dumb, dumb ideas.

Overwhelmingly now, Indigenous people are urban. They've chosen urban. Nobody forced them. Few urban people seem to have moved out to desert 'communities', certainly not any of the elites, and they won't in the future. So what on earth can 'Sovereignty' mean ? Or even a Treaty ? And wouldn't it be discriminatory to insert clauses in the Constitution specifically mentioning only Indigenous people ?

So clearly I'm in support of 'No Change', apart from removal of those potentially discriminatory clauses.

Lots of love,

Joe

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

As always you've made me think raising some very valid points.
Ttbn has recommended that book to me also. I'll ask for
it for Christmas. Sounds interesting - and I'm all for
broadening this debate and reading other opinions.
Thanks for responding in such a lovely way.