ALP politician, Linda Burney, has said that the Greens need to concentrate on 'bigger issues' than Australia day: “incarceration, health and education should be the focus in the indigenous affairs sphere.”

Smart talk.

Then she goes onto to lambast Tony Abbott and call him 'ignorant' because he said that British arrival was a good thing for indigenous Australians.

Silly talk.

Does Ms. Burney really think that aborigines would have been better off remaining in the Stone Age? Does she really think that they would ever have been left alone after world exploration and navigation became possible? Or, did she thing that someone nicer than than British could have come along?

Dear Ttbn,

I don't know Linda, much less what goes on in her mind.

It is quite possible that aboriginals would have fared better if left in the stone age. The problem is, had the British didn't arrive, wouldn't someone even worse have landed instead?

I think Linda Burney is, as a rule, a good and sensible woman. I suppose we all make silly comments at times.

I believe that British settlement was preferable to some of the possible contenders. But there was never any chance of a country with Australia's attributes being left in the hands of the most backward people in the world. And, I think that people who talk about invasion should 'uninvade', buy a one way ticket to somewhere else.

ttbn,
This whole Australia Day thing has been a beat up by the media with a bit of help from the greens.

Outside of that nobody is talking about it, so it is a non issue or fake news. Some other non issue will take its place after tomorrow.

Banjo,

You are right. It's just the pathetic media and a few nutters making more noise that we sensible people make.

I see that retards have vandalised the Captain Cook statue in Melbourne.

Wonder why there is a statue of Cook in Melbourne? He had nothing to do with it. I recall seeing a memorial at Botany Bay of Cooks landing place, which is understandable.

Bourke and wills yes, they left Melbourne to go North across the country.Born and educated in NSW, the settlement of Melbourne has always been a bit of a mystery to me. Wonder if there was a reason or it just happened?

Banjo.

Melbourne was originally inside NSW territory. Since Captain Cook was revered by NSW as it's founding member, that may explain the statue.

Ttbn

As a side issue, Islam was introduced to the northern Aboriginal tribes by the Indonesian Makassans around 1500; making Aboriginals the first permanent resident Islamists in Australia.

Diver Dan, I have to contest that statement of yours about Islam. Certiainly the Macassans were spending dry season times along the NW coast fishing for trepang and certainly they were trading goods for women. I know that for a fact because three of my Tiwi Island grandchildren are the descendants of a Tiwi woman who was loaned to a visiting fisherman for a few months.
But the religion was never spread amongst the aboriginal people. There is no evidence in culture of any Islamic practises, and in fact, aboriginal law does not allow for any changes, ever, which is why the culture remained unchanged for tens of thousands of years.
Even when Malay pearlers settled in Broome Islam didn't affect aboriginal beliefs. By then most Broome aboriginal people were catholic and the Malays married the aboriginal catholic women on the promise of raising their children catholic.
Several of my aboriginal husbands aunts had Malay husbands and there was never any suggestion of the kids being anything but strict catholic.
What the Malays and Indonesians and Chinese and Japanese did bring permanently to Broome and Darwin was cuisine and thank god for that because Broome food is incredible. Strong Asian influence with local ingredients.
Islam in the north mostly died out when the original pearlers died and their descendants, of whom there are thousands continue to be Christian.

Hi Ttbn,

Linda Burney was head of a NSW government department for some years. Smart woman.

Yet she declared that she grew up under the Flora and Fauna Act, i.e. Aboriginal people treated as if they were less than human.

There has never been a Flora and Fauna Act anywhere in Australia. But, given that ministers often have multiple portfolios - perhaps even the minister than Linda Burney answered to - it would be inevitable that a minister responsible for Indigenous Affairs or native welfare etc., would have other portfolios.

The current Chief Minister of the NT is also minister for Indigenous affairs, tourism, Northern Australia, the police, emergency services and probably other fields as well. The current SA minister responsible for Indigenous Affairs (himself Indigenous) is also minister responsible for infrastructure planning, and probably many other fields. From memory, Bess Price was responsible for about eight separate ministries when she served in the NT government.

Back in the nineteenth century, the commissioner in the colonial SA government responsible for Aboriginal Affairs was also at times responsible for Crown Lands and Immigration: one reason for Aboriginal Affairs (and its one-man 'Department') being under the Commissioner for Crown Lands may have been the need to ensure that on all pastoral leases (all on Crown Land, after all), the lease condition was observed that Aboriginal people had free access to hunt, fish and other, camp, collect water, carry out ceremonies etc., on a pastoral lease 'as if this lease had not been made'. With different wording, Aboriginal people still have those rights.

'Part of the flora and fauna' ? Linda Burney: silly woman.

Joe

diver dan,

I can't say that I have heard that. I'm inclined to go along with Big Nana on that one. The only connection with Islam seems to be in jail but cannot see aborigines bothering with the religion. It's like Muslims and their apologists rabbiting on how there were Muslims in Australia since the year dot, referring to Afghans - many of whom were actually from northern India - who were Muslim but were enculturated and certainly very much unlike those today.

Joe,

She grew up as an animal or a plant?

Hi Ttbn,

I'm not sure but she might have thought that she came under the Endangered Species Act.

Why has this idiotic rumour got around ? Partly because, once, in WA, around 1907, the Minister responsible for Fisheries was also responsible for Native Welfare. There you go: Aborigines = fish. You know it makes sense.

As well, in SA (and probably other colonies and States as well), Aboriginal people were exempt from the 'Close Season' sections of the Game Act: they could hunt and fish all year round while, for non-Aboriginal people, there were prohibitions, and much of the year when they couldn't hunt or fish for some species at all. So there you go: Aboriginal people were, in that roundabout way, associated with fauna. Therefore they were treated as flora and fauna. Case closed. White bastards !

Is paranoia contagious ? Especially if one completely distrusts the media and get one's 'news' only from other similar paranoiacs ? So that whatever conflicts with the Narrative is ignored [Whitefellas' lies !], but whatever cock-eyed notion conforms to the Narrative, is believed and embroidered - and spread vigorously.

I've been thinking of starting a false rumour to see how far it goes, something like ........ nah, just to say it risks some idiot believing it and spreading it, with added details. And if Linda Burney gets hold of it, it will become Official Truth. Too dangerous, even for a lark.

Joe

Joe,

Yeah. Not much logic in 1907 either. It sounds as though they handed out the important tasks - like fish - and then slung in the one about people as an afterthought.

Ttbn,

'Fisheries' in WA in 1907 probably had a lot to do with the pearling and trepang trades, ergo overseas fishermen in remote northern bays, ergo a need to protect Aboriginal women; and to cut back on abuse of Aboriginal labour and the influence of opium as a trading medium. The Moseley Royal Commission of 1935 into Aboriginal Conditions warned against the employment of young Aboriginal boys, and the 'Mahometan vice' amongst lugger crews. So being the same minister for both Fisheries and Native Welfare was probably a natural fit.

But I do enjoy some of the absurdities of the current Aboriginal political Narrative. I'm hanging onto the remnants of the Indigenous Cause by my fingernails :)

Cheers,

Joe

Another possible 'mis-truth' is 'Terra Nullius': yes, we all assume that it is written, chapter and verse, in countless official documents from even before 1788. Yes, it's used in interpretations of the Blackburn decision on Milirrpum v Nabalco (1971). And of course, in the Mabo decision in 1992.

But can anyone find it in any of those earlier documents ? Maybe I don't read much, but I haven't come across it in official nineteenth century documents, from Britain or any of the colonies, or anything since, except third-hand accounts like those of Henry Reynolds.

It isn't mentioned in McCorquodale's seminal 'Aborigines and the Law', or in Hanks & Keon-Cohen's 'Aborigines and the Law', or in McNeil's 'Common Law and Aboriginal Title', or in Meek's 'Land Law and Custom in the Colonies', or as far as I can tell, in any letters or instructions from the British Colonial Office. It is briefly covered in Bartlett's 'Native Title in Australia' but only from the writings of Reynolds and the Mabo decision of the High Court, which seems to be partly a response to Reynolds, especially his 'Law of the Land' (1987). According to Bartlett, the High Court critiqued it as " 'a concept of straw' which lacked relevance and substance in the context of native title." [p. 24].

So how is it a fundamental cornerstone of Australian law ? Surely it wasn't just dreamed up by Reynolds in 1987 or perhaps in an earlier work ? My amateur reading of the 1996 article by Henry Reynolds and Jamie Dalziel, examining the correspondence between Australian colonial governors and the British authorities, suggests that even Reynolds and Dalziel didn't refer in any way to the concept or its adoption by the British, quite the reverse: that Aboriginal people had almost all the rights of land-use, to forage, camp on land, collect water, cary out ceremonies, etc., EXCEPT the right exclude Whitefellas.

Any suggestions ?

Joe

Ttbn..

This is my source..

Regina Ganter and Peta Stephenson, drawing on the work of Ian Mcintosh (2000), argue that aspects of Islam were creatively adapted by the Yolngu, and Muslim references survive in certain ceremonies and Dreaming stories today.[36][37] Stephenson speculates that the Makassans may have also been the first to bring Islam to Australia.[38][better source needed]

According to anthropologist John Bradley from Monash University, "If you go to north-east Arnhem Land there is [a trace of Islam] in song, it is there in painting, it is there in dance, it is there in funeral rituals. It is patently obvious that there are borrowed items. With linguistic analysis as well, you're hearing hymns to Allah, or at least certain prayers to Allah."[b]

Wiki.

Laugh a minute. I just heard about fish-traps up on a northern NSW river, claimed by the local Aboriginal people but probably built by white settlers in the 1830s. A local 'elder' has spun a yarn about them being very special, with people only allowed to access them on very special occasions, such as a blue moon.

So: traditionally, some Aboriginal groups had 30- and 31-day months, twelve of them through the year ?

Or does this 'elder', thumb up arse, think that a blue moon is actually blue, therefore extremely rare ? After all, down here in SA, another 'elder' proclaimed, also with thumb up arse, that traditionally, Aboriginal people had a name for every star. Of course, that's possible when you look up at night in the city and see literally dozens of stars. Dozens !

You can never under-estimate the contemporary wisdom of an 'elder' :)

Joe