@SteeleRedux,

Just a word of caution. Wikipedia is not accepted as a source by any respectable university in the world.

That is because Wiki has no professional regulation or editing facility and is, particularly on controversial issues, more propaganda and fabrication than fact.

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Dear Loudmouth,

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You wrote :

« Yes, precisely, pastoral leasehold land is not owned by the lessees, it's leased. It belongs to the government, it's Crown Land … So what's your point ? »

I already indicated what my point is, Joe, in the final sentence of the post you are commenting on. Maybe you missed it. Here it is again :

« None of this land, of course, is used for "tilling the soil" and therefore "not owned" by British colonial standards ! »

As you readily agree, the lessees do not own the land – but, as I have tried to explain, more than once, by British colonial standards, nor do the British Crown or government. Why ? Because by British colonial standards, though the Aboriginal peoples occupied it, they did not own it because they did not « till the soil » - which the British considered a necessary prerequisite for authentic ownership status of land.

For the past 231 years since British colonisation in 1788, neither the British Crown nor the British government (who you indicate « own » the land) have not « tilled the soil » either. Therefore, by application of the same principle, law or standard, they do not « own » it either.

If you refer back to my previous post, you will see that this applies to the 44% of the total land area of Australia under pastoral lease. In fact it applies to much more than that because it applies to all the so-called « Crown land » of which neither the Crown nor the government, nor anybody else, for that matter, has ever « tilled the soil ».

Unless, of course, the British colonial standards, international laws, or whatever you like to call them, only apply to Aboriginal peoples (the colonised) and not to the British Crown and government (the colonisers) - by application of a slightly different principle :

« Don't let them do unto you what you do unto them ! »

Sounds fair enough, doesn't it, Joe ?

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Hi rhross,

Still waiting for your evidence of sustained Aboriginal warfare before 1788. Given the concentration of tribes in the Sydney basin at the time of Phillip, and with no accounts of inter tribal war from early colonials, then it is reasonable to assume Aboriginal people lived in relative harmony with each other. The tribes had clearly defined boundaries, and laws covering each ones tribal land, see the Eyre account from earlier post.

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Dear rhross,

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You wrote :

«  You have suggested it was Government policy. I have said it was not. That behoves you to produce evidence proving your claim it was Government policy.» 

You « suggested it was Government policy », rhross. Not me. You wrote :

«  Provide sourced links to Government policy supporting and encouraging killing aborigines by settlers and a denial of rights to Aboriginal peoples » ( Posted by rhross, Wednesday, 26 June 2019 9:43:46 AM)

You also wrote :

« The Mad King George reference is childish. Even in his time, Parliament made the rules. In 1788 George was identifiably seriously mentally ill so no, nothing would have come from him. »

I'm afraid that's incorrect, rhross. The decision to colonise Australia was taken by King George III and his Prime Minister, William Pitt the Younger and his government in 1786, and the First Fleet sailed from Portsmouth on May 13, 1787, and reached Botany Bay on January 19–20, 1788.

Whereas, according to the biographical accounts of King George III (who reigned from 1760 to 1820) :

« The King may have had a brief episode of disease in 1765, but a longer episode began in the summer of 1788. At the end of the parliamentary session, he went to Cheltenham Spa to recuperate. It was the furthest he had ever been from London—just short of 100 miles (150 km)—but his condition worsened. In November he became seriously deranged ... »

King George III is depcted as being very much a « hands on » monarch :

« Immediately after the House of Commons passed it [a bill to reform the government of India], George authorised Lord Temple to inform the House of Lords that he would regard any peer who voted for the bill as his enemy …

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(Continued …)

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(Continued …)

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« … The bill was rejected by the Lords; three days later, the Portland ministry was dismissed, and William Pitt the Younger was appointed Prime Minister, with Temple as his Secretary of State.

« On 17 December 1783, Parliament voted in favour of a motion condemning the influence of the monarch in parliamentary voting as a "high crime" and Temple was forced to resign. Temple's departure destabilised the government, and three months later the government lost its majority and Parliament was dissolved; the subsequent election gave Pitt a firm mandate.

« For George III, Pitt's appointment was a great victory. It proved that he was able to appoint Prime Ministers on the basis of his own interpretation of the public mood without having to follow the choice of the current majority in the House of Commons. Throughout Pitt's ministry, George supported many of Pitt's political aims and created new peers at an unprecedented rate to increase the number of Pitt's supporters in the House of Lords.  During and after Pitt's ministry, George III was extremely popular in Britain. »

You also note :

« The records prior to the departure of the First Fleet were to befriend, learn from and help Aborigines. »

An old adage – no doubt true then and which remains true today – is that : « the spoken word binds and the written word is for the lawyers ».

Lietenant James Cook new full well, when he embarked on the Endeavour, what the Admiralty (who had imposed his appointment) expected of him : he was to take possession of the « great southern continent » in the name of the British Crown – despite his now well-known « secret (written) instructions » as well as the written « hints » of the president of the Royal Society, James Douglas, 14th Earl of Morton, as to how the people of the lands that he and his crew encountered should be treated.

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Banjo,

It's a technicality, arising from its assertion of sovereignty, that in Australia, the Crown is the underlying owner of all land. It's all part of our inheritance of feudal land law, particularly after the Norman Conquest, under which the sovereign power is ceded all land which he then grants back on declarations of loyalty to its 'owners'. It's probably a feature of all governments as a consequence of their claim to sovereignty.

Joe