@Banjo,

I repeat, even in the time of King George, while token consultations were made, it was Parliament which made the rules.

Beyond which, what does it matter? If the British had not colonised Australia someone else would have done it. And, having lived in four African countries and spent a lot of time in four more, I can assure you, the luckiest ones were colonised by the British, however much they might be basket cases today.

So, in the potluck of life, the Aboriginal peoples were extremely lucky to be colonised, for colonised they would have been by someone, by the British. Beats the French, Chinese, Indians, Portugese, Spanish or Polynesians.

So, good fortune really. I presume you do not for one minute believe that stone-age cultures in Australia could have survived for another 10,000 years, at least that long required, to possibly evolve as other cultures and peoples had done?

And I fail to see any difference with all those migration groups from India, Asia, Africa, Polynesia etc., taking over land in Australia as colonisers and the British deciding after thinking it could be a penal colony, that in fact it was a pretty good spot to settle?

Methinks applying double standards is racist. Aboriginal peoples colonised others and then got colonised by Europeans. Such is life. Those same Europeans had been colonised dozens if not hundreds of times and managed to make their way through it. Only a racist would believe that Aboriginal peoples had such inferior human function they could not cope with British colonisation.

rhross, I see you have latched on to another popular myth, probely from your primary school days. How much better off indigenous people of the world are to have been colonised by the British and not those Froggies or heaven forbid, the Spano's etc, a myth perpetuated and popularised in English colonised lands like Australia.

How we learned all those years ago about the "White Mans Burden" where courageous Englishmen took it upon themselves to go forth and bring the joys and benefits of Christianity and civilisation to the heathens of this World.

Take up the White Man's burden
Send forth the best ye breed
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.

A verse by Rudyard Kipling

Paul,

I don't think that Rhross is necessarily suggesting that British rule over Australia was any better than that of any other imperialist power, simply that, either way, settlement/invasion was inevitable. Do you really think that France, Spain, Germany, Tsarist Russia, Japan or the US would have left Australia alone over the past two hundred years ? Do you really think the Indonesians, Indians and Chinese would leave it alone now if it had never been colonised by anybody else ?

Foxy,

Back to 'farming': what would one expect to observe if there had been farming in Australia, and 'farming' as defined conventionally ? Or even pastoralism, the herding and drafting of native animals, perhaps leading to domestication ?

* Farming stories, songs, legends, perhaps farming-oriented totems;

* Terms for farming operations in all of the languages of the people who had engaged in farming;

* Unambiguous evidence of implements, digging tools, harvesting tools, etc. in archaeological excavations - or currently in use; stories about expert tool-makers;

* Unambiguous evidence of fencing of valuable crops and storage pits.

Do you, personally, know of any of that sort of evidence ?

I wonder if there is/was any group in all of Australia which does/did NOT have a wide range of terms for spears, traps, clubs, boomerangs, etc., as used in hunting and gathering - not to mention Dreaming stories, songs, legends ? Museums have vast collections of traditional artifacts - I wonder what proportion are unambiguously related to farming ?

Joe

@Paul1405

Have you ever lived in former colonies in the Third World? I have and I can assure you that, studying history and experiencing those countries as I did, that British colonial rule beat all others. India, South Africa, Angola, Malawi have all been my homes for around 4-5 years a stint, with long periods in Namibia and exposure to Niger, Mali, Mozambique, Botswana, Tanzania, Zimbabwe - so I picked up a few clues along the way of the long-term effects of colonisation and comparisons between which bunch did the colonising.

For whatever reasons, it was better than French, Spanish, Portugese, Belgian although the Germans were about on a par with the British. It was also vastly better than being colonised by Arabs, Indians or other African tribes.

So, I fail to see why a statement of fact and real experience is any more than a statement of fact.

Your dribbling off to Kipling has nothing to do with the issue or what I said but I appreciate you find it difficult to put your prejudice aside and assess comments objectively.

@Loudmouth,

I was saying if you had to have a colonial ruler then the British were the best you could get. I base that on my experiences in India and many African countries and studying colonial rule in general in Africa and India.

The British, for all their flaws, were more enlightened, certainly for the times.

And yes, someone would have colonised Australia and the Aboriginal peoples were indeed fortunate it happened to be the British.

@Paul1405,

It would be wise to assume, that others are not ignorant, but that they may well be more experienced and better researched. My views on being colonised by the British were formed by much experience as an adult, and nothing to do with what I learned at school. Can you say the same?

I have also spent time in remote Aboriginal communities and done a lot of research into Australia's history in general and Aboriginal history in particular. Sure there are many more informed than am I, Loudmouth being one of them, but I also know more than the average person.

Mutual respect goes a long way in such discussion threads.