So, no chance of getting back to the original topic of this thread then ? Nobody's all that interested, one way or the other ?

Nobody wants to tease out whether or not invasion/settlement of Australia was inevitable ? Apart from Paul, nobody wants to claim that Indigenous people here would have been better off if they had stayed hunting and gathering (or farming, for those who've been taken in by that assertion), if they could have ?

Okay.

Joe

Hi Joe,

Please define "better off", what size is your colour TV? I want to find out if you are "better off" than me.

"Joe Williams, a Wiradjuri man and passionate community advocate for mental health suicide prevention, and Christine Morgan, Australia’s first national suicide prevention advisor, have been announced dual winners of the 2019 Australian Mental Health Prize. Prime Minister Scott Morrison presented the winners with their awards at a ceremony at UNSW Sydney on Wednesday night."

Watched an interview with Joe Williams on the ABC last night just after he received his award. Joe (not our Joe) made an interesting point, Aboriginal suicide has gone from zero, pre-invasion to the highest in the world, puts a bit of a downer on that "betfer off" theory.

Joe,

Every chance in the world, I contend that the good that Cook did far outweighed any bad and I further think that Aboriginal Australians were super fortunate that Britain came here before any others, their current fortunate position in the world is a direct result of British law and ultimately [perhaps] of Cook's endeavours on the 'Endeavour'.

Zero suicides pre 1788, how does anyone know?

Paul,

If TV ownership is some sort of measure of well-offness, most Indigenous people are probably better off now than back in 1787. Actually, the biggest TV screen i've ever seen in use was by an Aboriginal friend. And the first time I saw a video player was in an Aboriginal home. The first time I saw colour TV too, come to think of it.

But, Is Mise, suicide was very unlikely before 1788, or for a long time afterwards too: in the deaths' records of Pt McLeay Mission, from 1862 or so, the first 'suicide' recorded was in the 1950s. Quite a few there since then, strangely coinciding with self-determination and community council control and responsibility there. One young bloke, whose grandmother and father had been council chairpersons, topped himself a few weeks after the father died: he'd asserted that his was a sort of royal family, and that he should rightfully be the new chairperson. Suicide is a very complex phenomenon, with many possible causes.

A sociologist or anthropologist would assert that there is bound to be all manner of conflict and social upheaval when two very different types of society come into permanent contact. On the one hand, here in Australia, the ration system usually meant a sudden and permanent freeing up from the daily search for food, but at the same time dissolved many of the social bonds which the traditional culture saw as vital to that daily search, giving many people the impression that they were suddenly in a world without responsibilities or obligations to anyone, and that all good things would constantly flow for them, magic money from the ATMs, free services, etc., not to mention effectively unlimited access to grog.

So of course, there were and still are negative consequences of that sudden cultural and social contact. Paul can identify so many of them to his heart's content, as part of the vast history of historic white evil.

Joe

Joe,

You failed to mention the tertiary education figures for the umteeth time, your trump card, your ace in the hole. You also failed to mention the greatest benefit of all that Britishness brought to indigenous people the world over, CHRISTIANITY! Please do not forget Christianity, if it was not for the British the heathens would never have found the one and only true and merciful loving God, our God of course.

Yes, if the British had not colonised Australia with their generosity of sprite, and their unfailing altruism, heaven forbid, the evil Frogs, or worse still the cut throat Spanish, could have blown in and taken over, where would the blackfella be then!

Joe, how about your definition of "better off". What makes people "better off"? Good old Issy went off to Korea to make people "better off", and look what happened;

"Nearly 5 million people died. More than half of those, about 10 percent of Korea's prewar population were civilians." More collateral damage in Korea than in WWII or Vietnam. But some kids did get chocolates, must stress that benefit.