Thanks, Jayb, that makes a lot of sense.

Big Nana, yes, and that 'social distance' from the land has been going on for a very ling time, certainly since the War: people moving away from (at least some) settlements and missions may not get around to ever going back, except for the funeral day-trips, within an hour of which most have already hit the road.

Certainly people have very strong attachments to kinfolk, siblings, cousins, and to school friends, etc. But as for attachment to country, I'm not so sure. There is a beach about a mile along the Lake from my late wife's birth-mission which I stumbled across, teeming with bird-life, which seemed not to have seen a human being for a very long time. My late brother-in-law who worked on the farm there from 1995, did not get around to seeing some back paddocks for nearly ten years; he discovered some interesting and creative uses of those paddocks (and back gates) by some non-Indigenous staff. Nobody else visited those areas while he was working there. Love of the village, and the roads to the nearby towns, yes; of the rest of the mission, no; of all of the group's traditional country, didn't seem so.

So it's a bit presumptuous to merely assume some tight connection between people and land: I wouldn't be surprised if those neither of those two blokes up for deportation have ever knowingly been on Kamilaroi or GUngarri country.

Special rights ? Different rights ? Extra rights ? As Orwell wrote, 'Everybody is equal, but some are more equal than others.'

Joe

Looks as though the High Court is merely a group of Academics ..........

To bring up emotional claptrap and connection to country in regard to the two thugs who can't be deported is total bulldust. The High Court has done nothing but saddle us with another 'race' of people nobody knew of. It's high time we dropped the stupidity of allowing politicians to appoint activist judges they think will favour their own doctrines and make judges subject to the court of public opinion - voters. Australians are increasingly fed up with politically inspired judges who make stupid decisions based on their own biases, and who do nothing to improve of protect Australia and its citizens. All Australian courts - criminal as well as the HC - need be overhauled, and the people have to envolved.

"The Court (High) has become infested with identity politics ideology which divides Australians by race". (Institute of Public Affairs)

The Court decision was the most radical example of judicial interference with democracy in Australian history.

Presumably, those two blokes can trace their Indigenous ancestry through their parents, to a network of kinfolk ? It's a pity that Bruce Pascoe can't :(

Sooner or later, those three pissy guildelines on who is, and who isn't, Indigenous, will have to be tightened up. Anybody who has ever been in the business knows that they're all very bendable. Schmooze up to someone important in a local organisation, and they'll sign you in as Indigenous. 'Elders' are often almost self-appointed, or are 'elders' who vouch for each other. People often have the vaguest notion of where their country is, they've hardly ever been there, and certainly not much knowledge about their specific clan country. Down this way, that went more than a century ago.

But what continues is people, relations, families, genealogies. Sooner or later, confidential Registers will have to be set up, genealogies and family trees. Down here in SA, the late Doreen Kartinyeri put together a dozen or so such genealogies, my wife was on at least three of them - they're difficult to subvert or get around. But of course, 'Stolen Generation' is a very useful fall-back position for non-Indigenous frauds who, by definition, are not on any family tree. Oh hello Bruce, didn't see you there.

Joe

Loudmouth,

You said "Anybody born in Australia is automatically an Australian citizen ........."

Does that mean, let's say, a child born to a French national holidaying in Australia will be an Australian citizen at birth?