I'm just wondering what people think of non-Australians receiving Australia Day Awards?

Abbott doling one out to Prince Phillip is an example although it could be argued as the consort of our Queen it puts him in the frame.

But let's look at someone like Russell Crowe, naturalised NZ citizen who did most of his growing up in Australia. Should he be eligible or should our AD awards be kept to our own citizens?

Hi SR

I reckon Australia Day Awards should only go:

1. to Australian Citizens

AND

2. (of those satisfying 1.) only those willing to "Honour-the-Honour" by attending the Awards Ceremony (if there is one) to recieve the Award (unless they are "infirm").

Those rejecting an Award should not be given it.

Note there is a difference between "Australia Day Honours" to which you refer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Australia_Day_Honours and Australian of the Year.

Apart from Abbot's very strange nomination of HRH, which made him a laughing stock, being for a knighthood, not an Australia Day award, has as anyone nominated a non-Australian for an AD award, in particular, Russell Crowe who is not Australian? If not, what is the point of this question?

The Australian of the Year should be Asian otherwise how can we identify with being an Asian nation-state after 40 years of the Great Asianization Period (1980-2020) in Australian history.

I would nominate Andrew Forrest for the way he managed to get his Chinese mate into Greg Hunt's press conference and was then able to get him up to the podium to deliver a message from Xi to Australia.

Well done Andrew. A great Australian and a great Asian.

Dear Mopy

Should your No.1 Chum, President Xi, get the ultimate Aussie Knighthood Award?

While contemplating my question, please sing and memorise "The East is Red" http://youtu.be/_BoTblmqdqE

Cheers :)

plantagenet,

That's a great number and I love the ending "Liberation!"

Maybe China will let us use some of it for our Asianized Australian national anthem.

I bet it brings a tear to Foul-Mouth's eyes.

One question: There are scenes of millions of people all bunched together but I didn't see even a single porta loo. What's the go? They just good at holding it or are doing it in each other's pockets?

The NSW fire guy will get.

It's all about politics and Soot Morrison needs to fix up his tarnished image by being seen as good mate to a real hero.

Shane Fitzsimons.

That's the guy.

Soot Morrison needs some of that Shane magic to rub off on him.

Hi Mopy

Re your "One question: There are scenes of millions of people all bunched together but I didn't see even a single porta loo. What's the go?"

Simple:

They p-ssed on the ground.

And shat in their Mao suits.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_suit

Rupert Murdoch received a life time achievement award in the Australia Day gong distributions, the first time it has been handed out in 14 years.

As a non Australian, one who has foregone his Australian citizenship, should he be entitled?

AWARD FOR 2019 FEDERAL ELECTORAL SUPPORT FROM MURDOCH

Hi SR

No award for ex-Aussie citizen Rupert Murdoch, I say.

Its also possible Morrison (who claims he, as PM, has no influence over awards, Doh!) gave

Murdoch the Award due to Murdoch's newspapers inclining to the LNP Coalition.

This is especially in the weeks running up to Federal Elections - eg. in 2019.

See 2019 Sunday Newspaper Editions:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Australian_federal_election#Sunday_editions

"All four newspapers published by [Murdoch's] News Corp Australia (Melbourne's Sunday Herald Sun, Adelaide's Sunday Mail, Brisbane's The Sunday Mail and Sydney's The Sunday Telegraph) endorsed the Coalition."

AND

Daily 2019 Editions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Australian_federal_election#Daily_editions

"The majority of News Corp Australia's daily mastheads – The Australian, Sydney's The Daily Telegraph, Melbourne's Herald Sun, Brisbane's The Courier-Mail, Adelaide's The Advertiser and the Geelong Advertiser – endorsed the Coalition."

Hi Mopi

A further response to your "One question: There are scenes of millions of people all bunched together but I didn't see even a single porta loo. What's the go?" http://youtu.be/_BoTblmqdqE?t=37s

Some Poetry:

Like good Comrades everywhere
They all held hands
As they shat in the square.

Hi Pete,

Awards at the best of times are dubious, the gay hating and divisive Margaret Court has been given another honour. What for, sure she was great at outdoor ping-pong, and what else promoting division and hate in society, what else has she done? The establishments conservatives see the dolling out of these trinkets to underlings as a show of strength on their part, indicating to the greet unwashed who is boss and who is running the show.

Kerry O’Brien has rejected the Australia Day honour he was due to receive on Tuesday in protest at the “deeply insensitive and divisive decision” to give the country’s highest award to former tennis great Margaret Court.

As pointless as these awards are, the people rejecting them are hypocrites because of their intolerance to different views.

individual,

Their actions are only as pointless as your existence.

Dear individual,

They are being intolerant of intolerance. Doesn't that make you hypocritical on this?

It's been a nice change that this entirely pointless post on whether or not non-Australians should be awarded Australia Day gongs (it doesn't get much sillier than that) has been the only whine about Australia Day in the Forum.

The same happened last Christmas: hardly any sanctimonious waffle about how commercial Christmas is - blah, blah, blah - and atheists talking absolute crap on a subject they no nothing about.

Hopefully, the same will happen this Anzac Day.

Australians are, perhaps, at last sick and tired of hearing the same disruptive, disrespectful bullshite about themselves and their country spread about year after year. They just want do want they want to do, and to hell with the nasty bastard Lefties who want to stop them.

"All-female cast of winners take out Australia Day awards", blares the Sky News headline.

All people most Australians have never heard of - as usual, plus another put down to white males.

ttbn

This post/thread is not "pointless". Its one of the better ones.

Your all too frequent, repeditive General Discussion threads reflect the intellect of a knuckle dragging gibbon.

On Sky News itself, it seems to be getting as bad as the ABC and with the same goldfish memory: today blurting about a 'dangererous heat wave' with "33 degrees five days in a row". This is bulldust. We've had a relatively cool summer so far, and a couple of days getting back near historical norms is hardly a thing to bellyache about and out and frighten people with.

On their scaremongering, they are doing a good job on the China virus, too - shouting about about more restrictions on our freedoms being a dead cert in their headlines, but collapsing into something somebody might have said in the pub when it gets to the body of the story.

The Australian rag is not the only once right of centre organ inching to the left and getting onto the 'reset' bandwagon.

Dear plantagenet,

You write: "No award for ex-Aussie citizen Rupert Murdoch, I say."

Yes, I find it bewildering how regular Australians haven't pushed back on this to any degree. I certainly get why the Liberal party would have been very happy to heap accolades on the bloke due to his high level of support for keeping them in power, but we just seem to lie down on this stuff now.

Who picked the pickers.

A short look at the Ozzy day awards over the last few years can only leave anyone wondering who on earth picked the mottle assortment of recipients.

This year almost tops the stupidity, but the competition from the last few years will take some beating.

Not only are these awards an expensive waste of time, but are becoming very embarrassing for most Australians.

Hasbeen,

Any old group or individuals can nominate anyone for an award, if they know how to fill in a form. As very few Australians would bother with such nonsense, it follows that it would be a small minority of a certain type of easily impressed hero-worshippers and busybodies who would be putting up these people for consideration. Most, if not all, of the awardees will never be heard of again. If anything needs changing about Australia Day, it should be the dumping of lauding people merely for doing what they are paid to do, or what the like to do.

ttbn & mein Fuhrer Hasbeen,

I get the impression you two are unhappy because you missed out on an award.

Hey ttbn,
It would be politically incorrect to choose a white male.

On a different note I'd just like to remind everyone the facts:
On a basis of merit:

Calling 'Australia Day' on January 26 'Invasion Day' is factually incorrect and stupid.

Why exactly, you may ask?

Well, if you google search 'what date did captain cook first set ashore botany bay' as I've done below:

http://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=what+date+did+captain+cook+first+set+ashore+botany+bay

You'll learn this about OUR country:

'The crew first sighted the mainland of Australia on 19 April 1770. James Cook and some of his crew landed at Kamay Botany Bay on 29 April 1770.'

What that means, is that 'Invasion Day' should actually be remembered of 29 April, NOT 26 January.
- Because 29 April was the day that the British first put their toes upon these shores.

26 January is when we became an independent nation, no longer under the direct rule of England.

I'm not actually sure the above google reference is correct.

Didn't they first sight land in Western Australia and travel around the southern continent and back up to Sydney?
How did they do that in 10 days?
Must've been a gale?

Can anyone correct me on this please?

They are being intolerant of intolerance.
SteeleRedux,
So, how do they then differ ? This is a chicken-egg scenario. You're one who brings up Democracy in debate yet you're intolerant to the views of the majority !
Tolerance does not mean having to tolerate hangers-on, racists who call good people racist, criminals in the Judiciary & the hordes of edu-indoctrinated pseudo-intellectuals who are of no obvious benefit for the billions of Tax Dollars wasted on them, etc etc.
Tolerance does not mean tolerating the bureaucratic swamps !

Good turnout for the Invasion Day protest in Brisbane. About 10,000 young and old, black and white, showed their dissatisfaction with the so called Australia Day. A day steeped in British tradition, which doesn't respect the first nations people, their rights or their culture. How can there ever be a true Australia Day when those whose ancestors have occupied this land for 65,000 years are ignored by a system that wont recognise their legitimate sovereignty over this land.

Paul1405,

26 January 1788 was the beginning of a long period of dispossession and attempted genocide against Australia's Aboriginals by the British Empire.

The Aboriginal societies were decimated and their lands stolen by colonial officers and settlers in order to supply the Empire with raw materials.

Trying to get a proper compensation is now beyond reach but there is nothing wrong with a good old fashioned naming and shaming of all the dishonest and untrustworthy politicians, bureaucrats and business people who were responsible for the demise of the First Nations peoples.

The worst and the most disgusting incidence in my opinion is umpire Darrel Hair repeatedly no balling Muttiah Muralitharan in 1995, Murali was a young and talented spinner who was mesmerizing the cricket world with his skills.

In a match against Australia in 1995 in Melbourne Darrel Hair no-balled Murali, 7 times for extending the arm beyond 5%(The 5% rule itself is ridiculous) and he kept doing it without telling why. Murali was left almost in tears.
https://hairstyle-en.com/mermaid-hair-ideas-for-women-hairstyles-2021-amazing-mermaid-hairstyles/

Hi AC,

Even the most ardent critics of British colonisation such as myself do not believe Captain Cook invaded Australia. What Cook done was he illegally declared British sovereignty over the east coast of the continent. Cook's action was in violation of the obvious sovereignty held by the existing inhabitants. The invasion took place 26th January 1788 when Captain Arthur Phillip came ashore at Sydney Cove with the intension of establishing a permanent settlement. Phillip brought with him a military force of 212 marines along with two armed ships of the Royal Navy, obviously to enforce British will over any inhabitants that might resist the invasion. Phillip proceed to build permanent structures, grant aboriginal land to fellow invaders, in other words the invaders made themselves at home. Few of those arriving ever left, they mostly lived out their remaining lives in Australia.

"Didn't they (Cook) first sight land in Western Australia and travel around the southern continent and back up to Sydney? How did they do that in 10 days? Must've been a gale?"

Nah AC, Cook sailed from the east, never got close to Western Australia. His last port of call was in Aotearoa where he managed to shoot some natives, but was unable to steal sovereignty of that land. That happened later, 6th Feb 1840, when the British got some Maori to sign the Treaty of Waitangi, then claiming the Maori ceded sovereignty to them, which never happened. Another illegal British invasion.

Forget the gendercide of thousands of Aboriginal people, their dispossession and systematic murder at the hands of the European. Nah! according to Lisandro some bloke named Darrel told some Sri Lankan named Muttiah that he had no balls was the worse thing that ever happened! Gee amazing, probably pay back from Darrel for that mob pissing the Pommies off.

Lisandro, welcome to the forum, can't wait to read more of you gems like that first one.

The 26th of January is the day that celebrates the eventual breaking of the bondage of ignorance that had held the Aboriginal Australians from achieving their place in the World.

It brought them a written language in which to record their history.
It brought them a better lifestyle including education so that they could read and all the benefits that that brings, including going on to higher education.

Along with better health, access to more food types, freedom from tribal law and its barbarous punishments and legal rights and freedom for women from forced marriages and sexual enslavement.

There is a way to go yet in some quarters but Australia Day marks the beginning of the freedom for the Aboriginal people,

One wit this morning says that Americans who voted for Biden are already frantically looking for their 'receipts' to see if he can be returned. Right off topic admittedly, but so is gibberish about cricket umpiring in relation to Australia Day awards.

In the short time Biden has been in the job, 70,000 jobs have been lost; fuel prices have gone up; China has access to the US power grid; shemales can now compete against real females in sport,and there is audio of the old fool clearly saying, "I don't know what I'm signing here". 'God bless America' is now 'God help America and protect her from Biden and the Democrats'.

Thanks Mr Opinion and Paul1405 for setting me straight.

Ok well I guess 'Invasion Day' on 26th January is correct then.
- If you consider or nations history from an indigenous point of view.

Me personally, I don't really care about the whole issue too much.
I saw one of my friends yesterday, he's got some indigenous in him, he looks mostly white like me but has darker brothers.
- And he knows I've got a tiny bit of indigenous in me too.

I wished him Happy Invasion Day / Australia Day, whatever suits him.
He told me the issue's a bit difficult to navigate with the kids.

My male ancestors came from England on a convict ship apparently, from stealing a sheep, but I can't find any record of my family name in any of the first, second or third fleets passenger manifests.
The best I can trace records to is early 1810's where records become obscure.
(Great great great great great great great great great great great grandfather Angus)
My grandfather married a half-indigenous woman, my Dad's mum, but they broke up after a time and my grandmother later died in a car accident at 38, and my dad never really knew his mum, was raised by his grandparents.

My half-Indigenous grandmother was actually half-Indigenous half-Irish
being part of this family shown here:

https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/5020237

I can look at the history of that half-indigenous half-Irish family through that book and they too date back to the early 1810's when the first Riley married an indigenous woman.
It mentions the Frontier Wars, and has a far more detailed history than what I know about my fathers family back in the 1800's.

In any case I'm not responsible for things that happened before I was born.
And I'm not going to be made to feel guilty for being white, when I've got indigenous in me too.
I don't identify as one, because I wasn't raised as one.
I accept that I've got a little in me, and I'm not ashamed of it.

I try to see things from both sides.

"Me personally, I don't really care about the whole issue too much."

I feel similarly, AC. I feel lucky to have grown up and lived in the best times in Australia. Those times have well and truly gone; they won't be back. Australia is well on the way down hill. I'm glad that I won't be around when the younger generations start reaping what they have sown.

Armchair Critic,

What do you reckon?

How about we name all the low-life scumbag politicians, bureaucrats and business people in Australian history who have been responsible for the demise and ill-treatment of Australia's First Nations people?

Believe there are plenty of them!

I can feel my ancestors sternly telling me to correct my earlier comment.

They tell me to tell you all that they came from Scotland, NOT ENGLAND.
- Maybe the original bloke was sent as a convict FROM England, I dunno.

Hey ttbn,
Yes, the next generation sure are going to have to reap what they've sown at some point, and it'll be messy I expect.

Hey Mr Opinion,

'How about we name all the low-life scumbag politicians, bureaucrats and business people in Australian history who have been responsible for the demise and ill-treatment of Australia's First Nations people?'

What do I think?
Umm, well we COULD do that, and maybe we SHOULD.
- But playing the 'blame game' alone probably wont get us anywhere,
...Unless we do something else as well.

What else can we do other than blame?
(and yes I suppose certain people and representatives of past governments, who have done harm that still lives in the minds and hearts of the indigenous should be held to account - on some level);

But account to what exactly?
Half of those people were probably doing what was normal in those days.
Recent times maybe not, could we have done more, probably.

Do we come to some sort of agreement on fairness;
Or because British colonised Australia 200yrs ago, white people will get the blame for everything no matter what they do?

Where do we go moving forward?
Race and identity politics, seems to focus on what makes everyone individual and different;
And it seems to cause more conflict just for the sake of it.
- Instead of focusing on what makes us all similar.

I dunno where were headed, I'm pretty sure I'm in the group that says the 'idiots are running the asylum' in 2021
- So I expect a crap outcome whatever way it goes.

I could hope for the best, but it seems unrealistic.

Some of these people way back in history might have done good things for the establishment of our country, whilst also treating indigenous people in ways that cannot be forgiven;

How do we try to figure that out?

Lets say someone back in 1880 did great things to establish the nation, whilst at the same time would happily shoot an indigenous on sight if one was on HIS property.

Do we tarnish good things a person did because of bad things they also did;
When in their times it probably wasn't considered wrong or abnormal to treat then the way they did.

What do we do then start defacing cemeteries?

"That guy back in 1880 he was a bad guy!, I'm gunna smash his tombstone!"

Where does it all end, and DOES IT EVER end?
And what does everybody want or expect ME to do about it all?

In 2021, they want me, a white male to lay on the ground in the fetal position and pee myself a little bit.

You know -
Denounce the patriarchy
Acknowledge my white privelidge....
etc. etc.

Pfffttt.

Given the rapacious nature of capitalism - and all pre-capitalist forms of political power as well - does anybody seriously think that, if Britain hadn't colonised the continent of Australia and, in 1901 approved the establishment of a political entity called Australia - that no other colonial power would have ever tried to colonise the continent ?

We can flog ourselves with tree-branches all we like, wear sackcloth and ashes, but nothing will change that pretty obvious fact.

The British under Phillip beat the French under La Perouse by a couple of weeks. And the Spanish by around four years.

Children may wonder why, in most large coastal cities around Australia, there are gun emplacements with huge guns pointing out to sea. "Why are they there, mummy ?" they must ask. "Buggered if I know, dear," their loving mother might answer. When were they built ? In the 1850s. Why ? To repel the Russians.

Thirty years later, it would have been the Germans.

Fifty years later, the Japanese. Etc. Etc.

So is there any mug out there who thinks it may have been possible for Aboriginal people, in their thousands of clan countries, now called 'nations', to continue on with their foraging lives ?

Let's move on, suck it up and celebrate 1.1.1901 as the day that Australia officially began as a political entity for the first time in the history of the Australian continent.

Joe

Armchair Critic,

I reckon just a good old name and shame will have to suffice.

There are still plenty of people around who don't want to be named and shamed.

I say: STICK IT TO THEM.

Well, if you want to name them, fair enough
- But you also have to take responsibility for doing so when an angry mob hunts them down.
I think they deserve a fair trial, if they're to be accused of something, and the right to defend themselves fairly.
And if you are going to punish them based on social justice, rather than criminal law, then you better establish some kind of standard because things are going to get messy.
Why not just create a better policy (that all parties agree to) for the conduct of these people as part of their employment contract?
That way you create a better system that saves all the dramas.

And it would want to be a fair system, because I hate left leaning political correctness and social justice.

Unless of course you want scalps?
If you want to set heads on pikes to deter people in the future, well I can't really support that.

If I wanted to set heads on pikes for all the things that annoy me, well there would be plenty of heads on pikes,
- But were not supposed to do that in a civilised society.

Hi Joe,

It seems about this time of year we discuss the Aboriginal question. Well there are three types of meaningless arguments put forward as some kind of justification for the illegal occupation of this continent by Europeans beginning in 1788.

!."Someone Else" the claim that if it wasn't the British it would have been someone else, much worse. Irrelevant, as we can only deal in the reality of the actual events.

2. "Benefits" the claim that Aboriginals benefited from the superiority of European culture and material development, not true. The gendercide and other crimes committed by the British, negate any possible, questionable, "benefits" bestowed.

3. "It Didn't Happen" Those who find an easy justification in denial will use this one. The overwhelming evidence of murder, rape, disposition etc of Aboriginal people is simply denied as if it never happened.

What I say Joe, is we deal with the reality, not sugar coated fairly tales. The first step is the recognition of the past, which must be a true account. Then and only then can we move on as a nation of black and white united as one Australian people. The conservative side of politics think a bit of tokenism, smoking ceremonies, painted up Aboriginals dancing, a word in the anthem etc. They mistakenly think all this inconsequential triviality will be enough to placate those demanding equality. That wont work, the days of beads and blankets are passed and real action is now what's required

Paul1405,

We need a good old fashioned Name & Shame.

Dishonest and untrustworthy low-life scumbag politicians, bureaucrats and business people hate being named and shamed.

Paul,

"2. "Benefits" the claim that Aboriginals benefited from the superiority of European culture and material development, not true. The gendercide and other crimes committed by the British, negate any possible, questionable, "benefits" bestowed."

That paragraph has to be your best attempt at humour to date!!

Getting a written language was not a benefit?
Education?
Being able to travel to other countries?
(thus enabling the late Buram Burnam to take possession of England).
Warm clothing for the colder months instead of untanned scratchy animal skins?
Cloth to make sham "traditional" dance costumes?
Medical care?
Freedom from forced marriages to much older men along with general freedom for women?
Decent housing beyond the wildest dreams of 60,000 years of non-development?

How do any crimes committed by the British negate the benefits of a University education and remunerative employment?

How do they negate the undoubted benefits of being able to flick a light switch?

Hi Paul,

I don't think the matter of our origins is 'irrelevant' - it's quite possible that some other colonial power could have had a more benign impact on the Aboriginal traditional foraging life, but my point was that, no matter whom it may have been, it was inevitable that the continent of Australia would be 'settled', or invaded, sooner or later, by an outside power.

If you don't think so, perhaps you could go through the steps that might have been required to avoid such a destiny ? Some international treaty amongst colonial powers, and an agreement to patrol Australian waters at a suitable distance forever, and provision those ships, perhaps hundreds, forever ?

The inevitability of 'settlement' or invasion, as you wish, good or bad, still underlies all of our subsequent history.

And by the way, it was assumed from the outset - and later, in the 1840s, written into legislation - that Aboriginal people had the right (obviously somewhat compromised) to use the land as they always had done. That condition is still written into pastoral leases, at least here in enlightened South Australia - in fact, it's why pastoral leases have almost never been converted into freehold title, except for the more backward colonies of Queensland and Western Australia.

In the 1880s, the Protector here in SA was told that a young pastoralist, John Lewis, in the north-east was about to drive Aboriginal people off his lease. The Protector advised him that he would be in breach of his lease if he tried that on. A few months later, Lewis applied for rations, and thirty years later the station, Cowarie, was still a ration supply point.

Joe

Foul-Mouth,

What about you, do you like being named and shamed?

Hi Joe and Issy,

your lines of argument are ridiculous.

Joe, your argument is the same as the car thief who pleads with the judge; "Yes your honour I stole the car, but the keys were in the ignition, it was asking to be stolen. Besides, I left the car on the side of the road, with only minor damage, if a bad car thief had stolen it, they would have burnt it out, I was doing the owner a service. GUILTY!

Issy, Australian POW's in WWII were well treated by their Japanese captors. The Japanese provided them with the benefits of food, shelter and protection from the war itself. Same as your argument. GUILTY!

I've heard that the guards in the Japanese POW camps were actually Korean.

Paul,

"Issy, Australian POW's in WWII were well treated by their Japanese captors. The Japanese provided them with the benefits of food, shelter and protection from the war itself. Same as your argument. GUILTY!"

You obviously know little about the treatment of PsOW by the Japanese, sure the majority of Japanese guards were brutal but I've known Australians who said that they owed their lives to Japanese guards who shared food and medicine with their prisoners,
suggest you read the book "Small Man of Nanataki". Liam Nolan. 1966.
Tells the story of a Japanese wh risked his life to provide help to Allied prisoners.

Surprised that you don't think that having electric lights is a great improvement that resulted from Britain legally taking over Australia.

Dear Is Mise,

I would normally just call you a pig ignorant fool because I have convinced myself that putting the effort in to educate you lot just isn't worth the effort.

But in these post Trump times where that brittle edge is starting to ease itself out of conversations I'm going to have a stab at it.

Let's start with one from your list of litanies against our indigenous brothers and sisters.

“Warm clothing for the colder months instead of untanned scratchy animal skins?”

The possum skin cloak utilised by the Aborigines of South East Australia was quite a prized garment. When an aboriginal child was born several skins were tied together and these were gradually added to as the child grew into adulthood. William Buckley's ended up being from around 100 skins. Carvings were etched into the skins which identified which tribe the owner was from but they also allowed the cloak to drape more freely.

In the early gold rush days they were extremely sought after by prospectors headed to the gold mines in Ballarat and Bendigo.

Here is a picture painted by the colonial artist Von Gerrand of one such exchange near Geelong.

http://www.geelonggallery.org.au/whats-on/exhibitions/scenic-victoria-land-sea-city/eugene-von-gu-rard-2299

Miners and others writing in this period have left glowing reports about the benefits of obtaining possum skin rugs from the Aboriginal people. As Annear describes it: ‘One rug imparted as much warmth as a dozen blankets and in summer they were stored until colder months returned.’[55] George Henry Wathen, a visitor on the Victorian goldfields, also extolled the virtues of possessing a possum rug and acknowledged, if grudgingly, that the settlers considered them to be undoubtedly the most highly valued inter-cultural trade item in Victoria:
“… l was soon asleep on the ground, by the fire, under an overbowering banksia, wrapped in the warm folds of my opossum rug. For a night bivouac, there is nothing comparable to the opossum-rug; and it is perhaps the only good thing the white man has borrowed from the blacks.”
http://prov.vic.gov.au/explore-collection/provenance-journal/provenance-2005/dallong-possum-skin-rugs

Cont...

Cont...

It turns out that possum fur is one of the few which is hollow which explains its extraordinary properties. It was even utilised in bomb sights during WW2 as it didn't freeze at altitude. Traditional worn with the fur on the inside but reversed when it rained it apparently offered extraordinary protection from the weather and cold nights.

Within 10 years the police magistrate in Geelong was bemoaning the fact that all the trees within a 20 mile radius of the town had been cleared and possum skins dramatically diminished as a result leaving the local tribe to rely on blankets and European clothes which were terrible in the cold and wet winter months and undoubtedly led to the high toll from respiratory diseases experienced but the locals.

An expedition bto Australia from an American crew led a cloak being taken back and preserved in the Smithsonian. It is one of only 3 left in the world. Here is some pictures of it: http://collections.si.edu/search/detail/edanmdm:nmnhanthropology_8470030?q=record_ID%3Anmnhanthropology_8470030&record=1&hlterm=record_ID%3Anmnhanthropology_8470030:

I don't think anyone is too old to learn new things and I hope I'm still capable of it. It often means parking ones ideology to do so I'm going to leave it up to you on this occasion.

Steele,

"Let's start with one from your list of litanies against our indigenous brothers and sisters."

What list?

Perhaps you mean the benefits that I listed?

The possum skin was, as you said, an Eastern Australia garment, the rest of the continent used mainly macropod skins.

Perhaps you can find where there are a few examples of these?

There are, as you say, only a couple of examples of the Possum Skin cloaks left.

They were untanned and just didn't last.
Unfortunately, unlike the rest of the world, the locals never discovered the art of tanning and all that it required was the use of brains.

Its not an Australia Day award (at least not in the way that's ordinarily understood), its an award given out on Australia Day.

Its given out by a group in the UK which has minimal if any links to the Australian government. http://australiaday.co.uk/about
Its only available to people who live in the UK and have some link to Australia.
It doesn't have any official status - no keys to the city or letters after your name or whatever baubles official winners get.

Its purpose seems obscure other than a reason to have a piss-up.

Oh, and to give people who are perpetually aggrieved reason to be....aggrieved.

So don't get your nickers in a not SR. Its not a rooly-trooly award - more along the lines of your participation award for the 4th grade 100 meters event.

BTW, another winner of these non-awards was Sam Kerr. I'm not sure if she got it for kicking a ball straight or her back-flips - an attribute which will stand her in good stead if she follows Nova Perris into politics post athletic career.

Dear Is Mise,

What do you mean they didn't last? They lasted a lifetime. The owner was generally buried in them. You can see with the Smithsonian example where the first four skins were sewn together for the newborn and subsequently added to.

How much of our clothing do we throw away over our lifetimes?

The tanneries that were established in our region stripped the land of native trees and severely polluted the rivers making them unfit for human consumption. Yet Aborigines were able to have their garments remain functional for life.

Listen mate, there is nothing wrong with being able to say 'Well thanks for that, it was something I didn't know and it has given me something to think about' rather than automatically doubling down with the contrariness.

If people claiming to be descendants of Aboriginals were really our "brothers and sisters", we could all get in on the rorts. The activists, black and white, with lies and demands for separate 'voices' and deals, have ensured that there will never be a close relationship between black and white in Australia.

Hi Paul,

So you're asserting that the continent of Australia could have been untouched by any would-be colonial power forever ? Certainly up to 2021 ? That the French, Spanish, Dutch, Russians, Germans, Japanese, Chinese, etc. would have left it alone - and would still be doing so now, if it hadn't been already seized by the British ?

Improper, sure. Unfair ? Of course. Unjust ? Yes. Inevitable ? Yes. Unavoidable ? Yes. Sometimes - perhaps often - in history, evil and misfortune prevail, it's not always 'Click your shoes, Dorothy'.

Mind you, Marx would have concurred, I think: he thought that British imperialism was a godsend for India.

Sorry, I don't understand your analogy with car-thieving :(

Joe

Steele,

Where are the examples that were obtained by Europeans for their own use?
They didn't last because they were not tanned and as I said before, after a supposed time of 60,000 years one would think that the locals would have used brains instead of raw skins.

As you are undoubtedly also eager to learn.

"litany of lists" is not good usage because it means 'list of lists', roughly, although one understands the sometimes irresistible urge to be alliterative.

How about addressing some of the other points that I raised?

Like the undoubted benefits of electric light.

I wonder if the Left have given up on asserting that Aboriginal people here have been farmers for 127,000 years, as promulgated by Professor Pascoe of Melbourne University. Keep at it !

On that basis, it is clear that possum-skin cloaks were a myth, with staged photos later in the nineteenth century. Clearly, with 127,000 years of agricultural history behind them, Aboriginal people would have developed techniques - similar to Maori - for

* processing flax into cloth. In fact, they would have had time to modify flax for toughness and softness of fibre, and select the most suitable varieties and plant vast crops of it across Australia; of course, Europeans stole all of that cloth and either burnt it or sent it back to Britain, bastards;

* like most agricultural people, they would have developed pastoralist interests, in corralling and raising the most suitable animals for their fibre over 127,000 years, as we have done with sheep and goats over the past 5,000. I recall a story about the last Woolly Wombat, from up around Gulgong I think - evidence that, at one time, Aboriginal groups, perhaps all over the east, domesticated and bred wombats for their long fibres: from memory, that Gulgong Wombat was just like a huge ball of fur and its coat was trimmed twice each year, it had been bred for its fur to grow fast.

So they wouldn't have had to rely on possum-skins, if they grew their own fibre crops. There could have been up to three different strains of cotton growing around FN Queensland and one in SW WA, all carefully bred over 127,000 years by different clans. Much was woven into sails for their ocean-going ships which, we know now, traded all over the Pacific and what is now south-east Asia. An Aboriginal three-master traded regularly between ports on the Red Sea and what is now Geraldton.

Don't fall for every con-job that you come across. A lot of it is 'make it up as you go' by Johnny-come-latelies. Possum-skins ! Ptuh !

Making stuff up can be great fun!

Joe

Steele,

Provide a link to one Australian Aboriginal person who has gone back to the old ways and I'll produce a thousand who love their electric light; no sitting around a campfire for them.

Is Mise,

Yes, I remember one of my Indigenous students, a good, strong woman, very cultural; complaining one Winter's morning that her A/C was playing up.

Down this way, people living around Lake Alexandrina barely ever go fishing any more - they can buy the local fish, already processed, in the supermarket 30 miles away; easier. But blokes might go out hunting in a 4WD, mainly for the thrill of shooting something.

Mind you, there are no kangaroos within cooee of that place; but as I write, there are kangaroos within three or four miles, in these southern suburbs of Adelaide, beautiful 'Eastern Greys', dark brown really, very graceful and intelligent.

Paul,

Anyway, the question still hovers there, like a fart in a lift:

Was occupation of Australia by some external country inevitable ? While of course history SHOULD always be positive and uplifting, has it been ?

Yes, I think I grasp where you might be going - sovereignty. But if all of the land in Australia was jealously guarded by clans, in their many thousands, can we talk about clan sovereignty ? Any more than, today, we can talk about householder sovereignty ?

And if not clan sovereignty, and given the battles between neighbouring clans in the same language group even if with different dialects (and even if they later exchanged women as wives and workers) - i.e. what used to vulgarly be called 'tribes' - can we talk about 'tribal sovereignty ?

And if 'tribes' either habitually fought each other, or were oblivious of any other 'tribe's existence out beyond the next 'tribe', can we talk about some sort of over-arching Aboriginal 'sovereignty' across whole regions, or across Australia ?

None of these is a given, Paul. Good griping points, of course, and god knows, every progressive person needs griping points. But there are plenty of those to go around :)

Joe

Dear loudmouth2,

What is it with you and primary sources? As soon as they are given to you you go in to a fluff. Is it because having a site called First Sources you push back on anyone who dares cross into your domain?

Sorry mate I am going with them well before I listen to an ideologically tainted keyboard warrior who is determined to eschew any evidence that doesn't coincide with his world view.

Get a grip.

You ask why didn't they use flax instead of possum skins. Clearly because a single rug afforded the protection from the cold equal to 10 blankets as attested by the first hand account I provided.

Dear Is Mise,

Strewth mate. You do hate letting anything go don't you. What don't you understand about these things lasting a lifetime?

As to tanning:

“Once the skins were removed from the animal, the flesh was scraped off using a sharp stone implement or mussel shell. The skins were then stretched over bark and hung out to dry often near a fire as this would slightly tan the skins and protect them from insect attacks . After the skins were dried out they were then rubbed with fat, ochre and or ashes to make them pliable and keep them supple. The cloaks were sewn together using sinew, which was taken from the tail of kangaroos. Holes were pierced through the skins using a sharp pointed stick or a pointed bone needle. The sinew was then threaded through the pre made holes to sew the skins together making them into a cloak.”

They lasted and were in high demand from the likes of prospectors. Every Australia Day I tend to read at least one of the classic Australian authors. This year it was Lawson's Brighten's Sister-in-Law. Putting aside the blankets and wrapping of the sick child in the possum skin rug stood out.

This was settlers purchasing Aboriginal technology because it was useful and it worked. Why is that so hard for you to accept?

Hi SR,

Irony. Oy.

Yes, of course, many groups used possum-skin cloaks. I've never actually heard of anybody using the local flaxes, or any 127,000-year-old genetic improvement of 'natural' flaxes. You got me there :)

Perhaps you haven't caught up with the agreed assertion that Aboriginal people were mainly farmers, not foragers ? Or are there groups on the 'left' who reject the assertion of 127,000-year-old Aboriginal farming ? Get with the vibe, SR !

But you need to understand that, in the push to assert some sort of Aboriginal 'sovereignty' over the continent of Australia, it may be actually necessary to also assert Aboriginal farming ? Perhaps not Pascoe's 127,000 years, but certainly at some time before 1788 ? Perhaps from the Maoris - ask Paul :)

Speaking of which, when I was working at a bookshop in Ponsonby in Auckland, fifty years ago now, an elderly Rarotongan bloke told me about an obviously-true story of Rarotongans or Maori sailing across to Australia and back, citing the viewing of Blue Mountains as incontrovertible evidence. Good enough for me :)

Joe

The whole thread is based on a monumental misunderstanding by SR of the award Murdoch got. And sadly that was the highlight of his efforts.

I find it rather fascinating the way people swoon over aboriginal 'technology'.

OMG they made fur coats - what geniuses!! ....just like every other stone age people other than those who lived in the tropics.

OMG they drew on cave wall - what a culture!!....just like every other stone age people.

OMG they had 'bone technology' (that one still breaks me up)....just like every other stone age people.

The only way to swoon over the very ordinariness of aboriginal 'society' (if you could even call it that) is to be utterly pig ignorant of what stone age life was like throughout the planet.
But while most of the planet moved onward and upward, Australia in 1788 was little changed from Australia in 8000BC.

Hi Mhaze,

In his magnificent book, 'Against the Grain', James C. Scott notes that hunter-gatherer societies, foraging societies - consuming rather than producing and accumulating, societies - were still predominant throughout the world barely four hundred years ago.

Four hundred years.

It's an entire mind-set: I recall working on a vegetable garden on an Aboriginal community, like so many other dopey whitefellas, while other people watched or drove past and/or watched. Once the vegetables - tomatoes, peas, sweet-corn, whatever- were ready, they politely asked if they could, effectively, have the lot. Muggins said, sure, go for it. And they did. Reciprocity - bah ! Humbug ! Once bitten, twice shy.

Someone should write a history of that interface between cultivators and foragers (hunters, poachers, gatherers, fishers, birders, sometime thieves and pirates) since it is still very much alive and well all around the world - wherever there is forest on one side and cultivated fields, or pastoralists tending their animals, or towns and cities on the other, there is likely to be exchange.

Hence the Wuhan wet markets.

Joe

Steele,

If you had a good memory you'd remember that I posted a bit about possum skin clothing and Aboriginals (part/semi) and the wearing of modern possum cloaks by a pretentious Green MP who didn't care a jot that animals were killed to provide her with her moment in the limelight.

How about addressing the freedom that Aboriginal women are now entitled to as Australian citizens; still denied to some unfortunate women and young girls who are trapped in the timewarp of tribal law.

Dear mhaze,

Sorry mate, haven't I been paying you enough attention.

I was deliberately unspecific with my original post. It would have been nice if one of you lot would have sprung to Murdoch's defense. His papers certainly made it sound like it was a big deal not some fossil fuel sponsored organisation of expats handing out made up gongs.

But the conversation has turned elsewhere.

And here you are once again trapped in an ideology so far that there is not a single gracious bone in your body. You can not accept there might be any parts of the Aboriginal lifestyle that has anything redeeming about it. This is despite early settlers, certainly in this neck of the woods referring to the local tribes as intelligent, with good humour and a physical condition which was markedly superior to most classes of Englishmen.

The pox ridden lot which got dumped on these shores were representative of the poverty and disease ridden slums which were a feature of English cities across the length and breadth of the British Isles. Aborigines here were well nourished, virtually completely disease free and in remarkably good physical condition in comparison.

The drink sodden colonies rampant with child prostitution and rebellion were certainly no advance on what was here by any stretch of the imagination.

For you to claim otherwise shows you to be an unlettered fellow with few redeeming qualities.

Dear Is mise,

Nah sorry, missed that one. Possum skins are not available in Australia. Those used by Kulin nation representatives are NZ skins where the animal is a serious pest.

Dear loudmouth2,

Mate once again you are talking out your backside. Why does sovereignty depend on whether the land was or wasn't cultivated. It doesn't.

Tribal groups had separate languages and highly designated boundaries to their territories. There are pictures of white surveyors marking the exact same trees that were marked by Aborigines for this very purpose.

It was their estate and by all accounts it sustained them very well. Tribal boundaries were generally highly respected. There was very strong sense of ownership and stewardship of specific areas.

Steele,

"Nah sorry, missed that one. Possum skins are not available in Australia. Those used by Kulin nation representatives are NZ skins where the animal is a serious pest"

Pest or not, the fact remains that a person, a Green, wore the skins of hunted and killed animals to make a political point.

I forgot to thank you for those excellent links, thanks.

We use foxskin rugs on the beds in winter and they are quite warm, I shoot a lot of foxes and like to make use of them.

Dear Is Mise,

You wrote: "I forgot to thank you for those excellent links, thanks."

My pleasure. I trust you found them interesting.

Another indigenous practice picked up by Europeans was the use of bark shelters. Locals showed the newcomers how to remove slabs of bark for homes and for the first decade or so it was the primary means of shelter for colonists. Locals were employed collecting bark in large quantities but the resource was seriously depleted within the first few decades. Use of the low slung traditional mia mias was also popular with prospectors, often preferring them to tents in some seasons.

Anyway a book I feel gives some excellent insights into Aboriginal life at least in Western Victoria was written by James Dawson. You can either read it or even download it here:

http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-52770478/view?partId=nla.obj-129741670#page/n0/mode/1up

The volcanic plains of the Western District did not yield the possum numbers like the lands of the Kulin nation around Port Phillip By but they were still a feature.

The use of animal fat baked into the skin afforded protection from the cold and rain.

“The aborigines are very fond of anointing their bodies and their hair with the fat of animals, and toasting themselves before the fire till their skin absorbs it. In order to protect their bodies from the cold, they mix red clay with the oily fat of emus, - -which is considered the best – or with that of water fowls, or toasted eel skins, and rub themselves all over with the mixture. Owing to this custom very little clothing is necessary.”

It is not hard to imaging how without access to traditional sources of skins, shelter and fat being given blankets and European clothing hastened the dreadful toll of respiratory infections which claimed so many.

Anyway I found lots of insights within it.

Hi Issy,

"wearing of modern possum cloaks by a pretentious Green MP who didn't care a jot that animals were killed"

At the time of your post Issy, I pointed out the same fact Steele has, that"; "Possum skins are not available in Australia. Those used by Kulin nation representatives are NZ skins where the animal is a serious pest." Again you were being dishonest in not mentioning that fact, so another PORKY AWARD is coming your way.

What about your good mate and top notch shooter, the wombat killer Tony Azzi. Azzi killed wombats and other native fauna on his New South Wales property. Did you get that old car of yours from Tony on a special deal?

Another good mate of Issy's is the elephant killer, Shooters and Hooters Party MP Fat Bob Ballsup. The NSW Shooters and Fishers MP Robert Borsak has boasted he shot and ate an endangered elephant in Africa during a hunting trip. I can believe that Fat Bob did eat an elephant, all of it, on his own in one sitting, the glutinous slob! Rumour has it Fat Bob wanted a Elephant skin cloak made for himself from the poor animals hide, but there wasn't enough skin to fit around Fat Bob! Fat Bob thinks he'll shoot a Whale next time to get a cloak for himself.

Ken Wyatt, (Liberal Party) Minister for Indigenous Australians wore a possum skin cloak when taking the oath of office. Are you going to accuse Ken Wyatt of political point scoring?

cont

cont

In my wife's culture a ceremonial family cloak is kept for use on special occasions. The cloak is generally kept by one of the female members of the clan, my younger step daughter has ours. We used our family cloak when we got married. Recently my wife spent about 200 hours making a cloak for presentation to a grand niece on the occasion of her 18th birthday and school graduation. Then that cloak will become her families for use on special occasions. To buy a cloak these days can cost up to $1500 or more, and not every Maori woman has the skill to make them, only a very few. The traditional cloak was made using woven flax and Kiwi feathers, today its cloth and poultry feathers.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern wore a traditional Maori cloak to meet the Queen,. It was a stunner, and some Maori were up in arms about a pakaha wearing a cloak in that fashion. The wife said; "That's rubbish, a cloak can be worn by non Maori if the cloak has been given or loaned for special recognition".

Hi Joe,

The Australia flax is tough and hard to work, my wife has tried it and she didn't like it, She found palm frons in the island easier to work, but they are tough as well. Te learned flax weaving from her grandmother mostly, starting from the age of about 4 or 5. First learning to gather, and then sit on the veranda for hours watching gran do her work with it. Eventually the "student" starts to have a go, under instruction, that's how she learned. I think she was the only one in her family who learned the art, her sisters were not that interested.

Hi again Joe,

Some years back an Aboriginal elder from the La Perouse mob related a story to us, about a strange people on a raft being washed up after a storm, around the area of Coogee (Sydney) in recent times, in the past few hundred years. The story has it, the men were very tall, there were also women and children with them. These people spoke a strange language, and were different in appearance to any people the inhabitants knew. The castaways were in poor condition, some dyeing, but the others recovered and joined the local tribe, never leaving.

Paul1405,

They were Australia's first boat people.

Probably refugees from the industrial Revolution. Was the raft steam powered?

SR: "I was deliberately unspecific with my original post."

But very specific in the next..."Rupert Murdoch received a life time achievement award in the Australia Day gong distributions, the first time it has been handed out in 14 years."

Utterly, monumentally, hilariously wrong...but specific.

"But the conversation has turned elsewhere."

Translation: let's never mention my error again....one of SR's regular non-admission admissions.

SR wrote:"And here you are once again trapped in an ideology so far that there is not a single gracious bone in your body."

Well I wasn't comparing Aboriginal standards-of-living with that of other societies at the time. I was just pointing out that the stone age people who inhabited the continent in 1788 were just ordinary run-of-the-mill primitives. No better or worse than other stone age peoples over the aeons. Just a people who over 10's of 1000's of years made no real progress and eked a short brutish life with no prospects of improvement.

But I have, in these pages, previous pointed out that the aboriginals in S-E Australia had a standard of living equal to that of the lowest classes in Britain at the time....at least in the good years. But your comparing the most fortunate Aboriginal groups with the least fortunate British classes as a way to praise the natives reveals all that needs to be revealed.

There is a whole industry in Australia which is trying to create a myth that the aboriginals of 1788 were somehow exceptional, outstandingly innovative and uniquely content. That type of thinking can only be maintained if people remain pig ignorant of the truth here and the truth about other stone age groups.

That truth being that the aboriginals here were very average stone age folk. Better in some aspects than their equivalents elsewhere, worse in other aspects. But not a society to be admired, praised or emulated. The only way people can get excited about fur coats is if they are unaware of that.

"The Australia flax is tough and hard to work, "

One of the excuse often raised as to why the Australian natives failed to domesticate ANYTHING was that there were no flora or fauna suited to domestication.

But the very basis of domestication is to take unsuitable forms and make them usable. If you look at the wild varieties of the plants that were to become wheat, its difficult to see how they could be domesticated. They are stringy, low yield and bitter. The wild husks are designed to spread as soon as ripe, not stay on the stalk awaiting harvest. Yet they were domesticated and through selection, became to basis of Levantine and (later) European civilisation. Similarly rice in east Asia and maize in south America.

In regards to fauna, who could look at wild oxen and think they could be controlled and domesticated? Or wild horses, pigs, sheep? Chickens in the wild lay perhaps a dozen eggs a year.

There are abundant plants in Australia that, while superficially unappealing as domestication candidates, are no less so than those of Mesopotamia. Think Lomandra. Those who swoon over the aboriginal society are always telling us about how ingenious they were with bush food. No one asks why they didn't domesticate those same bush foods.

Of course, its possible that some aboriginal groups in the past did domesticate flora/fauna. Despite the 'always was/always will be' moronosity, we know that there were other aboriginal societies that were wiped out eg the so-called Bradshaw peoples.

One of the things about the domestic life is that it is terribly susceptible to raiding and theft by hunter gathers. So one group settles and crops but then is overwhelmed by others who crave their food and stock. We know that aboriginal society was incredibly war-like. It may be that domestication never took off because the domesticators never got a clear shot at it.

Dear mhaze,

Lol.

It was Murdoch, it was a lifetime achievement award, it was the first time it had been handed out by this crowd in 14 years and it was a gong as you can clearly see in the pictures.

What's got your knickers in a knot? You are certainly not above a bit of obfuscation yourself old chum so all this lather and blather drips with your usual hypocrisy.

I did like the Crikey headline: "Murdoch's Australia Day award — brought to you by miners and bankers" which was far more truthful that most of the mainstream press such as the AFR:

"Mr Murdoch, 89, made the rare public remarks during a brief video to accept a lifetime achievement award from the Australia Day Foundation."

http://www.afr.com/politics/federal/rupert-murdoch-slams-woke-culture-in-australia-day-award-speech-20210126-p56wup

It is a good observation on Murdoch, media and the elites in any case.

Paul,

Do please get things right, Robert Borsak is a slim very fit bloke and the elephant that he shot was taken legally and the meat and everything else went to the local people for their use.

The money spent by Borsak went to conservation and the elephant that he shot was marked for killing by the Government Conservators.

So do intersperse your posts with some truthful observations.

Regarding the wearing of possum skins for political kudos, there is no excuse for so doing no matter who.
How do you know that the skins came from NZ and were not from illegal hunting in Australia?

Hi Issy,

Fat Bob Ballsup, the Great White Hunter, paid $20,000, it seemed like bribe money, so he could sit in a purpose built comfy shooting bunker. The fear stricken endangered elephant was driven into position, no danger to Fat Bob. From his safe location Fat Bob took a pot shot at the poor animal. How long the suffering elephant took to die we don't know. Fat Bob said he ate the animal, that's why he's Fat Bob, there is no evidence any locals got a slice, what so ever. Probably the carcass was left to rot, after Fat Bob got his trophy pics.

What about your mate Tony Azzi the wombat killer?

Hi Joe,

Just got messages from Fiji, cyclone passing overhead, strong winds heavy rain, and flooding

Hi Paul,

And an earthquake as well :(. Keep your fingers crossed :)

Slightly off-topic, an article came out yesterday from French neo-Marxist anthropologist Christophe Darmangeat, critiquing Marx and Morgan on women's rights in traditional societies:

http://cdarmangeat.ghes.univ-paris-diderot.fr/docs/Brochure-EN.pdf

I've been thinking along similar lines, that women in Aboriginal societies didn't have any real equality whatsoever, but were in fact used for their two functions: gathering food, and reproducing men - and of course girls to be traded in the future (as an ex-dairy-hand, the similarities with dairies were interesting: keep the cows in milk, raise and sell off the steers, and service the heifers eventually for their milk production).

And once those two functions were exhausted, they were figuratively - and in droughts, literally - put under a bush and abandoned.

I have to very reluctantly agree that there was nothing much going for women in traditional societies, or in the cultural justifications for their subordination.

Joe

Paul,

A pathetic post; why don't you address some of the points I raised about Australian Aboriginals being so much better off nowadays because of British administration.

You can't, of course, so must resort to your so-called humour.

Hi Issy,

There is no humour when Fat Bob Ballsup admitted paying large sums of money to dirt poor Africans to shoot such majestic creatures as endangered elephants! That is the type of politician YOU support.

You are still struck dumb when it comes to the wombat killer, your good buddy, and leading NSW shooter TONY AZZI.

Give me your answer on good buddy Azzi, and I'll answer any question you like.

Paul,

"You are still struck dumb when it comes to the wombat killer, your good buddy, and leading NSW shooter TONY AZZI."

No buddy of mine, I consider him to be a slob.

I give Robert Borsak my full support, he is an honest politician, (and a good friend) if he were not then the Greens would be trumpeting it from the rooftops.

As you full well know the circumstances under which elephants can be culled why do you persist in the falsehoods?

The bouncing spherical object is now on your side of the net, can you hit it?

Dear loudmouth2,

This is from Dawson's book which I highly recommend you read. He and his daughter undertook the huge task of translating the language of the Western Victorian Aborigines.

The treatment of women in this area was hardly as straight forward as you claim for the entire Aboriginal race.

“When the father of a family dies, his landed property is divided equally among his widow and his children of both sexes. Should a child of another family have been born on the estate, it is looked upon as one of the family, and it has an equal right with them to a share of the land, if it has attained the age of six months at the death of the proprietor. This adopted child is called a ‘woork’, and calls the owner of the property by the same name. Should a family die out without leaving ‘ flesh relatives’ of any degree, the chief divides the land among the contiguous families after the lapse of one year from the death of the last survivor. During that period the name of the property, being the same as the name of its last owner, is never mentioned, but is called ‘ Yaamp yaamp’ in the Chaap wuurong and the other two languages. If, however, there are several claimants, with equal rights to the territory, the chief at once gives each an equal share, irrespective of sex or age.”

Dear mhaze,

This was the assessment of Dawson who extensively translated the language of Western Victorian tribes.

"During this tedious process, occupying several years in its accomplishment, I found my previous good opinion of the natives fell far short of their merits. Their general information and knowledge of several distinct dialects—in some instances four, besides fair English—gratified as well as surprised me, and naturally suggested a comparison between them and the lower classes of white men. Indeed, it is very questionable if even those who belong to what is called the middle class, notwithstanding their advantages of education, know as much of their own laws, of natural history, and of the nomenclature of the heavenly bodies, as the aborigines do of their laws and of natural objects."

"In recording my admiration of the general character of the aborigines, no attempt is made to palliate what may appear to us to be objectionable customs common to savages in nearly every part of the globe ; but it may be truly said of them, that, with the exception of the low estimate they naturally place on life, their moral character and modesty—all things considered—compare favourably with those of the most highly cultivated communities of Europe. People seeing only the miserable remnants to be met with about the white man’s grog-shop may be inclined to doubt this; but if these doubters were to be brought into close communication with the aborigines away from the means of intoxication and were to listen to their guileless conversation, their humour and wit, and their expressions of honour and affection for one another, those who are disposed to look upon them as scarcely human would be compelled to admit that in general intelligence, common sense, integrity, and the absence of anything repulsive in their conduct, they are at least equal, if not superior, to the general run of white men. It must be borne in mind, also, that many of their present vices were introduced by the white man, whose contact with them has increased their degradation, and will no doubt ultimately lead to their extinction."

Gladys Liu MP should get an Australia Day Award and be made leader of the Libs and PM so that she can talk to Xi and get the China-Aus FTA signed up again. She's just the right person to push it through, being a former(?) affiliate of the CCP.

I can picture Gladys Liu PM with a shiny gold medallion from the Queen of Australia hanging around her neck and sitting across the CCP boardroom table from Xi as she negotiates getting things back on track.

I would like to give her a very special Aussie award: the Order of the Golden Bogan. That's as Aussie as you can get!