Keith Windschuttle uses a statement by Greg Craven that "They were here first. They have been here for 60,000 years. We took their land and their laws" (The Australian, 28/5/22) to show that "most of today’s commentators"  on  an Aboriginal Voice to Parliament "don't know what they are talking about".

.We did not 'take' aboriginal land and their law; they came into the new white society and its economy.

.Aborigines do NOT inhabit the 'world’s oldest living culture'. They gave that away long before the activists "who now recite this mantra were even born".

Traditional or pre-colonial culture came to an end in the south east of Australia as long ago as the "late nineteenth century". By the 1890s, traditional law and rituals were gone from aboriginal communities in NSW. The last "wild tribe" was discovered in 1893 - 30 people. In 1904, the anthropologist, AW Howitt,  wrote that the "tribal remnants" had now "almost lost the knowledge of the beliefs and customs of their fathers". The few things remembered had not been passed on to the younger generations. A majority had assimilated, and the few who had not,  lived a "violent, disorderly, binge-drinking, sexually abusive" lifestyle - little different from what goes on in remote communities today.

If the traditional 'High Culture' is gone, it would be "improper" for Australia to amend its Constitution.

For those interested in reading the lengthy article with its documented and footnoted evidence that the  popular opinions of people with communistic leanings are pure bumf, "The Voice and the End of Traditional Aboriginal Culture" is freely available online.

Aboriginals have the same rights as every other race in this country, they can vote for Aboriginal representatives in parliament.
And from what I've seen they have some very talented vocal members in the Australian government already.

I thought they wanted equal rights not special privileges, where they get to have a third arm of government that no other race has in Australia.

The trouble with the Aborigines,no matter what is done to help them, it's never enough,they always demand more. Their talk of inclusiveness
is a sham. They mean include them by giving into their every demand but the inclusiveness does not extend to white people or other races and cultures living in Australia. There has to be some giving in spirit and the extending of inclusiveness by the Aborigines too.

Windschuttles "whitewashing" of aboriginal history has been heavily criticised by many historians and others and his latest book suggested a conspiracy to create a "Black State" by a group of Aboriginal activists and white sympathisers who are plotting the overthrow of Australia as we know it plus claiming those lands granted under the Native Title Act that would amount to 60% of the Australian continent.
John Howard even said the Wik decision would have them claiming our back yards. Nothing yet.

All Windschuttle did was to gather a few selected quotes from across the years and stitch them together as threadbare evidence of a conspiracy that exists perhaps only in his mind.

He's one of those proponents that suggest we saved the Aborigines from themselves - like those hard right Southern State Americans who say that negros should be grateful to white people because "it was the whites who freed them from slavery".

I was taught in Primary School that they were a dying race and would disappear within a couple of generations and be bred out of existence. Even Gina Reinhart's father Lang Hancock suggested sterilisation as a solution to "the aboriginal problem", especially the half-castes. I would like to think that we've moved on from that since - but perhaps not all of us.

Australia is the only first world nation with a colonial history that doesn't recognise its first people in its constitution. The generally accepted countries fitting that description of being first world nations with a colonial history are Canada, New Zealand, United States and Australia. Keith Windschuttle is markedly anti Aboriginal, some would say racists, but he is entitled to his opinion. Now Labor is in office, there will be movement on the question of Aboriginal recognition in our Constitution, and hopefully by the time of the next election an acceptable bipartisan referendum question on the subject can be put before the Australian people.

CHERFUL,

Good to see you are not fooled.

rache,

Of course Keith Windschuttle has been "heavily criticised" - by communists, socialists, patsys, and self-haters and racists who want to bring Australia down with identity politics and controllable groups.

PS: KW doesn't make things up. He relies on evidence and documentation. Shooting the messenger is not going to work.