Dear mhaze,

Old bloody Windshuttle has been found to be gilding the lily so many times it makes your head spin.

He is the darling of the hard right because he has been prepared to adjust his messaging to garner plaudits from them.

I have on several occasions pointed out him getting it severely wrong or moving the goal posts when it suits him. The difference between him and Reynolds is the latter owns up to his mistakes.

ttbn, when Philip arrived they were disparate family tribes, but as
they learnt their history and where they fitted into the world they
then became a "nation".
So, as they claim to be a nation that they had not known existed we
will have to acknowledge that self understanding.
However it does not change anything.

Dear Bazz,

Usual rot from you.

When do disparate family groups become over 300 distinct language groups with their own national languages?

No Bazz. They never "became a nation". That's a modern invention. 

There were  around 600 different languages. Not much chance of communication, let alone 'nation' building. 

Windschuttle uses original documents, written by people who lived among aboriginals, in many cases; many of them scholars who were by no means politically minded, and who were sympathetic to aborigines. His detractors prefer to believe nonsense invented the day before yesterday by someone they like. They couldn't possibly like or agree with an 80 year old scholar with experience, who grew up in a time of academic rigour not sullied  by modern, politically-driven brainwashing.

"Old bloody Windshuttle has been found to be gilding the lily..."

Well "gilding the lily" is a subjective thing and in the eye of the beholder. And if you squint real hard and remain effectively ignorant of the facts, you might just convince yourself of it.

"The difference between him and Reynolds is the latter owns up to his mistakes."

Oh so when Reynolds took a direct quote, utterly altered its wording and meaning to make a pro-native policy seem anti-native and then used that as the foundation stone to advance his black armband view of history, that was merely a mistake!! Now THAT'S gilding the lily.

".. it makes your head spin."
Only for those whose head wasn't screwed on right originally. :)

Correction.

There are now 250 different aboriginal languages, and 800 different dialects. There could have been more separate languages at the time of white settlement, but probably not 600.

This makes no difference to communication difficulties, nor the impossibility of nation building.