Debate over date for Australia Day

With Australia Day approaching amid mixed feelings in the Community, I would like to submit some balance into the issue which I feel has been forgotten and/or neglected.

From the time I started Primary School in 1947 in Australia, it is true that very little mention was made of Aboriginal history. However, I developed the belief that Aboriginal contact with the outside world was inevitable, and that visits by entrepreneurial unsupervised adventurers would have been more disruptive, divisive and damaging to the Aboriginal population than an organised settlement which aimed to subscribe to British endeavours and the rule of Law.

In principle, the effect on Aboriginals of the arrival of the British is comparable to the fate of the first wave of Aboriginals who arrived in Australia from South East Asia thousands of years ago.

Subsequently, there were two other separate waves of migrating tribes who did not peacefully integrate but forced earlier inhabitants to retreat further South. Also, there are documented cases in the 1800s where displaced tribal members from another area were killed in battle by tribes who did not welcome their arrival in their area.

Currently, because Aboriginal descendants and their supporters are selective in choosing to promote examples of Aboriginal culture pertaining to environmental, artistic, storytelling and some social practices rather than acknowledging some unpleasant customs, this has resulted in the Colonial British Government’s actions being taken out of context and unfairly condemned. 

First-hand accounts from independent individuals such as William Buckley, Daisy Bates and an 1876 publication on the  Aboriginals of Victoria  as well as accounts of some now abandoned tribal rituals would have been regarded by Europeans as a breach of human rights then as they would be now, by the United Nations Charter.

Unfortunately, one prominent Aboriginal, Prof. Marcia Langton, has stated on the ABC that if Australians want Reconciliation, they need to 
cease celebrating post-Colonial History. 

Constant denigration of the past and wanting to  pull rank  on other Australians is counterproductive to achieving equality and is particularly fraught since there is no definitive test of Aboriginality.

While no Government is perfect, at least today’s Aboriginals and the rest of us should be grateful for the opportunity to be united and to benefit from our Country’s efforts to protect us all in regard to the challenges of world events and threats.

I believe all Australians have reason to commemorate the 26th January as the day in 1788 that the foundations were laid for modern Australia, which has been able to give refuge to many displaced migrants and other migrants seeking  a better life.

Rosemary Hutchinson, Inverloch