Part III: Invasion and Ancestry are but Straw Men

Was Australia Invaded? 

In the 18th and 19th Centuries the Industrial Revolution saw Britain expand and then protect  British commercial and industrial growth by establishing colonies across the world. In 1788,  it was Australia’s turn.

However, the British did not ’invade’ New South Wales with hundreds of warships and  marines storming up beaches to slaughter the natives. There was no Aborigine military to  fight, no king to lead his troops, and no one to negotiate a surrender. There would have been  no ceding of land as it would have been just taken as the spoils of war. 

There was no need for such an excursion and the British had no desire, or need, to cause  such a disruption. 

In the period of Enlightened and Christian thinking of the 19th Century, the British  Government did three things that were unique in taking sovereign control of New South  Wales, as expressed in King George III Letters Patent and Declaration: it forbade slavery – the first place in the world to ban slavery; second, it made all Aborigines (natives) British  subjects will equal rights with all other British subjects for there was to be no subservience of  any kind; and third, Governor Phillip was instructed to “… endeavour by every possible  means to open an Intercourse with the Natives and to conciliate their affections, enjoining all  Our Subjects to live in amity and kindness with them”. 

Arthur Phillip made friends with the Aborigines from the moment he arrived. Within two  years, Aborigines were living in the Sydney settlement. The British settlers were admitted to  corroborees and Aborigines were in the homes of the British. In 1793, the Spanish explorer,  Malaspina, called into the Sydney colony and recorded in his journal that Aborigine children  were playing in the streets and Aborigine families sat down to dinner with British settlers.  

Bennelong gave Phillip an Aboriginal name – ‘Wolawaree’, shared customs and traditions  with him, and thereby made a kinship relationship with him. Bennelong did not call Phillip  by name after that but referred to him as kin, calling him ‘father’, and himself as ‘son’. His  daughter was Phillip’s daughter, or granddaughter. This kinship to Bennelong and his  daughter made Phillip a member of Bennelong’s extended family and community (tribe)  through the Aboriginal principle of implied genealogy, and, an elder. 

The efforts by following governors were no less admirable. Indeed, given the violence, incest,  and general deprivation of life through subsistence living in the bush, far from an invasion,  the arrival of the British was providential. 

Does a 35,000 Year Ancestry Equate to Sovereignty?  

It is believed that the Aborigine people were on the Australian continent in the pre-historic  period, before 5,000 BC. There is some presumptive evidence that mankind was on the  continent in late Pleistocene era, before 12,000 years ago. The most recent ice age occurred  between 20,000 and 11,000 years ago when glaciers covered huge parts of the earth and thus 

it is suggested that human life existed on the Australian continent even before the last ice  age. It is further suggested that both Homo sapiens and Neanderthals co-exited during the  latter part of this period dating back, possibly, to 200,000 years ago. Modern humans are  suspected to have lived as early as 50,000 years ago. 

Deb Newell, writing in the Spectator on “Raft Australia”, points out that it is thought that  15,000-10,000 years ago sea levels rose, tectonic plates shifted and Australia lost its  connection to New Guinea and drifted south. By this time Australia had a small, fragmented  but diverse population of human tribes that had arrived from different directions at different  times and wandered as hunter-gatherers on different pathways across the vast island  continent. They took their languages and culture with them and, infrequently, engaged with  other nomadic groups either pleasantly or unpleasantly. There were up to 15 migration  waves into Australia. So, rather than a homogenous original tribal group there is increasing  support for the concept that Australia was colonised by different groups that mixed together  and or repelled and exterminated each other in various acts of colonisation. “This is who we  humans are: a geographic blend of ancestral/tribal based DNA that selected for the survival  of our species wherever our tribes settled …” 

But nothing on this subject is certain before the end of the last ice age some 10,000 years  ago. 

The indigenous tribes in Australia have lived on the continent for thousands of years and it is  thought that the people originally came from India and before that, Africa. Meaning, that the  people on the Australian continent were not, strictly speaking, of the ‘origin’ of this place:  marsupials are indigenous to the continent but humans are not. 

To claim that my Homo sapiens and Neanderthals ancestors were here before yours may be  of personal interest but it does not equate to a claim on land, and certainly not sovereignty.  ‘Aborigines’, as they have been called for centuries, have never been a united people, and are  still not. In every country in the world, there has been human conflict as kings and rulers  replaced other rulers by force or law. To stand in front of an advancing army and say that  you were here first and therefore own the land would be idiotic. 

In a democratic state where all citizens have equal voting rights, claiming an ancestral, racial  priority over other people and citizens, is just as idiotic. As the 1992 High Court Mabo  decision stated, Aborigine people have no legal grounds to claim sovereignty against the  Crown and are granted ‘native titles’ at the pleasure of the Crown: they don’t have a right to  it except by legislated law.  

Aborigines have been assimilating with other races, particularly Caucasians, since 1788. By  1901, 95% of people identified as Aborigine were of mixed blood. The process of assimilation  of Aborigine people into the Australian mixed-race society continues today with 70% of  ‘Indigenous’ people married to non-Indigenous spouses. Of all people who identify as  Aborigine/Indigenous, 98% are of mixed blood.  

So does a claim that some of my ancestors may have been here 65,000 years ago and before  some others of my ancestry, really mean anything to anyone but me? And what kind of  future society do the FNP activists foresee: a racially divided nation based on dubious  ancestral linage?