The defining moment in Australia’s history was the arrival
of the British colonial
fleet in 1788 because the structure of Australian society today derives
overwhelmingly from its colonisation by the British. Probably the second most
defining moment is the formal creation of the nation of Australia
through federation
in 1901.
Despite some influence by the Aboriginal inhabitants and migrants
from almost every country on Earth, modern Australia’s legal and political
institutions, our financial and economic system, our language, our social and
sporting culture, even our more informal social systems and values are all
overwhelmingly British in origin. It is absurd to suggest that there is an
event which altered the history of Australia and led directly to our
current society more than the arrival of the first fleet of over 1,000 British
settlers.
It was also the defining moment for Aboriginals, even more
so than their ancestors’ arrival 40,000 years ago. The reason why is that the
First Fleet was a colonial mission. They came to stay and succeeded, radically
and irrevocably changing the Aboriginals’ world. Even though some Aboriginal
tribes in the north of Australia had regular contact with
Indonesian fisherman and traders for one to three hundred years before
meeting the British and even though there were clearly multiple
waves of ancient migrations to Australia, no event changed the Aboriginals’
world like the arrival of the British fleet in 1788.
So for Warren Mundine and other Aboriginal “leaders” to be blowing
smoke because Tony
Abbott decided to publicly articulate this fact is ridiculous. Their
behaviour appears motivated by the usual combination of a) disliking being told
(understandably) that the rest of Australian society has more important
concerns than Aboriginal dispossession and b) manufacturing insults and
grievances for political advantage.
