Originally posted by Kravenar
Invasion Day??? What a crock of shit!! I didn't see the "Australian of the Year" handing back his award after saying how offended he felt about Australia Day as a moment in history when his people were invaded.

* I think it is fairly safe to say that without "immigration" of the europeans, and later other cultures, most of the indigineous folks currently stomping around loudly would not be living in a world where they get government handouts, housing assistance, education, job assistance and so on.

These same people are not backword in coming forward when it comes to lining up for government handouts and assistance from the same government that, if they had there way, they would have booted out of the country.

Unfortunately winding the clock back 200 years and sticking your head under a rock is not an option.

If you don't like it, there is plenty of bushland out there. Grab yourself a stick and a loincloth and go live with the drop bears.
Compiling the above points you made, I'll summarize the whole problem with people trying to claim Aboriginal rights: The claimants always seem to want the best of both worlds. They own the land thanks to prior claim, and yet they want the benefits of today's government. It doesn't work. Either you live like you used to (with drop bears and no defense mechanisms - and no American tourists to use as bait/decoys), or you live in the modern country Australia. You can't try to merge the two.

* If the English hadn't -SETTLED- in Sydney, someone else would have "invaded" somewhere else. Be that the dutch, the spanish, or one of the asian nations. Fact remains Australia as a land was harsh, sparsely populated and undeveloped before 1788.
The Dutch, Spanish, Portugese, and others, all looked at this land. Many of them saw the west coast, and decided not to bother setting up a colony. A couple of colonies were started, but they died out (either because the people died, or because they decided the land wasn't worth the enormous effort it was taking - and these were people who knew what colonizing a new world would take). If I recall correctly, evidence of a Dutch settlement was found somewhere in Vic or NSW, dating to early 1700s; can't remember where exactly though. The Botany Bay settlement survived, and that's why Australia became a part of the British Empire. If it had failed (esp if mobs of warriors had beaten back the "invaders" successfully), someone else would have landed, maybe a few years later, and the cycle would begin anew.

Really, the question of who owns Australia depends on the definition of ownership. "Prior claim" is only valid when backed by law - a law that governs both the previous owner and the challenger. There are many ways for ownership to be claimed, and in many cases they have to be explicitly challenged. I don't know how the various Aboriginal tribes declared ownership (given that, if I understood it correctly, many neighboring tribes did not share language, so they would have had difficulty arranging any sort of legal settlement), but I'd be guessing that foot-planting would be the primary means - that is, "I'm standing here, you go stand there". When you move on from an area, do you still lay claim to it, or can someone else move in? If you're not right-this-moment using the land, do you own it? See, the whole claim that the "Aboriginal people" (which is nonsense anyway, there's not one single nation) own the land we now call Australia is ridiculous if made under the basis of... modern Australian law. Now, Malacasta, I don't have evidence/citations to back all this, but I would really like some citable documentation to show on what basis ownership is supposed to be claimable. Really, given that white settlers have been here and been assuming ownership for the past two centuries, I'd put onus on the various Aboriginal tribes, as the challengers, to show how they own. Without resorting to anything that they wouldn't have had without Britain. (Well, except English. Many have lost their original languages, which is most sad - a lot of culture has completely vanished. Use any language that works.)

By the way... harsh, sparsely populated and undeveloped? Are you saying it now isn't?