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IMPORTANT // Please look after your loved ones, yourself and be kind to others. If you are feeling that the world is too hard to handle there is always help - I implore you not to hesitate in contacting one of these wonderful organisations Lifeline and Beyond Blue ... and I'm sure reaching out to our PRE community we will find a way to help. T.
Indigenous Voice Yes or No?
- Thread starter eZyT
- Start date
Agree, and you're not wrong, but there is much more to the stolen wages. Firstly on the still people alive part, there are a shitload. Heaps.
It worked on a number of levels.
Firstly there was the official or legal discrimination. By law, any employer only had to pay part of the award wage to black people. Depending on when, what industry and who you worked for. For example aboriginal stockman were by law paid 40% of the award 1920s, then went up to 66% in the 50s. If you worked for the state government, 50% of award until 1979, then 75% until 1986. There are a few more complexities but you get the picture.
Secondly, there was the unofficial or illegal discrimination. Employers, including the state government, would usually underpay workers even these discriminatory amounts. For example a stockman was legally entitled to 40% of the award, but station owners more likely paid 25%.
On top of that, by law, up until the 1950s, money was not paid to the worker, but to the 'protector', who was usually the local cop or postmaster. They were supposed to bank it for the worker and give them some 'pocket money', that was the statutory term. For the most part they did not do that, they stole or skimmed the workers money. It was common story for Aboriginal workers to find they had very little in the bank after a life's work. What were they going to do? Go to the cops? (the protector also had to approve marriages and land purchases.)
On top of that, there was the Aboriginal Welfare Fund, set up by the state government. Aboriginal workers all paid a tax into it, the theory was it would be for the benefit of Queensland Aboriginal People in general, whatever that means, in reality the government just dipped into it when it was short of cash, or they would use it for things like paying wages to 'protectors', see above. So you could say blacks were paying the wages of the people stealing from them.
That was the set up in Queensland, which maintained it for a bit longer than other states, but it was similar in other states.
There is no way anybody could ever read or hear and understand the full stolen wages story, and speak to some of the people who had their wages stolen, and still spout the stock racist *smile*.
And that's without mentioning land!
Now when First Fleet duly arrived on 26 Jan 1788 what nation did they invade. They were not Australian as Australians did not exist then as Australia was proclaimed a Nation 26 Jan 1949. The inhabitants then of the Great Southern land were not a Nation. They did not have a Head of State, nor a parliament , a defence force to defend against an Invasion. So who have we invaded ?.
The land that is now known as Australia was called by various names by the Indigenous peoples who lived there for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans. These names varied between different language groups and regions. The Indigenous peoples had a deep spiritual connection to the land and had a name for every feature of the land.
For many centuries Europeans believed there must be a vast land in the southern hemisphere, variously called ‘Terra Australis Incognita’ or ‘Unknown South Land’.
After Dutch navigators charted the northern, western and southern coasts of Australia during the 17th Century this newly found continent became known as ‘New Holland’.
It was the English explorer Matthew Flinders who suggested the name we use today. He was the first to circumnavigate the continent in 1803, and used the name ‘Australia’ to describe the continent on a hand drawn map in 1804. The National Library holds a reproduction.
When the map and book describing his journey was finally published in 1814 the name 'Terra Australis' was used instead, although Flinders stated that his preference was still 'Australia'. You can view his General chart of Terra Australis or Australia map online.
The New South Wales Governor Lachlan Macquarie endorsed the name Australia to replace New Holland in a dispatch to the Colonial Office in London in December 1817, and the name came into common local usage. By 1824 the British Admiralty started to officially use the name, and the term Australia was first used in British legislation in 1828 to apply to the two colonies of New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land combined.
The name Commonwealth of Australia for the nation of six federated colonies was formalised in the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900 preamble section 3, passed by the UK Parliament.
The name Australia had appeared in print long before Flinder's suggestion, but only broadly applied to the legendary southern land mass. The earliest printing of this name is in an astronomical treatise published in 1545. With south at the top of the map a small wind head map names the imagined southern land mass ‘Australia’.
The State Library of South Australia has an excellent overview of Flinders' naming of Australia on their website Encounter 1802-2002.
Where did the name 'Australia' come from?
The land that is now known as Australia was called by various names by the Indigenous peoples who lived there for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans. These names varied between different language groups and regions. The Indigenous peoples had a deep spiritual connection to the...
Ever thought that our indigenous mob were more advanced than we are now, not needing a federal parliament, head of state or defense force to live happily together?
You make it sound like only having a head of state makes you a nation. Our head of state lives in England, what does that say about us?
So anyway, back you claiming they get all this money and favours from the government. Can you detail them any of them? Or are you just going to keep throwing out ignorant racist *smile* that you and your liked (small)minded mates grumble about when pissed?
That pretty much sums up your knowledge about and attitude towards Indigenous Australians.
Congratulations. It's a Melbourne Cup field but this might be the worst take on anything this forum has ever seen.
Yeah, dunno. The "When will Bernie go !!" thread has most spots in the starting line up.
Great thought. That also exonerates all the European colonisations in Africa as well. It's all the fault of those pesky natives that they didn't organise themselves properly.
Btw 26/1/1949 was the date from which people could declare themselves legally as Australian citizens as distinct from British subjects. Australia was federated in 1/1/1901 which is when we became a nation called the Commonwealth of Australia.
So you say that until our First Nations brothers and sisters land was invaded "They did not have a Head of State, nor a parliament , a defence force to defend against an Invasion".
With no head of State, or Parliament, that would explain why they lived a blissful life fishing, hunting and procreating. ****, I would've been sh!tty too if I was one of them.
The fact Tigaman got the date Australia became Australia wrong, yet that is still the best part of the post really says something.
Not even in the hottest 100.
Take a scroll through Adam Goodes, i think youlle find a top 10 in a few pages
TigerGollywog died on that hill in a hail of racism
Tigaman is trolling.
I stayed out of that thread.
Yeah, there was some poor stuff in the Goodes thread. But some excellent posting too, as in this. You have quite rightly deemed PRE to be a reliable representation of public opinion.
Worked with them in the Defence Force Navy. One of the most respected Warrant Officers was Indigenous from a community about 250 mils from Alice Springs. Post Navy worked with another. Two houses down across the road Indigenous family who were there forty odd years ago when I moved in. Still there.
Are you seriously trying to claim that the raising of the Union Jack in 1788 was not an invasion?
DS
