White settlement "the defining moment of this continent" - Abbott

This has got to be up there with SSJoe's "poor people don't own cars" comment. Personally I think it's worse as he's obviously thought it out into a speech. And thus he describes the oldest surviving race on earth after a minimum of 30,000 years in Australia, as apparently not defining enough to get a mention in "the defining moment of this continent".

 

Here's some more about the white settlement of Australia. I'd hardly say it was a defining moment of our history, unless "defining" meant convicts being brutalised by the British. I've been to that Hyde Park Barracks too in the middle of Sydney, an historic building where convicts were held and sent out to work.

The First Fleet arrived with bags of seeds for sowing and growing vegetables, flowers, farm implements, sheep, cattle, horses, pigs for breeding and slaughter to feed the few, and many other goodies that befit a form of nobility, to begin with, and included dogs, cats and plenty of rats. Plus a whole lot of people who were rejects by the British establishment of the time, because they’d run out of room in their own jails. 

Convicts were no longer accepted by the United States. Among the convicts who were in fact mainly British, there were people of other nationalities – including African, American and French on board. These nationalities were sent here, most likely because of pre-history with the British, and were no doubt eagerly chucked aboard the ships for deportment to the Antipodes. African? Perhaps because they were black. American? Because they had routed the British in the War of Independence proclaiming their independence in July 1776. French? Probably because of all the previous wars in history . . . the English didn’t like ‘em much. 

It was tough getting started. The farm implements were not up to scratch – too lightweight for the heavy heat hardened soil of Australia. 

But what a bonus it all was. o be able to send men, women and children convicts to the furthest and remotest place on earth (at the time) to slave – yes, slave – on farms in order to earn a pardon of one degree or another. There were 3 tiers to pardons, and each had to be worked through diligently and with exemplary behaviour. The convicts used on farms and (later) buildings of a grander scale – rather similar to the US South, were ‘fed and watered’ by their colonial masters. They worked from morning to night, without pay. They were in fact used as slaves. Finally, if good enough, they were granted free pardon to make of their lives what they could. Many succeeded, many failed and fell back into lives of crime, partly to survive, and partly to rail against their oppressors. more