ian wrote on Jul 5^th, 2014 at 9:28am:


There is nothing intrinsically superior about "British culture", but Britain did have something colonisers like the Spanish didn’t have: an interest in other cultures and places.

This came down to the influence of groups like the Royal Geographic Society. Where Spain wanted to capture souls for the church and nakedly exploit the resources of their colonies to pay back their loans, the British establishment wanted to map the world.

Britain - like the French - were genuinely curious about local people and their customs. This is displayed all through the letters of the First Fleet. The British officer class placed importance on their role in naming species, mapping terrain, and learning local languages and customs. They were passionate about ethnography. Artefacts from newly discovered (or captured) people sold for a fortune back in London.

This, of course, was the knowledge of empire. The British Empire didn’t succeed because of any intrinsic cultural trait in the British, but through the connections of the empire itself. Britain prevailed by bringing the right people on side. It had to. Half the world was held by a handful of British soldiers. Britain prevailed through treaties and relationships with local leaders, but always with gunships in the harbour, always muskets on display.

This made Britain rich, and the homes of wealthy were filled with Chinese porcelain and silver, Morrocan carvings, Indian tapestries, Venetian glass - loot from all over the world. British manufacturing and craftsmanship did not develop a name for itself until the 18th century, when Britain started copying the designs and production processes of other cultures.

It wasn’t anything intrinsically "British" that drove British Empire to prevail, but the British adaption of other cultural processes, and its ability to bring them into the fold of empire.

Today, the US has prevailed for the very same reason. The US is one of the most multicultural powers in the world today, and along with its military and industrial strength, its success is due to its pluralism, its cultural diversity, and its cultural networks.

As a multicultural nation in Asia, Australia’s success also relies on such adaptation. It’s not the strength or predominance of any one ethnic group that will bring prosperity to Australia, but the willingness to learn and adapt to new ways of living.

____ wrote on Jul 4^th, 2014 at 5:03pm:



Sparcely settled might have been a better or more correct term rather than 'unsettled' or 'scarcely settled' for Abbott to use given the Aboriginal population at 1770 in Australia is estimated at between 750,000 and 1 million, in a landmass the size of North America.
Still, it doesn't seem to take much for Abbott to set the handwringers and word police off like a frog in a sock.

Enquiring mind wrote on Jul 5^th, 2014 at 11:54am:
This country supports 25 million people with a high standard of living because of western technology, seeing that this continent was inhabited by various groups of tribes with disparate languages, no organised governmental system and the lowest technology on the planet this continent was always going to get colonised by another more technological oriented culture. Im not arguing that western culture is 100 percent perfect but I cant see any other culture which has achieved or is capable of achieving such enormous strides in the standard of living, life expectancy and basic human rights. Im not sure why you are stating the obvious that western culture has borrowed from others, of course we do. Regardless of whether we got gunpowder from the Chinese the elements involved are not unique to China, it would have been invented elsewhere at some time. Nothing in  an y human culture is unique to that particular culture.

austranger wrote on Jul 5^th, 2014 at 2:16pm:


On the 3rd June 1992 Justice Brennan, in considering the rights of the indigenous peoples of the Murray Islands, proclaimed in the High Court of Australia that "the Meriam people are entitled as against the whole world to possession, occupation, use and enjoyment of the lands of the Murray Islands". This decision overturns the concept of terra nullius. The Aboriginal people of the Murray Islands are entitled to be acknowledged as the original owners of the territory in question. With that decision the foundation upon which the Law as practised by Surveyors was severely shaken; now part of Australia at least is recognised as having been inhabited by Aboriginal peoples who have rights above all others to those lands in law.

austranger wrote on Jul 5^th, 2014 at 2:16pm:


On the 3rd June 1992 Justice Brennan, in considering the rights of the indigenous peoples of the Murray Islands, proclaimed in the High Court of Australia that "the Meriam people are entitled as against the whole world to possession, occupation, use and enjoyment of the lands of the Murray Islands". This decision overturns the concept of terra nullius. The Aboriginal people of the Murray Islands are entitled to be acknowledged as the original owners of the territory in question. With that decision the foundation upon which the Law as practised by Surveyors was severely shaken; now part of Australia at least is recognised as having been inhabited by Aboriginal peoples who have rights above all others to those lands in law.

austranger wrote on Jul 5^th, 2014 at 2:16pm:


On the 3rd June 1992 Justice Brennan, in considering the rights of the indigenous peoples of the Murray Islands, proclaimed in the High Court of Australia that "the Meriam people are entitled as against the whole world to possession, occupation, use and enjoyment of the lands of the Murray Islands". This decision overturns the concept of terra nullius. The Aboriginal people of the Murray Islands are entitled to be acknowledged as the original owners of the territory in question. With that decision the foundation upon which the Law as practised by Surveyors was severely shaken; now part of Australia at least is recognised as having been inhabited by Aboriginal peoples who have rights above all others to those lands in law.

Ex Dame Pansi wrote on Jul 5^th, 2014 at 7:14am:

I love this map...
Some areas have a whole family in them...