chimera wrote Today at 7:31am:

There are no absolute or inalienable rights.

That which is granted can be curbed, restricted or withdrawn.

chimera wrote Today at 9:05am:

Well, parliament is sovereign.

So-called freemen did not enter the colony without granted rights.

Arthur Phillip established the colony of NSW as a slave-free colony... "There can be no slavery in a free land, and consequently no slaves".

Of course, he didn't need the black kind; he had the white kind, deemed bonded into servitude by parliament.

chimera wrote Today at 9:36am:

Any harsh dealings by Phillip were not arbitrary or gratuitous on his part.

As had happened with the first English colonists in America over 150 years earlier, Parliament had grossly overestimated the land's capacity to support a colony of Europeans.

Phillip was granted the powers to govern the colony, enacting and enforcing whatever laws he deemed necessary to ensure the colony's survival.

In its first few years, the colony of NSW was more like a blueprint for 'Lord of the Flies' than the idyll that the likes of Sir Joseph Banks had envisoned and advised 20 years earlier.

chimera wrote Today at 10:01am:

Rabbit hunting in Australia was right from the get-go, 1859.