Australia Day absence

CONGRATULATIONS to the Star News Group papers on their coverage of Australia Day, and to all the local committees who organised the celebrations.
We enjoyed listening to ‘Crackers’ Keenan, and watching the community awards at Kooweerup Communitry Centre. My only suggestion is that, in these days of community concern about violence, perhaps Crackers should spend less time boasting about the players that he ‘bashed’ – even if they were wearing black and white ….
But I am sad that you have no pictures or any mention of our indigenous people – especially as Adam Goodes was chosen as Australian of the Year. And the Senior Australian of the Year was Fred Chaney, Former Minister for Aboriginal Affairs – for his work in reconciliation.
Of course our indigenous people have every justification for considering 26 January as “Invasion Day” but it was 200 years ago, and looking to the future seems more worthwhile. Invasions happened quite frequently throughout history, and my family in Cornwall suffered a succession of them. But we have long since given up complaining about that nasty William The Bastard imposing his horrible Norman ways on us. As for the Angles, Saxons, Danes and those unspeakable Romans …
As the longest continually existing human society (40,000 years or more) Australia’s indigenous people are deserving of our respect, and of course they should be mentioned in the preamble to the Constitution.
It is not hard to argue that they did a much better job of looking after our natural environment that the Europeans who followed Captain Arthur Phillip. Your readers might care to read Prof Bill Gammage’s book “The Biggest Estate on Earth,” which details how the traditional owners systematically burnt most of Australia at regular intervals – which benefited the animals they wanted to hunt. Early graziers comment on the ‘park-like’ appearance of the landscape. And of course with all that fuel reduction, they didn’t suffer from wildfires.
And then there are their wonderful athletic gifts – with numbers in first grade and national teams far in excess of their proportion of the population.
My suggestion is that committees include someone indigenous in their 2015 celebrations, even if us ‘whiteys’ get a ticking off for our past misdeeds.
If they can’t find anyone from the local Bunerong or Wurungeri people, may I suggest Michael Long, whom I am grateful to say, displayed his wonderful football skills in an Essendon Premiership team.
Don Jewell,
Cannons Creek.