What is described was what made Australia, a British Colony, unique among all of Britain’s colonies. Why we criminally ignored British Law that demanded that natives be acknowledged, treated with respect, and allowed to share the land as they traditionally had. The squatters simply ignored the crown and the governors were too afraid or complicit to act. Greed was the order of the day and “might was right”. Nothing much has changed when one hears Peter Dutton speak for the LNP.

This is the bedrock of Australian secrecy. Thousands of little stories that never made the newspapers or official reports. The First Peoples of this continent have, despite the catastrophic ruptures of forced relocation and child removal, nurtured their ancient and family storytelling; those who came later failed to even tell their stories to their children. This fostered a century of silence that made it possible for myths to flourish unchallenged, as the referendum “debate” has demonstrated in recent months.

Source: ‘I can’t argue away the shame’: frontier violence and family history converge in David Marr’s harrowing and important new book