If the movement is so massive, where were the protests in the other 365 days of the year. Tasmania of all states is embarrassed as to how it dealt with ridding of aboriginals from their state. Maybe this one off turnout is a reflection of that guilt? My opinion.

Move this to extra time we’re here to talk about football 

What a crock.  Plenty of pastoralists were convicted of murder. Do some reading. Plenty weren't but saying there was carte blanche to murder is garbage.

Just finished listening to Triple Js Hack.  As expected it's not changing the date which is the end goal any more it's about abolishing it altogether.

No surprise.

Of course there was a genocide.
To be a "pioneer" in the 1800s meant you could kill the indigenous population with impunity.
The land wasn't just cleared of trees.
Acknowledge our history.
You can do that and still believe this is the best country in the world (which it is).
Let's work extra hard to be respectful of the world's oldest living culture.

What a surprise, the first thread Paulc starts in 5 years is a dogwhistling shitshow.

Can we just we be done with him please, this got stale a decade ago.

We are waiting on the Aboriginal movement to  expound on the specific detail as to what they want.

A concrete notion/plan as an alternative to Australia Day isn't far away.

I know a number of politicians and leaders of  pressure groups in person. What they say to the media and what  is reported, after editing, can be quite different. They often say,  ' Did I say that,' after seeing themselves on TV.  It has happened to me too. To base one's perceptions from radio and TV exclusively, can depict an inaccurate appraisal of events. The media wants the 6 - 10 second grab.

Scotty From Marketing  is very good at it, but struggles when asked to debate in detail. Often this only occurs in debates with Opposition Leaders around elections.

Respectfully, I beg to differ.

I attend many  political actions, where protesters  often number in the thousands, which is very large  per capita head of population  here.

The Murdoch media, namely manifesting in the local  The Mercury tabloid, often chooses not to report significant political event that I  attend over a range of issues - Climate Action, union issues and civil liberties. Moreover, the new  manifestation of the emasculated ABC, also doesn't report events, or divides by five as to the number in attendance, and/or omits significant detail. 

 Other  TV stations, SBS, 10, and 7, are relied on to report significant events,  which again can remain unreported. It means significant political actions and issues are occurring that remain unreported. Even when events I've attended are reported, the  salient message of key speakers is frequently  omitted!

We don't have a locally based Guardian, but to  its credit, they report many events that occur. The Guardian also reports in sufficient detail.  It also covers a  broad range of issues. I'm much better informed, in an educative sense, since I've subscribed to it. 

You can also add much smaller media outlets like The New Daily, Saturday Paper and Michael West. Often at  big political  events we are asked to  disseminate   messages, information and facts elucidated by speakers via Facebook and other  social media  to keep people informed.

So much of  the media  in Australia is controlled by  Rupert Murdoch. News Limited have done little  to promote Australian football -  it  mainly has  British/European football content.

Moreover, NL media outlets sometimes blatantly ignore many political protests - and - stories that have a progressive content. Because it does not suit Murdoch's extreme conservative agenda agenda, a great deal of items deemed  newsworthy in the past, remain  unreported.

Thank goodness for The Guardian!

If you are who I think you are, and we know each other off forum, you can advance much, much more persuasive arguments about this issue, and others, than you have to date!

There are definitely some progressives who participate on FTBL Forum.

To assume everybody who  did not  attend Australia wide demos for Change The Date,  agrees the date should not be changed, is flawed. I think we are not far from 50% of  the population. Attitudes are also changing quickly. 

Having a few beers with a former state premier today, he is adamant the Change The Date movement has reached a critical mass where the date change is inevitable. 

To actually hear from Indigenous people in person as to how they've suffered over time - exemplified in disproportional numbers of Aboriginals who are incarcerated, much lower life expectancy than average Australians, low attendance in schools, etc, from the First Nations people who occupied  this country before European settlement - is quite powerful, and at the same time, depressing.

There have been comments in this thread  that the majority of Aussies don't care about changing the date. Amongst my  friendship milieu, there has been a recent massive shift in recent times.  Many mates, of  both genders, who used to socialise together and drink alcohol at BBQs on Australia Day, now prioritise Invasion Day protests instead. Just as  Labor PM, Kevin Rudd  apologised   to Indigenous people, after Howard refused, there is tremendous momentum  to change the day. Tas Labor Party have a policy to change the date. Ditto Greens. I'm assuming Fed Labor  adopt the same positions?

In previous protests on Australia Day in my neck of the  woods, it would have been organised by the Aboriginal Centre  and been supported by a number of individuals. The would possibly comprise 100- 200 about 10 years ago. These protests now number 8 -10 000 - which is quite  an exponential increase.

When one looks at these groups attending  Change The Date Rally:

* High school and uni students

* Chuches

* Civil liberties

* Unions

* Aged pensioners

* Climate Activists

* Environmentalists

* Much greater numbers of young people  under the  age of 25

* Migrant groups

* LGBTIQA

Plus, many politicians  from:

* Aus Labor Party

* Greens

* Progressive Independents



We are looking at 5% of the total population in my home town  aged between 0 - 90.

The demo yesterday was the biggest seen in Hobart outside the Vietnam war and recent Climate Action demos. At best they have drawn 10 % of the total population. I'd  surmise if one looks at he voting behaviour of the majority of those assembled at yesterday's rally, it probably extrapolates  to circa 50% of the vote in elections.

I hear you. I do not believe there will ever be a line drawn and a final goal. But I do believe that does not make any steps towards understanding wasted.

My point is that we oppose what happened - and yet we are so conditioned to oppose the 'unreasonable demands' and 'wishy washy words' of activists and SJWs that we find it difficult to get past that and see the real people that they purport to represent.

Only by listening to the voices of those who genuinely represent those affected (without their own agendas if that were possible) can we hope to get a final goal and be able to ignore the ratbag fraternity who will always find fault or another cause.

Just to indulge in some academic thought (I don't want an answer) - if someone with power took your house and land, gave you nothing for it, and assigned you the status of a lesser being - how many generations would have to pass before your family said "water under the bridge - it's all OK"?. What if they did it to a whole community? To a whole country of communities? Generations later, when all the original guilty parties are dead and there is actually no-one alive to blame, and everyone alive believes they have an equal right by birth or citizenship to belong to that country - can we possibly make it all right?

Nuff said by me on this (and no doubt too much for many).

Yeah I figured as much mate, just yanking your chain... huge Pacino fan and his appalling accent in Carlito was just terrible, but awesome in its terribleness.  Love that movie... Vigo as a crippled coke head informant.... gold, just gold. Lol

My 2 cents... dont care about the date, it is arbitrary to me what day we celebrate, I think it is silly to demand a date that draws different meaning to different people gets changed, but it is even more silly if there is a group of people who find offence to it to demand the date remain unchanged.

Its like hosting a bbq knowing a vegan will be there and you refuse to cook anything non meat. If you want them to feel comfortable and welcomed you should change up something little to keep them happy.

The elders demanding 1 million per person in compensation can go stand on a rusty nail.

there is no denying state sanctioned massacres by the british of the First Nations in australia

Love carlitos way but no . My actual name is carlo and and everyone called me carlito 

Go onto your profile and the first name is the one you change. 

Foster’s Guardian article is an interesting read. For someone so onboard with his “white Australia = bad” narrative he certainly goes out of way to facilitate refugees taking more of that #alwayswasalwayswillbe land. Hypocritical wanker. Voices plenty of issues, offers zero achievable solutions. Kinda like his football commentary I guess... 

This reads as though the author is trying to convince himself/herself of a genocide more than anything.  

Absolutely things happened that you would call genocide in any other context (especially from a cultural perspective) but, in regards to a genocide from the "state" (there were multiple colonies if people forgot) from what I've seen and read I have yet to come across anything conclusive.  I feel this would be the setting for a robust academic debate however most involved in academia would be very wary to express their true feelings on the subject. 

It doesn't make what I said inaccurate or wrong.

I was criticizing the Guardian as you'll never hope see a balanced view, like those that support 26th Jan to balance Foster's opinion. 

The polls show only 28% support change and is a minority. 

'Genocide' as in the common usage of the word is not what's happened here no matter what spin you put on it or what that article says.  Bosnian muslims marched off en masse and shot in fields yes.  Gypsies and Roma people sent to concentration camps to be liquidated en masse in WW2 yes.  Jews executed in their millions yes.  Hutus killing Tutsi yes.  Pol pot murdering millions yes.

Aboriginal Australians.  No. Not in a pink fit.  The fact that pastoralists and others ran amok (hundreds of times) is a disgrace but that doesn't make it 'genocide'. 

'State-sanctioned massacres'.  Get your hand off it.  

That article is essentially “person A picks up rock, throws said rock at person B...that’s a genocide!”

If the British settlers intended a genocide, we wouldn’t see any aboriginal people today. Enough with the lies.

Of course we oppose what happened.  And.......now what?  

You see.

There's no possible finishing line with what you're saying.  There's no possible way to measure when the end goal has been reached or will be reached.  I'm not looking to pick a fight here but the wishy washy words I hear on TV from activists and SJW's are just that.  Words.  There's never a concrete plan with a line drawn on the ground that we can get to.

im surprised people are still defending this point.  i guess it's ignorant generational bullshit that will die out.

https://australian.museum/learn/first-nations/genocide-in-australia/

#fakenews #neverhappened

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-20/fact-check-flora-and-fauna-1967-referendum/9550650#:~:text=Ms%20Clanton's%20claim%20is%20a,under%20federal%20or%20state%20law.&text=Experts%20told%20Fact%20Check%20that,constitution%20relating%20to%20Indigenous%20Australians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flora_and_Fauna_Act_Myth

What the fuck has that got to do with what he's written?  It's his words not the Guardian's.  What a ridiculous statement.

The stolen generations were nothing to do with genocide.  It was a misplaced and misguided (some will disagree) attempt to 'rescue' half caste children on the assumption that full blooded aboriginals were going to become extinct given the rapid decline of their population since white settlement.  As wrong as it may have been it wasn't genocide by any stretch.

Calling it such doesn't help.   

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations

Sorry mate, no offence meant...  I think its a great event and wish other "ethnicities" like my own still did things like this.

Off topic, but the African Cup of Nations is an annual event in Perth as well.

Playing in a competition that does not infringe in the law and decent humane values is never an issue.  Female genital mutilation is another example that is an issue however, often done in secrecy and hidden from the law. Whether these immoral acts happen overseas or not they are perpetrated from Australia by those living in Australia with cultural indifferences. These are not the values we support in Australia.