Most Aboriginals I know, and I think the majority, while they might acquiesce in that rhetoric if pressed, attach no more significance to it than to the Nazi invasion of Poland (which did happen – there were two opposing armies, each dedicated to killing as many of the other as possible, national boundaries, declarations of war, etc).

I will mention just one ill effect of “invasion” theory – that it falsely denies colonial Aboriginals due credit for what was in fact their ready recognition of the benefits of European culture, including their widespread employment within that culture, and their sensible and generous (perhaps too generous) recognition that they could not deny squatter families who arrived – helpless against Aboriginal attack – with enough stock to permanently feed a tribe of 40 and a share of apparently endless, virgin country.

I think the real danger, as I have said before, is that the tide is turning against this rhetoric and has been for some time.

Leaders like Noel Pearson have now been saying for years that the demands for European compensation for past wrongs need to be replaced by Aboriginal initiatives to help themselves.

The United States offers further warning signs: where 93 per cent of homicides against blacks are by other blacks, people are rejecting the significance of a white policeman having pulled the trigger.

There are compelling reasons for drawing a line for the expiry of grievances – namely, if you don’t, grievances can fuel cultural enmity that lasts for centuries.

People who doubt this might check it with anyone from Syria, Iraq, Israel or Palestine, just for starters.

The line is often generational.

Though I thought John Howard went too far, I now believe that, as long as existing programs remain to completion, the current Australian generation owes Aboriginals nothing more – this generation has bent over backwards to atone for wrongs, none of which were of its doing.

Where you draw the line is, I admit, arbitrary, but the dangers of throwing away generations of goodwill are immediately evident in how close we may have come to losing a referendum on constitutional recognition of Aboriginals through attempts to turn it into an instrument of sectional privilege.

The Aboriginal voice to listen to now is the one saying: “Thanks, but we don’t need your charity.”

Stan Heuston

Oxley Vale