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by SturgeonsLaw 1269 days ago
It absolutely is just lip service. So was Rudd's apology, milestone that it was.

"We acknowledge we're on stolen land"

"Are you gonna give it back?"

"Nah"

Imagine if I pinched my neighbour's TV, plugged it in and said "I acknowledge the traditional owner of this television" before switching it on. Wonder if he'd be cool with it.

2 comments

I'm a fan of the frank honesty of Uncle Jack Charles:

> His criminal life saw him break into many homes in the "posher districts of Melbourne" - a deliberate choice, he says: "I robbed as rent collection for stolen Aboriginal land!"

> "Those mansions were on my mother's land, but I'm sure if I told the judge I was a rent collector, not a robber, I'd have been given another two years on my sentence."

( Bastardry (2008) is a funny and moving biographical documentry )

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-48702542

This is what pisses me off about the acknowledgements cropping up everywhere now. "We acknowledge this land was never ceeded". Ok, so isn't the next rational step to give it back then?

I've never met a white person who spouts "it's still their land" who actually gives back their 700sqm they worked to buy.