[riatin]

Would assume you're of or closely affiliated with Aboriginal heritage given the phrasing. My assessment of this is that if this were to become part of the established history of indigenous Australians, quite a bit of the narrative around 'ownership' changes dramatically.

[dawdaway]

I doubt it, either way they were here before Europeans who declared them non-human and assumed ownership of the landmass based on that declaration.

[defrost]

For the international audience, that UK assumption of "Terra Nullus" was knocked back and overturned by the Mabo decision of 1992:

    In Mabo v. Queensland (No. 2), judgments of the High Court inserted the legal doctrine of native title into Australian law.

    The High Court recognised the fact that Indigenous peoples had lived in Australia for thousands of years and enjoyed rights to their land according to their own laws and customs.

https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/mabo-case

[ROTMetro]

I'm sorry, did all Europeans declare them non-human? What a sweeping weak sauce generalization about an entire group of people.

[dawdaway]

Ahh, sweet gotcha you found there fella. I don't think I need to explain to you the difference between members of the British government declaring Australia Terra-Nulius (with approximately 0 outcry from their citizens) and some bozo deciding that all Indigenous Australians don't believe in science. If you cant see the difference it's only because you choose not to.

[girvo]

It doesn’t, though. It doesn’t matter if they’re genetically intermixed with Indians at some point in the last few thousand years. They were still here before White Australia was. And where I live, we still fought wars to eradicate the local mobs. We still stole children from them, not that long ago.