What do you think about this... surely after all these years it can`t be wrong.. ?

Australia as a nation was discovered in 1788 ? the Indigenous should have a part in that as well as state their starting celebrations as well, beginning of dreamtime or something a celebration for that I wouldn`t mind that in fact I`d love to celebrate that with them.. but why all of a sudden this is wrong.. has been like this for years and last year in 2013 was approved ? this year not ?

Big W has removed T-shirts bearing an "AUSTRALIA EST 1788" logo from its Australia Day product range after discount supermarket Aldi bowed to online pressure on Wednesday and canned plans to sell similar shirts.

It comes as Fairfax Media revealed the T-shirts pulled by Aldi had been approved by the federal government.
It is unclear if the Big W shirts were also approved by the government.
to-art353-aldi-300x0.jpg
A screen shot from the Aldi webpage advertising Australia Est. 1788 T-shirts.

Aldi was criticised on Wednesday for a range of promotional T-shirts branded with "AUSTRALIA EST 1788" logos, advertised online.
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The design sparked an online clamour. People took to social media to label the range racist and culturally insensitive to Australia's indigenous people, who inhabited the continent for tens of thousands of years before the arrival of the First Fleet from England in 1788.
The seven designs had been approved by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet in July 2013, under strict guidelines regarding products bearing the image of the Australian flag.
A department spokesman said staff had been concerned with the representation of the flag, not external elements.
"In this case, the department provided approval on the basis that the flag was reproduced completely and accurately."
An Aldi spokeswoman said the shirt would not be sold following the comments.
"The T-shirts and singlets were scheduled to go on sale on Saturday 11 January 2014," she said. "The remainder of the range will still be available."
Online commentators went on to question a range of clothing advertised by Big W also featuring an "EST. 1788" logo, prompting the supermarket to pull its range too.
A spokeswoman for Woolworths confirmed on Thursday the shirts would not be sold.
Aldi also apologised for the range via its Twitter account following calls for the shirts to be removed from shelves from numerous social media users, including Sunshine Coast University lecturer Matt Mason.
"This is historically wrong and racist," Mr Mason posted. "Remove them from sale."
One online commentator, known as Conrad Henley-Calvert on Twitter, went so far as to write directly to Aldi explaining the reason for his anger and asking it to pull the T-shirt from its range.
"In 1788 Australia was already inhabited by the world's oldest continuous living culture, and many of the descendants of those first Australians view 26 January as the anniversary of an invasion, not of the founding of a new nation," his letter of complaint read.
Former Race Discrimination Commissioner Tom Calma said he did not believe the design was "intentionally racist".
"What we can say is that it is not accurate, is bad taste and does not in itself lead to an understanding of Australia's history and heritage," he said. "In the lead-up to Australia Day it is important that we educate the community, the nation and the international community about what Australia Day celebrates."

 

I think the same argument could be made for most nations' choice of celebratory days. Certainly here in the U.S. Columbus Day is celebrated as the founding of the "New World", when it was clearly inhabited for thousands of years previously by advanced cultures.

The problem is, if we take this line of reasoning back to the very beginning, we're stuck with both WHO and WHEN we should celebrate. Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden work well for some religious folks; for others, the moment that Australopithecus first bopped around Africa would serve as their red-letter day, and still others decide that it is when a certain group of people land on an already-occupied shore and claim it in the name of some political figure.

There will always be conflict, some form of contentious argument, over such matters. As Di mentioned in another thread, there are battles that should be fought and battles that can be put off. For me, this particular battle would pale in comparison to that of saving mistreated animals.

... but that's just me.
 
For a start, it's bad history.

An English penal colony was established at Port Jackson in 1788.
Australia was established in 1901 by an act of the British parliament.
In between was a lot of creeping colonisation.

Other than the above, I have no opinion about bogan jingoism.
 

Oh no, it's not just you Phil by a long shot! Although you can expect a summons and a boatload of lawyers for relegating the Kooris' wounded feelings below mistreated animals.


This is just soooo precious! These race card players are professionals. They get paid to pretend to give a toss and stir up disunity. They howl for an equality that Kooris already have if they got off their butts cleaned up their act and took it, while continually distancing, and racially branding their own people with this constant nitpicking about who was here first. So what?

I want to be shown one single structure they built in this country in that 40,000 (?) years of 'settlement'. Just one! something bigger than a pile of rocks on a corroboree ground and a strip of bark propped on sticks against a tree at least. Had they all vanished a week before the Pommy flag was planted the only clue that they existed at all would have been daubs and finger paintings on cave walls and some smouldering camp fires.

The Kooris were NEVER a Nation. They didn't even recognise each other as anything but separate tribes. At least 400 different ones, with different languages and different totems and different names for their 'Country' which consisted of only the land they were born on and bounded by how far they could wander without encountering another tribe.

That's simplistic but basically how it was. The PC word 'Koori' has only been found/invented recently to cover all of them because before that there was NO NAME for them as a people except Aboriginals. To this day inter-tribal enmities make it hard for authorities to initiate programs to improve their lot as only those from the local totem/tribe have any say in the tribe's decisions and if no bright son or daughter has managed to get on the Govt payroll in that particular branch of the authority then inevitably rorting and dissent ensues.

'We' invaded their 'Nation'?? I think not. They didn't even have a name for it, or any idea of how big it was or what was far beyond their own nomadic boundaries.

I can and do respect them for their survival in this Country. I can respect the legends and rituals that kept them spiritually connected, far more strongly than we are, to their particular birthright 'country/region'. I can respect their belief that they belong to the land/country and that it never belongs to them.* That the land is in itself a 'living being' to be respected as a 'mother.' I get that. I respect that.

What I don't respect is that they want the best of both Worlds and pull cheap tricks like this to get it without any input or effort on their own behalf to bridge the gap.

Sure they could have been treated better but what people ever were back then? Or now for that matter?
I doubt there was a single volunteer in that 'invasion' force in 1788, they weren't invaders, they were exiles.

'We' didn't invade Australia, History did. Time caught up with it, and them. Had to happen eventually. Do they honestly think they'd still be living in this Country as a group of disconnected tribes if Cook hadn't mapped it? It's a ludicrous argument.

Foreign European Nations had been visiting it for centuries, Asians for millenia, but the NW corner wasn't worth claiming so no one wanted it that's all. The Poms didn't want it either except that the Yanks had chucked them out and they had nowhere to send their spare convicts so someone dusted Cook's map off and they sent them here and 'claimed' it.

If the "Koori Nation" couldn't fight off being 'invaded' by a hundred or so soldiers guarding a few shiploads of half starved shackled convicts it must have been sorely in need of a Government and an army.

So, respectfully Kooris, get real and make the most of how things are and look to your future, for your kids. Your past is gone, irrevocably, and most of you wouldn't want to live like your ancestors did anyway, it must have been a pure hell of an existence out there. Enjoy your plasmas and get on with making some new history. I fear that this is as good as it's ever going to get. Make the most of it!

I don't personally see 26 Jany 1788 as OZ day anyway. Australia didn't exist as a Nation until 1901. Picky, picky.

*They don't believe they own the land but resent us taking it from them. They then have little compunction about accepting monetary recompense for their loss of it either. Hows that work? How do you sell something you are adamant that you don't own??

(Yeah Warri, just bein' a smartarse.)
 
I want to be shown one single structure they built in this country in that 40,000 (?) years of 'settlement'. Just one!
You forget the titles office. The British have a lot to answer for .... burning down the titles office as soon as they set foot in the place.
:sorry: ...again.
 
Why did we have the welcoming ceremony, or whatever it was called, at the start of the cricket? A giant yawn

Like Di said IF they had actually accomplished anything and the Poms took it then they would have something to continually whine about
 


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