@i-need-a-martini wrote:
@*crikey*mate* wrote:
According to International Law at the time when the English did invest in Australia, the land was in fact unsettled.
It was only through Marbo2 that this was recognized as being legal fiction.
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That may have been the way people thought then. But then they also thought the indigenous people were savages who were only good dead.
But you wouldn't say the latter (particularly out loud) now would you? Because we know better now don't we? Only an idiot would refer to they way we USED to think and apply it to a situation now wouldn't they?
i understand where you are coming from, and I agree he handled it badly. I only covered this a semester ago, after Mabo, and that was still how we are taught (hard to explain - obviously we were taught what really happened, but even the text books etc refer to "settlement" in the manner that Mr Abott did.
Now recall that he presumedly did his law degree before Mabo, so the text books and his teachings would have been quite a lot more blunt (can't think iof the right word) and relied more heavily on accepted International Law terminology, especially as prior to Mabo, the legal fiction was not officially recognized.
Its how law students are taught to think - the black and white sort of thing - Mr Abbotts failings here are a deficiency in the ability to transpose his legal learnings into what is publicly acceptaBLE.
His bodgy attempt to rectify what he said shows he understands and recognizes that the way the law "views" things and talks about them, aren't how the general public does.
It is not an indication of his disrespect or disregard for our First People - quite the opposite actually, when you consider what/how it is taught and regarded - even now.
This all comes under Property Law, and this dates back centuries and bears influence at an international level, it's just taking the law gurus a little bit of time to rewrite the law. The same laws and definitions that saw us "settle" Australia, still apply today. All that has changed is at an Australian level, a recognition that Capt Cook and the Crown didn't correctly identify the Aboriginal legal system and their different type of land use.
In this instance, he is guilty of being a lousy public speaker, that's all.
Some people can go their whole lives and never really live for a single minute.
ogQ!(U~$(KGrHgoOKjYEjlLmS1ctBJ1K-4Uyh!~~_7.JPG?set_id=81 "i-need-a-martini"){kind=avatar}
