A message to Bat.

[bitingmidge]

Lets not forget the White Australia Policy, which was a founding ideology of this country (here we can't blame the Brits) . It was only allowed to be considered if the federation was formed against the wishes of the minority of pro-slave Queenslanders

Well I'll be!! To continue the hijack, for starters, EVERYONE in 19th Century Australia was a Brit. Before Federation, we were a Colony of Britain, or am I missing something??

Secondly, as has already been pointed out, the Kanakas weren't slaves, but indentured labourers, and there were plenty of white fellas working under the same rates of pay.

I have never seen any evidence, nor any previous reference to "pro-slave Queensland", but here is some of what the Immigration Department currently has to say (that doesn't make it the truth by the way...)

Gees bat, you've got a lot to answer for!

The origins of the 'White Australia' policy can be traced to the 1850s. White miners’ resentment towards industrious Chinese diggers culminated in violence on the Buckland River in Victoria, and at Lambing Flat (now Young) in New South Wales. The governments of these two colonies introduced restrictions on Chinese immigration.

Later, it was the turn of hard-working indentured labourers from the South Sea Islands of the Pacific (known as ‘kanakas’) in northern Queensland. Factory workers in the south became vehemently opposed to all forms of immigration, which might threaten their jobs - particularly by non-white people who they thought would accept a lower standard of living and work for lower wages.

Some influential Queenslanders felt that the colony would be excluded from the forthcoming Federation if the ‘kanaka’ trade did not cease. Leading NSW and Victorian politicians warned there would be no place for ‘Asiatics’ or ‘coloureds’ in the Australia of the future.

In 1901, the new federal government passed an Act ending the employment of Pacific Islanders. The Immigration Restriction Act 1901 received royal assent on 23 December 1901. It was described as an Act ‘to place certain restrictions on immigration and to provide for the removal from the Commonwealth of prohibited immigrants’.

[Sturdee]

here we can't blame the Brits

Why not?

I suppose it really depends when the Brits ceased having control over Australia and we became an independant nation. I don't mean the popular conception of an independant nation as espoused by our politicians :eek: but the legal position.

Australia was settled by the Brits and over time evolved into what was known as self governing colonies. They weren't really self governing for the British government retained the right to make through their Governors binding proclamations and the Governor could, and did, reject laws passed by the self governing parliaments.

Upon federation, which came into legal effect by a British Act of Parliament, certain powers of the so called self governing colonies (now to be called states) were passed to the Commonwealth government which was not an independant nation but a British Dominion. The British parliament retained their right to make laws for and binding upon and to make proclamations over the Commonwealth and the individual states.

In fact early in the great depression when the NSW Premier Jack Lang wanted to suspend interest payments to the British bank in order to weather the depression and make it easier for the NSW citizens the British through the NSW Governor interfered to force payment to their banks.

In 1931 The British revoked the dominion status but still retained legal oversight (and the power to disallow laws) through the appeal process to the British Privy Council until this was finally abolished in 1986 by the Australia Act. Incidentally this action in revoking dominion status was forced on the British by the then League of Nations who wouldn't recognize Canada, South Africa, New Zealand and us as independant and capable of joining that body.

Therefore legally and technically the Brits were in control and responsible for all the ills of our country until 1986.

Then of course there is the further question of the Monarchs reserve powers over our constitution where she can ignore or override provision of our constitution. Until these powers are removed or codified we can not really consider ourselves a truely independant nation.


Peter.

[ozwinner]

:eek:
You are a font of knowledge Peter..

Al

[Rossluck]

Why not?

I suppose it really depends when the Brits ceased having control over Australia and we became an independant nation. I don't mean the popular conception of an independant nation as espoused by our politicians :eek: but the legal position.

Peter.

Sorry, I was displaced from the computer (not by Brits but by my wife). I agree with Peter to an extent. But it's too easy to blame the Brits for all of this. We might just as well blame them for apartheid and the treatment of America's indigenous populations. Someone has to take responsibility, and I note that the Aboriginal people here look to us for an apology and not Blair or the Queen.

I'm drawing from what I remember from what I learned at uni as part of a degree in Australian history. The general feeling there was that the Kanakas, while ostensibly indentured labourers, were "strongly impelled" to board ships to travel to Australia to work in the cane fields. Oral histories indicate that the descendents of these people who live here generally believe this to be the case.

So far as the White Australia Policy is concerned, while it may have had its origins in concerns about the "yellow peril", it ultimately resulted in the White Australia Policy which had as its basic tenet the exclusion of all people who were not white. Aboriginal people fitted neatly into the non-white category.

As to when we became Australians, you might recall that Henry Lawson, born near Mudgee, was writing nationalistic prose in the 1880s and 90s. I'm sure he didn't see himself as a Brit.

In essence, my opinion is that we are not really in a position to start casting aspersions on the racial history of other nations.

[Dion N]

I don't have a problem with guns being available for proper sport or recreational use but I strongly object to unfettered gun ownership. Let's not forget that the USA is the murder capital of the world because of their gun ownership.

Peter.

How can a country be "the murder capital"? Surely a murder capital would be a city? Perhaps it would be more correct to talk in terms of the murder rate per captia? I seriously doubt that the overall murder rate in the USA is the highest in the world. I'm willing to bet that other countries like Iraq Somalia and Sudan have a higher rate.

In any case, stating that the US has a high murder rate simply because of the availability of guns is a pretty bold statement to make without any evidence.

[Greg Q]

. But it's too easy to blame the Brits for all of this.

Oui! C'est ca. "Blame England" has been a catch-cry in French Canada for centuries now, and it has never failed us.

Gregoire

[Greg Q]

How can a country be "the murder capital"? Surely a murder capital would be a city? Perhaps it would be more correct to talk in terms of the murder rate per captia? I seriously doubt that the overall murder rate in the USA is the highest in the world. I'm willing to bet that other countries like Iraq Somalia and Sudan have a higher rate.

In any case, stating that the US has a high murder rate simply because of the availability of guns is a pretty bold statement to make without any evidence.

Here's a site whose data indicates that America is 24th. I have just spent a few minutes being surprised by the Dept of Justice stats that don't reflect our received wisdom about crime rates. I am going to have to spend more time looking over the comparative data (like I need another hobby), and maybe revise my opinions somewhat.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_mur_percap

It is interesting that murder and violent crime rates have been in rapid decline for the last 12 or so years. Also, the numbers for America and Canada (for example), taken as a whole get skewed by regional differences. Americas rate is spiked by high crime in the south, Canada's by high crime in the west. Parts of western Canada have murder rates THE SAME AS America's 4.2/1000,000 people.
Time for a re-think, methinks