Australia Would’ve Been Fine Without Aboriginal People

It’s time for a bit of so-called truth-telling, the oft quoted term used here in Australia with regards to Aboriginal activism as well as the reconciliation movement. According to Reconciliation Australia, “Telling the truth about our history not only brings to light colonial conflict and dispossession, but also acknowledges the strength and resilience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and cultures.” Well, in this video, I do some truth-telling of my own.

Anybody who has lived in Australia will probably know about these so-called Acknowledgements of Country. “Taking the time to Acknowledge Country, or including a Welcome to Country at an event, reminds us that every day we live, work, and dream on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lands.” I’d say that it less reminds people, but rather serves to annoy people. Or perhaps that’s just me. For example, on the Woolworths Supermarket website, on the front page, they state, “We acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians of Country throughout Australia.” Obviously, they’re just saying this. They don’t actually care about the traditional owners, because if they truly believed that Aboriginal People are the traditional owners, well they’d give away all their supermarkets which sit on Aboriginal land, which is all of them. But they don’t, because the only thing that really matters to Woolworths is making money… obviously! They’re a business after all.

But the word I want to focus on is this one: “Custodian”. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Indigenous people are always referred to as the custodians of the land. “Custodian: A person who has responsibility for taking care of or protecting something.” It gives the impression that without Aboriginal people, the land wouldn’t be able to look after itself, which I think rationally we all know is just not factual.

Here in Australia (and I presume elsewhere), the role of Indigenous people has been romanticised. It’s like, without them, Australia would’ve fallen into disrepair. Well here’s my bit of truth-telling: Aboriginal Australians were never custodians… Aboriginal Australians were survivors. They didn’t protect the land… They exploited the land. I’m not even using that in a bad way. “Exploit: Make full use of and derive benefit from (a resource)”. And I think that’s exactly what they did.

Australia has a harsh climate. It would have been incredibly difficult to survive in such circumstances. But Aboriginal people did it. They exploited the resources around them to survive. Indigenous people weren’t looking after the soil, they were digging the soil to look for things to eat. They didn’t protect koalas, they ate koalas. Here’s an image of an Australian Aboriginal hunter from the Port Macquarie region in New South Wales. That wallaby, echidna, goanna, snake and koala you see in the photo, they’re not sleeping, they’re dead. As I said, this isn’t custodianship, this is survival, and survival can be pretty harsh. I’m not even criticising this. They did what they had to do to survive on the world’s most arid continent. And that took skill. I’m not even taking that away from them. Survival is a very important skill – the most important skill!

It’s not just me making all this up. This is backed up by research! Here’s a recent research paper titled, “Physiography, foraging mobility, and the first peopling of Sahul”, Sahul being the name of a paleocontinent that encompassed the modern-day landmasses of mainland Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea. It looks this way because the sea level was around 85 metres lower than it is today. But when Aboriginal people first arrived, they were met with an Australia that was teeming with life. It was bigger, greener, and full of giant iguanas, kangaroos and koalas. Noting that around 45,000 years ago, research suggests that humans caused the extinction of Australia’s prehistoric giant animals. I wasn’t here then, so you can’t blame me.

My point is, Australia was doing perfectly well before humans arrived. It didn’t need custodianship, so let’s stop pretending otherwise. Aboriginal people weren’t custodians, they were migrants who managed to survive by exploiting Australia’s natural resources, just like you and me.

PHYSIOGRAPHY, FORAGING MOBILITY, AND THE FIRST PEOPLING OF SAHUL
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-47662-1

HUMANS CAUSED EXTINCTION OF AUSTRALIA’S PREHISTORIC GIANT ANIMALS
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms14142

MUSIC
Allégro by Emmit Fenn