Photo by Peter Nijenhuis; Flickr, Creative Commons
When questioned about foreign investment in real estate, Tony Abbott said, “Our country is unimaginable without foreign investment. I guess our country owes its existence to a form of foreign investment by the British government in the then unsettled or, um, scarcely settled, Great South Land.”
Apparently, Mr Abbott forgot about a few things…
- People have been living in Australia for over 50,000 years.
- Prior to European arrival, Indigenous people inhabited the whole of Australia, from the Torres Strait down to Tasmania.
- Before 1788, there was an estimated population of 750,000 people in Australia.
- The concept of terra nullius (that Australia was “land belonging to no one” when the Europeans arrived) was overturned by the High Court of Australia in the Mabo case in 1992.
And there’s more that the dork forgot at: This Is How “Unsettled” Australia Was Before The British Arrived In 1788.
