30th March 2008

I have pondered this entry for a while now.

Upon visits to the UK, people have asked me about the situation and history with Aboriginals in Australia and I realised that I have a total ignorance on this matter and had nothing to offer them. So I have taken it upon myself to investigate and try and gain an understand of what has occured to date. I was surprised at how little people knew until it was explained that this isn't part of the Australian education curriculum - history is taught but with little reference to the indigenous people.

So now you can see the results of my research. It has ended up as a rather large piece of work, but it seemed wrong to try and break it down to small otherwise the content would be lost. I have split the piece into sections as follows:

. Timeline: Australian history with some useful facts, figures and links thrown in

. As it was: Pre the arrival of white people

. The effect: Post the arrival of white people

. Impact: The impact of white people

. Current: How things stand

. And next: Where are we going

During the research for this blog entry, I have read quite a lot and spoken to quite a few people in aim of getting a better understanding of the position of the Indigenous population of this land of ours - it has been worth it to me and I hope that it has also provided you with some food for thought too.