History
Amnesia reigns
We do not have to look far to find endorsement for Michael Tatlow’s verbal tap dance over Victoria turning a blind eye to its founding from Tasmania. Consider this excellent appraisal by James Boyce in his contemporary work Van Diemen’s Land:
“In 1856 Tasmania was not the only newly self-governing Australian colony embarrassed by its Van Diemonian heritage. But whereas the Tasmanian establishment reinterpreted its personal and community history, the squatter and merchant elite of the booming gold-rich colony of Victoria chose a simpler path: outright denial. Even today the inconvenient truth that Victoria was first settled by ex-convicts from Van Diemen’s Land is not widely known.
“For at least its first decade of existence, the Port Phillip district was primarily an economic and social outpost of Van Diemen’s Land (even though in an administrative sense it was soon firmed by London to be part of New South Wales).”
And later his conclusion: “Such was the anti-convict sentiment that amnesia concerning the colony’s first settlers became even more pronounced and persistent in Victoria than in Tasmania. The role played by Van Diemonian convicts as the founding fathers of Victoria still remains largely hidden, and the truth that former convict shepherds and bushmen did the main work of settlement – including the violence consequent to it – is little known. Forgetting the immigrants from Van Diemen’s Land and concealing their bloody deeds have, it seems, gone hand in hand.”
For anyone with an even a half-open eye to our past, Van Diemen’s Land is essential reading. That goes for Victorians. Even Jeff Kennett would be enlightened.