Environment
Tony Abbott criticised for “unsettled” Australia remark
*Pic: Retweeted by Tony Windsor, former independent MP, this map shows the boundaries of Aboriginal nations. Hardly ‘unsettled’ Australia
Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott has been criticised for saying that Australia was “unsettled” before the British arrived.
He said on Thursday night that Australia owes its existence to the British, as it was previously “unsettled or scarcely settled”.
He was answering a question on foreign investment at a Melbourne conference.
An indigenous leader said the comments were offensive and his chief indigenous adviser called them “silly”.
Mr Abbott was talking about the importance of foreign investment to Australia when he said: “I guess our country owes its existence to a form of foreign investment by the British government in the then unsettled, or scarcely settled, Great South Land.”
Mr Warren Mundine, chairman of the prime minister’s indigenous advisory council, said it was “a silly thing to say.”
He told the Sydney Morning Herald: “I just thought it was a bizarre comment.”
Aboriginal opposition senator Nova Peris told local media that Mr Abbott’s comments were “highly offensive, dismissive of indigenous peoples and simply incorrect”.
She said British settlement was not foreign investment, but “occupation”.