Dodson's national conversation kickstarted by his opponents :-)

It's amusing to find that while vociferously rejecting Patrick Dodson's call for a national conversation on Australia Day, all the usual rightwing rabble rousers, Albrechtson, Akerman, and Henderson were off like hares this morning, first off the mark to kickstart the conversation they don't think we should have :-)

Much as DH admires Rudd, she thinks his "no" was premature, priggish and excessively fearful of backlash, though an understandable attempt to hose down a public overwhelmed by change. Unfortunately there's no supressing an idea whose time has come once it's "out there".

Debates about whether or not the Aborigines had a utopia before 1788 are irrelevant. The 26th of January simply opened up a new nightmare for the indigenous inhabitants of this country. Even from a no-armband, utterly blamefree point of view, smallpox alone brought suffering to the land.

Unfortunately when we face a crisis, like 9/11, or the current financial meltdown, we return to more caveman-like impulses, and the finer impulses to social progress are stalled. But eventually the day will shift as it must.