Commentary
Throughout his public life, our second longest-serving prime minister, John Howard, repeatedly cautioned against depicting Australia’s history—since 1788—as little more than a disgraceful record of imperialism, exploitation, and racism.
He wrote in his autobiography, “Lazarus Rising” that such an approach will be repudiated by the overwhelming majority of Australians who are proud of what this country has achieved although inevitably acknowledging the blemishes of its past history.
Like the history of any country, Australia has its blemishes, not limited to the treatment of Indigenous people.
As the son of migrants, I know first-hand the injustices and hardships my parents and grandparents suffered when they decided to come to a country on the other side of the world, with a completely different language and culture, to try and make a life for themselves and escape a Europe which, even though being rebuilt, still bore many scars, both psychological and economic, from the horrors of war….