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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 July 2015
I feel rather diffident in opening this topic as there are some of you who are far more experienced in this field than I am.
I think that, in talking about the Aboriginal people, some basic premises should be stated first. The Aboriginal people had a highly developed tribal system and a much higher ethical structure than the white man has. By contrast, an excellent study of Australian values is contained in a book by Ronald Conway, a Melbourne Psychologist, called The Great Australian Stupor. His equation of the Australian value system is as follows:
Material Wealth = Pleasure = Happiness= Reason for Living.
He writes –
Whereas the Aboriginal trod his enchanted earth for centuries on tip-toe, leaving the delicate balance of nature of a tired continent intact, the white settler preferred to greet the touchiness of Australian climate and soil with a murderous impatience.
When the white man came to this continent he took the best land for agricultural purposes. He broke up the tribal system so that the Aboriginal people were left leaderless and landless. Now we expect, in our schools and other aspects of our society, that the Aboriginal people will bridge the gap to a super-industrial civilization (with its questionable value system) in two or three generations.