Today’s so-called “welcome to country” at various ANZAC dawn services across the commonwealth exemplifies a fundamental anti-Australian sentimentality that has become pervasive in society. It is at the height of absurdity that Australian veterans should be welcomed to their own land which has been secured both by their own work and by the collective blood sacrifice of Australia’s servicemen over generations.
The ANZACs’ sacrifice in both world wars emptied out towns and districts of their youth; from which we still have not recovered – the blood spilled by our forebears forever stunted the development of our frontier towns and further bled from our race future fathers and leaders who had some of the best qualities of manhood, courage and mateship.
The laws of nature and history teach that ownership of land is not granted in perpetuity by virtue of merely walking upon it. True ownership, which would grant the right of recognition requires sweat in cultivation and development, by asserting dominion over land by investing your blood and sweat into it and furthermore, defending it against trespassers.
This is not to say that Aboriginal people have no claim to any area on the Australian continent, there are surely areas where they expressed the above qualities of ownership and they do have a legitimate claim to those lands if not interrupted, sold or conquered in just war. However, the vast majority of this continent when settled by our forebears, was essentially unoccupied, uncultivated and open for settlement. Can the Aboriginal activists recount how many of their tribesmen died in battle to defend particular patches of land from each other? Or from settlement?
Australians are a particular ethnic group, drawn from European, principally British blood, heritage and traditions, transplanted on this continent which we upon taking dominion, named, and from which we draw our name. Our forebears’ collective struggle, labour and sacrifice to explore, cultivate, settle and defend this country gives us an irrevocable claim to it; there is no legitimate cause for Aboriginal activists to assert ownership over our cultivated lands that they had left vacant – at best they may share in our ownership of it where they can show notable contribution to its development and defence.
For this reason, It is duly noted that there were not only Aboriginal people in the AIF, but also Aboriginal stockmen, trackers, labourers and other workers who, upon the settlement of this continent contributed to the development of our commonwealth; their descendants may be proud of this fact, as the great Aboriginal elder David Unaipon correctly wrote:
“The coming of the white man was in itself a blessing. We were isolated from the world’s culture. It is true that my people could not adapt themselves to civilisation, but that is because it came too suddenly for us.”
With all said and considered; Let the nation cast off this minority of extremists who hate our people and our heritage. We say Australia as a whole is rightfully ours for all time and it should not be handed away to foreigners. Lest we should forget the immense sacrifices of our forebears, the pioneer settlers and our imperial forces who by their suffering and by their blood fully satisfied the cost to rightfully assert true and perpetual ownership of each inch of this continent. The great William ‘Billy’ Hughes, ‘The Little Digger’, wrote in his Tribute to Australian Valor in 1919:
“Liberty is a thing precious beyond price. It was brought with the blood of 60,000 young Australians. It was by the sufferings, privations and the heroisms of the men who went out to fight that we gained a free, a safe, and a White Australia”
M. K. Grant
National Governor
April 25, 2025.