Scott Morrison's Captain Cook would be barely recognisable to an historian

This was the Australian Prime Minister and Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison in The Australian on 24 September 2018:

“I believe Cook should be revered as one of the most significant figures in our national history,” the Prime Minister said. “He engaged with cultures different from his own but was always prepared to listen and engage. That’s why I believe, for Australians, Cook can be a figure of reconciliation.”

Morrison is still pushing this point in 2019, calling Cook "enlightened".

So let us look at James Cook's instructions from the British Admiralty concerning possible contact with tradtional owners.

You are likewise to observe the Genius, Temper, Disposition and Number of the Natives, if there be any and endeavour by all proper means to cultivate a Friendship and Alliance with them, making them presents of such Trifles as they may Value inviting them to Traffick, and Shewing them every kind of Civility and Regard; taking Care however not to suffer yourself to be surprized by them, but to be always upon your guard against any Accidents. 

You are also with the Consent of the Natives to take Possession of Convenient Situations in the Country in the Name of the King of Great Britain: Or: if you find the Country uninhabited take Possession for his Majesty by setting up Proper Marks and Inscriptions, as first discoverers and possessors.  [my yellow highlighting]

Then examine his interaction with traditional owners, first at Ka-may (Botany Bay) in New South Wales and later at Waalumbaal Birri (Endeavour River) in Queensland.

Cook's Journal: Daily Entries

29 April 1770
Sunday 29th In the PM winds southerly and clear weather with which we stood into the bay and Anchor'd under the South shore about 2 Mile within the entrence in 6 fathoms water, the south point bearing SE     and the north point ^East, Saw as we came in on both points of the bay Several of the natives and afew hutts, Men women and children on the south shore abreast of the Ship to which place I went in the boats in hopes of speaking with them accompaned by Mr Banks Dr Solander and Tupia- as we approached the shore they all made off except two Men who seem'd resolved to oppose our landing - as soon as I saw this I orderd the boats to lay upon their oars in order to speake to them but this was to little purpose for neither us nor Tupia could understand one word they said.   we then threw them some nails beeds &Ca a shore which they took up and seem'd not ill pleased with in so much that I thout that they beckon'd to us to come a shore but in this we were mistaken for as soon as we put the boat in they again came to oppose us    upon which I fired a musket between the two which had no other effect than to make them retire back where bundles of thier darts lay and one of them took up a stone and threw at us which caused my fireing a second Musquet load with small shott and altho' some of the shott struck the man yet it had no other effect than to make him lay hold of a ^Shield or target ^to defend himself    emmediatly after this we landed which we had no sooner done than they throw'd two darts at us  this obliged me to fire a third shott soon after which they both made off, but not in such haste but what we might have taken one, but Mr Banks being of opinion that the darts were poisoned made me cautious how I advanced into the woods - We found here a few Small hutts made of the bark of trees in one of which were four or five small children with whome we left some strings of beeds &Ca    a quantity of darts lay about the hutts these we took away with us - three Canoes lay upon the bea[c]h the worst I think I ever saw   they were about 10 12 or 14 feet long made of one peice of the bark of a tree drawn or tied up at each end and the middle kept open by means of peices of sticks by way of Thwarts —

19 July 1770
Thursday 19th Gentle breezes at SE and fair weather. Employ'd geting every thing in readiness for sea —

In the AM we were viseted by 10 or 11 of the natives   the most of them came from the other side of the harbour River where we saw six or seven more the most of them women and like the men quite naked; those that came on board were very desirous of having some of our turtle and took the liberty to haul two to the gang way to put over the side but being disapointed in it ^this they grew a little troublesome, and was were for throwing every thing overboard they ^could lay their hands upon; as we had no victuals dress'd at this time I offer'd them some bread to eat, which they rejected with scorn as I believe they would have done any thing else excepting turtle - soon after this they all went a shore   Mr Banks my self and five or six more of our people being a shore at the same time, emmediatly upon their landing one of them took a handfull of dry grass and lighted it at a fire we had a shore and before we well know'd what he was going about he made a large circuit round about us and set fire to the grass on the ground in his way which ^and in an Instant burst like wild fire the whole place was in flames, luckily at this time we had hardly any thing ashore besides the forge and a sow with a Litter of young pigs one of which was scorched to death in the fire —

as soon as they had done this they all went to a place where some of our people were washing and where all our nets and a good deal of linnen were laid out to dry, here with the greatest obstinacy they again set fire to the grass which I and some others who were present could not prevent untill I was obliged to fire a musquet load with small shott at one of the rig leaders which sent them off. as we were apprised of this last attempt of theirs we got the fire out before it got head, but the first spread like wild fire ^in the woods and grass.nNotwithstanding my fireing in which one must have been a little hurt because we saw some ^a few drops of blood on some of the linnen he had cross'd gone over, they did not go far from us for we soon after heard their voices in the woods upon which Mr Banks and I and 3 or 4 More went to look for them and very soon met them comeing toward us as they had each 4 or 5 darts a piece and not knowing their intention we seized upon six or seven of the first darts we met with, this alarmed them so much that they all made off and we followd them for near half a Mile and than set down and call'd to them and they stop'd also; after some little unintelligible conversation had pass'd between us they lay down their darts and came to us in a very friendly manner   we now return'd them the darts we had taken from them which reconciled every thing. We now found  there were 4 strangers among them that we had not seen before and these were interduce'd to us by name by the others: the man which we suppos'd to have been wounded struck with small shott was gone off, but he could not be much hurt as he was at a great distance when I fired. They all came along with us abreast of the ship where they stay'd a short time and then went away and soon after set the woods on fire about a Mile and a half and two miles from us —

20 July 1770
Friday 20th Fresh breezes at SE and fair weather. In the PM got every thing on board the Ship, new berth'd her and let her swing with the tide. In the night the Master return'd with the Pinnace and reported that there was no safe passage for the Ship to the northward - At low water in the AM I went and sounded and buoy'd the bar, being now ready to put to sea the first oppertunity — [my yellow highlighting]

Morrison also coveniently forgets that Cook died while attempting to kidnap the 'King of Hawaii'.¹

www.captcook-ne.co.uk, Timeline:

When Cook left Hawaii his ships ran into gales which broke a mast, forcing him to return to Kealakekua Bay for repairs on 11th February. This time the native people were less friendly and stole the cutter of the Discovery. The next day, the 14th February 1779, Cook went ashore to take the Hawaiian king into custody pending the return of the cutter but a fight developed and Cook, four of his marines and a number of natives were killed. Cook’s remains were buried at sea in Kealakekua Bay.

The Guardian, 13 July 2004:

The unexpurgated version of the death of Captain Cook, presenting a more realistic version than the familiar heroic scene, has been rediscovered more than 220 years after the deaths of both the explorer and the artist……

A painting of the scene by John Webber, the official voyage artist, and innumerable engravings of it fixed it in legend: it shows Cook with his back to the mob, nobly signalling to his ships to cease firing on men armed only with spears and a few clubs.

However John Clevely's version, based on first-hand accounts and sketches by his brother, a ship's carpenter with the voyage, shows Cook fighting desperately for his life, in the last minute of his life, his shot gone, about to club an islander with the butt of his rifle. Most of the islanders have heavy clubs, and others have picked up rocks. One is about to smash the skull of a fallen sailor and the bodies of several islanders are heaped at the water's edge.

The painting, and three other watercolours also on display, was made in about 1784, but by the time it was engraved and published, only a few years later, the artist was dead and the engraving was altered to match the official version of the story.

"The image of Cook signalling his ships to hold their fire made him a classic humane and heroic figure of the age of enlightenment," said Nicholas Lambourn, an art historian, at Christie's yesterday, where the painting went on public display for the first time.

"Clevely's is less heroic but certainly more accurate."….

Notes on the back of Clevely's watercolours say they are based on his brother's sketches and descriptions of the scene. ….

Footnote

1. See:

https://www.captaincooksociety.com/home/detail/225-years-ago-january-march-1779 & 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_of_Kalanu ʻōpuʻu_by_Captain_James_Cook

Scott Morrison just can't get his political spin to stick up here on the NSW Northern Rivers

Interim Australian Prime Minister and Liberal Member for Cook Scott Morrison just doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut.

He tweeted what looked like one of his own staff's media releases which had been taken up by the Murdoch media, only to have Byron Shire Council issue a denial of his claim that it had backed down. 

SBS News, 29 October 2018:

Byron Shire mayor Simon Richardson has dismissed the Morrison government’s claim the council has backed down from plans to change the date of its Australia Day festivities.

Immigration minister David Coleman stripped the council of its right to hold citizenship ceremonies in late September as a punishment for “politicising” the day, only to reinstate the right on Monday.

The government claimed Mr Richardson’s council had “reversed” its plan to change Australia Day ceremonies.

But the mayor said the bitter argument with the government was triggered by a “misunderstanding”. Byron Shire will proceed with its plans to move Australia Day speeches and awards to January 25, he said.

“Nothing has changed, from our perspective,” Mr Richardson told SBS News on Monday…..

The council plans to hold a citizenship ceremony in the coming weeks. The events are held semi-regularly throughout the year.

BACKGROUND

North Coast Voices, 26 September 2018:

An est. 5 per cent of the total population of the Northern Rivers are Aboriginal people principally from the Bundjalung, Yaegl, Gumbaynggirr and Githabul Nations.

They are an integral part of townships and villages spread across seven local government areas and, able to clearly demonstrate cultural connection to country, hold Native Title over land and water in parts of this region.

These families and tribal groupings contribute to the richness of community life in the Northern Rivers.

So Byron Shire Council's media release of 20 September 2018 comes as no surprise.

However, Prime Minister & Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison's reaction and the manner in which it was delivered did surprise me. 

SBS News, 24 September 2018:

A NSW mayor says his council's decision to change the date of an Australia Day ceremony is to reflect history after Prime Minister Scott Morrison weighed in.

A NSW mayor whose council won't hold its Australia Day ceremony on January 26 has hit back at Scott Morrison after the prime minister tweeted about the issue.

Byron Shire Council will hold some council events on the national holiday but has announced its official ceremony will move to January 25.....

Yet another Morrison Australia Day argument shot down

This is part of Prime Minister Scott Morrison's weak argument for not changing the
 current date of the national holiday known as Australia Day, which has been something of a movable feast since inception.

Newcastle Herald, 4 October 2018:

"You don't pretend your birthday was on a different day," Prime Minister Scott Morrison passionately reasoned with Sam Armytage on Sunrise last week.

9News, 25 September 2018:

"You can't pretend your birthday isn't your birthday," he said.

"We have a lot more to be proud about than not being proud about. It's a great day to celebrate Australia.

"Australia Day is Australia Day."

It was inevitable that he would be called out on this assertion.

In Qld, Queens Birthday is now in October, used to be in June, but it's actually in April.     Alex McDonnel‏ Oct 3

And what does he think those born on 29th Feb do each year? 

Jacqueline Kane‏  Oct 3

We pretend Jesus was born on 25 December. Hands Off Aunty‏  Oct 3

Morrison is a bit like me. My mouth works before my brain. But then I am not pretending to be prime minister like he is. Dude69‏  Oct 2

BACKGROUND

The Northern Star, 4 October 2018:

BYRON Shire Council's decision to change the date of their Australia Day event from January 26 to the evening before in 2019 has been praised by the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples (Congress).

The decision led to considerable criticism by some, and the Prime Minister Scott Morrison stripped council of its right to hold citizenship ceremonies altogether.

But the congress thanked Byron Shire Council "for its sensitivity toward the feelings by many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander citizens who are uncomfortable about the celebration of Australia Day on 26 January each year”.

The congress is the peak representative body for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and members include almost 9000 individuals and 180 organisations from around the country.

In a letter to council dated September 25 CEO Gary Oliver said the move was "an important milestone”.

"It is the local government level that is showing the most leadership on this issue and we urge you to hold firm despite the considerable criticism of your decision on this matter.

"For many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, Australia Day represents oppression and dispossession.....

Quotes of the Week

“There are some people who seem to find it a very funny circumstance that last week, in full daylight, and in a main street of Cooktown, two black troopers, with their clothes in the same condition as those of a clumsy butcher’s apprentice, fresh from the shambles, exhibited a naked black girl, not twelve years old, as their newly caught prize. This young slave, taken by force . . . has since been transferred, either for payment or as a gift, to a citizen in this town, whose property she has now become. What were the circumstances that attended, or immediately followed, her capture we do not know, nor do we very much care to inquire ...”  [ Journalist & author Carl Feilberg writing in the Cooktown Courier in January 1877 ]


“Adding a new level of fear and uncertainty onto that with the findings coming out of a royal commission is going to harm the community as well as the industry,”  [CEO Clarence Village Ltd Duncan McKimm acting as an apologist for the aged care industry in The Daily Examiner ahead of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety]

Prime Minister Scott Morrison favours a romanticised, sanitised version of Australian history

Thus far around 250 sites of massacres which occurred between 1788 and 1930 have been mapped by Newcastle University. This is an ongoing project.

Each dot on the map represents the murder of 6 or more people and one dot in the Northern Rivers region (north-east NSW) represents 100 Aboriginal men, women and children slaughtered in 1843 by 11 mounted stockmen using firearms and swords, supported by sailors on nearby ships. Only two children from the Aboriginal camp were said to have survived.

In another instance in the Northern Rivers one arrogant 'settler' committed wilful murder by giving poisoned flour to unsuspecting local Aboriginals in 1848 resulting in 23 deaths.

This is what the New South Wales section of the massacre map looks like.

Interactive Colonial Fronteirs map of Australia at https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/map.php

An est. 5 per cent of the total population of the Northern Rivers are Aboriginal people principally from the Bundjalung, Yaegl, Gumbaynggirr and Githabul Nations.

They are an integral part of townships and villages spread across seven local government areas and, able to clearly demonstrate cultural connection to country, hold Native Title over land and water in parts of this region.

These families and tribal groupings contribute to the richness of community life in the Northern Rivers.

So Byron Shire Council's media release of 20 September 2018 comes as no surprise.

However, Prime Minister & Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison's reaction and the manner in which it was delivered did surprise me. 

SBS News, 24 September 2018:

A NSW mayor says his council's decision to change the date of an Australia Day ceremony is to reflect history after Prime Minister Scott Morrison weighed in.

A NSW mayor whose council won't hold its Australia Day ceremony on January 26 has hit back at Scott Morrison after the prime minister tweeted about the issue.

Byron Shire Council will hold some council events on the national holiday but has announced its official ceremony will move to January 25.

Mr Morrison on Monday said the "modern Aus nation" began on January 26, 1788 and that was the day to reflect on what the nation had accomplished, become, and still had to achieve.

"Indulgent self-loathing doesn't make Australia stronger," Mr Morrison tweeted on Monday.

"Being honest about the past does."

Byron Mayor Simon Richardson said the celebrations on January 26 caused pain in a section of the community and questioned whether the values of a fair go and mateship were being reflected.

"Is it true mateship to willingly, willfully and continually to celebrate what rightfully is great to be an Australian on a day that some Australians are pained by?" the Greens representative told 3AW on Monday.

He said the prime minister's response was understandable but he found the remark about "modern Australia" interesting.

Indulgent self-loathing doesn’t make Australia stronger. Being honest about the past does. Our modern Aus nation began on January 26, 1788. That’s the day to reflect on what we’ve accomplished, become, still to achieve. We can do this sensitively, respectfully, proudly, together. https://t.co/uM59Lwrr1p

— Scott Morrison (@ScottMorrisonMP) September 23, 2018

"I thought we were actually celebrating Australia Day, not 'modern' Australia Day,"

"All we're trying to do is trying to reflect history and acknowledge that Australia began, not with the second wave of settlers, but the first."

Mr Richardson's motion was passed at a council meeting last week.

The current prime minister obviously favours the same distorted version of Australian history as sacked former prime minister & Liberal MP for Warringah, Tony Abbott.

One where the heroic and benign British brought 'civilisation' to these shores.

He can't even get his historical dates right -  26 January 1788 was not "the day the ships turned up". The first of the ships turned up at Botany Bay on Friday 18 January 1788 and the fleet shifted moorings to Sydney Cove on 25 January.

Saturday 26 January 1788 was the day Arthur Phillip formally took possession of the country in the name of King George III. This was the day traditional owners became dispossessed of their lands. By 1790 the killings had begun. Over 200 years later they are still occurring.

Dismissing the history of colonial dispossession and massacre as "a few scars, a few mistakes, a few things you could have done better" is disingenuous.

A responsible adult in the prime minister's office needs to place all Morrison's digital devices under lock and key, as his wide streak of historical ignorance and intolerance is showing in his tweets and photo opportunities.

This obviously has not happened to date, because faced with an inevitable backlash (a good many Australians having a level of maturity Morrison lacks), this dismal prime minister then decided that our collective history should be split into two separate streams:

The PM is cracking down on councils that move Australia Day and wants to create a new Indigenous day.@ScottMorrisonMP: We don’t have to pull Australia Day down to recognise the achievements of Indigenous Australians.#auspol #sun7 pic.twitter.com/amhQ5H3JsH

— Sunrise (@sunriseon7) September 24, 2018

In his tweets there is no indication that he had met with Aboriginal representative organisations to ask what their wishes might be before making his rather vague announcement.

Morrison has stated an intention to strip Byron Shire Council of its right to hold citizenship ceremonies after the local government moved its Australia Day ceremony forward by a day commencing January 2019.

BACKGROUND

January 2018 - It's Australia Day and......

January 2017 - Australia Day: what's in a date?

A reminder that the world has known about the negative effects on the atmosphere of burning coal for over 100 years

Live Science, 14 August 2018:

A newspaper clip published Aug. 14, 1912, predicts that coal consumption would produce enough carbon dioxide to warm the climate.

Credit: Fairfax Media/CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 NZ

A note published in a New Zealand paper 106 years ago today (Aug. 14) predicted the Earth's temperature would rise because of 7 billion tons of carbon dioxide produced by coal consumption.

"The effect may be considerable in a few centuries," the article stated.

The clip was one of several one-paragraph stories in the "Science Notes and News" section of The Rodney and Otamatea Times, published Wednesday, Aug. 14, 1912.

The paragraph seems to have been originally printed in the March 1912 issue of Popular Mechanics as the caption for an image of a large coal factory. The image goes with a story titled "Remarkable Weather of 1911: The Effect of the Combustion of Coal on the Climate — What Scientists Predict for the Future," by Francis Molena. [Photographic Proof of Climate Change: Time-Lapse Images of Retreating Glaciers]

One for the history buffs out there

Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), The NSW Aborigines Protection/Welfare Board 1883-1969 Map

So that champion of silvertails Malcolm Bligh Turnbull thinks mentioning his wealth in public is a form of class warfare?

“They want to attack me having a quid…They want to attack me and Lucy for working hard, investing, having a go, making money, paying plenty of tax, giving back to the community." [Malcolm Bligh Turnbull, The Guardian, 25 June 2018]

“The honourable member has asked about my investments, which are set out in the members' interests disclosure….. If honourable members opposite want to start a politics-of-envy campaign about it, I don't think they'll be telling people anything they don't know.”  
[Malcolm Bligh Turnbull, Hansard, 25 June 2018]

“It has embraced the politics of envy and class war”;
[Malcolm Bligh Turnbull speaking about the parliamentary Labor Party, Hansard, 25 June 2018]

“He says I'm a snob." [Malcolm Bligh Turnbull speaking about Labor leader Bill Shorten, Hansard, 19 June 2018]

I can’t speak for anybody else. However I would gladly “attack” the vainglorious Malcolm Bligh Turnbull - not for being wealthy but on the basis that:

(i) during his time practising law he was allegedly not above abusing the legal process, a judge stating in 1984 that he “managed effectively to poison the fountain of justice”;

(ii) he reportedly made millions from the logging industry in the Solomon Islands in the early 1990s – when Hong Kong-listed Axiom Forest Resources of which he was chair virtually clear-felled its holdings and, whose logging practises were considered "amongst the worst in the world";

(iii) he was at the centre of Australia’s biggest corporate failure to date in 2001, as chairman of investment bank Goldman Sachs Australia, and many ordinary working class people lost everything while he walked away virtually unscathed;

(iv) as Water Minister in the Howard Government in 2007 he wanted to wreck water sustainability in the Clarence River catchment area on the NSW Far North Coast in order to satisfy Liberal-Nationals supporters in the Murray-Darling Basin;

(v) as an independently wealthy federal minister in 2007 Malcolm Turnbull was submitting claims to the Dept. of Finance for $175 accommodation costs per night while in Canberra even though he was staying at an ACT residence owned by his wife and, until he was caught out in 2014 also submitted claims of $10 per night if his wife came to stay at his ACT penthouse;

(vi) as chair and managing director of Goldman Sachs Australia and partner in New York-based Gold Sachs and Co. from 1998 to 2001, he helped lay some of the early building blocks for the Global Financial Crisis;

(vii) his political judgement was so poor that, after meeting then public servant and Liberal Party supporter Godwin Grech in private on or about 12 June 2009, he asserted to parliament on 22 June that a forged email was a true document in an effort to bring down the government of the day; 

(viii) he and his government opposed any real wage increase for workers on the minimum wage in a submission to the Fair Work Commission and went on to actively support a cut to penalty rates – safe in the knowledge that their own parliamentary salaries would increase at fairly regular intervals;

(ix) he resisted the creation of the Banking and Finance Royal Commission and set up terms of reference which sought to nobble that commission;

(x) as Communication’s Minister and then Prime Minister he deliberately wrecked Australia’s hope of having world-class Internet connections;

(xi) he continues to move forward with imposing a punitive cashless welfare payment system on the majority of welfare recipients while also continuing the reduction of funding to vital social services; and

(xii) his first response to any challenge to his world view is to sneer at both the questioner and the content of the question.

An more authentic telling of Malcolm Turnbull’s own ‘poor boy made good’ story

Malcolm Bligh Turnbull went to a public primary school at Vaucluse in Sydney’s affluent Eastern Suburbs for about three years. During this period the family income was in the vicinity of £8,700 to £9,700 a year – with his mother earning four times the average female wage as a successful screenwriter.

Then from the age of eight he went to Sydney Grammar School as a border during and after his parent’s divorce proceedings. He received a scholarship for at least part of that time.

When Malcolm was in Year 10, his father bought a luxurious three-bedroom apartment in Point Piper. The apartment had extensive water views and cost Bruce Turnbull est. $36,000. Before that both he and his father had lived in a flat belonging to his mother.

He graduated from university during the years when undergraduate and post-graduate tertiary education was free of course fees in Australia. All this is on the public record.

Malcom Turnbull purchased his first house while still a university undergraduate.

At age 23 he bought a semi-detached house in inner-Sydney Newtown for almost $50,000 and at age 25 he bought a Redfern terrace for $40,000. He bought his own first home as a married man, for an undisclosed sum in Potts Point, after returning from his stint as a Rhodes schlor at Oxford University.

Malcolm Turnbull inherited assets worth an est. $2 million from his hotel-broker father before he turned 29 years of age according to one of his biographers, Paddy Manning.

He went into  a cleaning business with former NSW premier Neville Wran. After the sale of his co-founding interest in IT company Oze Email Ltd for a reported $60 million, he also founded a merchant bank with Nicholas Whitlam, son of the former prime minister (both Packer and Larry Adler gave their financial backing for a short time). 

In 2008 BRW reportedly estimated Malcolm and Lucy's joint wealth as $133 million and, in 2010 he was included in the BRW Rich 200 list for the second year running for having a personal fortune of $186 million. He and his wife Lucy went on to greater wealth which was last jointly estimated to be in the vicinity of $200 million.

His last Statement of Registrable Interests lists a veritable slew of financial investments and an expensive property portfolio shared between he and his wife. 

Malcolm Turnbull’s annual salary as Australia Prime Minister places him in the Top 10 for world leaders and even the most conservative estimation of his total annual income places him in the top 5 per cent in this country.

In the second half of 2016 Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull made a political donation towards the Liberal Party federal election campaign of $1.75 million.

It has been reported that Malcolm Turnbull and his wife give $550,000 annually to charity via the Turnbull Foundation - their "private ancillary fund" which apparently has a family corporation/s as trustee/s and appears to act as a tax minimisation scheme as the entire $550,000 is potentially 100 per cent tax deductible.

The personal income tax ‘cuts’ recently pass by the Australian Parliament will potentially benefit the Prime Minister, as will the proposed company tax cuts as he owns or co-owns a number of active corporations.

I say potentially, because during the Panama Papers exposé it was revealed that Malcolm Turnbull is not adverse to availing himself of the advantages of international tax havens and likely already pays little tax on much of his financial interests.

The journey towards a name change for Coutts Crossing begins.....

In November 1847 Clarence Valley grazier Thomas Coutts disgruntled by what he thought was a failure of local authority to act on his complaints, angry that his cattle herd had diminished over the space of eight years allegedly due to cattle theft and irritated at the size of his wages bill - all of which he blamed on local Aboriginal family groups living on 'his' property - decided to take action.

According to media reports at the time it soon became common knowledge that Coutts "had poisoned some aborigines" and this was eventually reported to the Commissioner of Crown Lands who, after visiting the group who had been given poisoned flour, hearing their account, arrested Thomas Coutts based on an affidavit sworn by one of his servants. 

On the 17th January 1848, Thomas Coutts was committed for trial by Forster and Mylnes, local Justices of the Peace, on a charge of wilful murder, and was sent to Sydney for trial before the Supreme Court.…… On the 10 May the Attorney General decided not to proceed with the case due to lack of evidence and Coutts was discharged.

Stating; "there is not sufficient legal evidence to sustain the prosecution although I am sorry to say that the suspicion is very strong that the prisoner is not guiltless of the dreadful deed charged against him.....This is one of the many cases from which the defect of the present law, in excluding altogether the evidence of the Aboriginal natives, is apparent."

One hundred and seventy year later on13 June 2018 The Daily Examiner reported:

Coutts Crossing could have two names and a memorial to the 23 Aboriginal people murdered by the man the town is named after, following a meeting called to discuss proposals to rename the village.

Prospects for a name change for the village have gathered pace since Daily Examiner indigenous columnist Janelle Brown’s article two weeks ago detailed how colonial settler Thomas Coutts murdered 23 Aboriginal people with arsenic-laced flour he gave as payment for work on his property at Kangaroo Creek in 1848.

Yesterday, about 40 people – indigenous and European – met at the Gurehlgam Centre in Grafton to discuss the next steps in proposing a name change for the village. The meeting did not produce formal resolutions, but the debate uncovered key areas to work on.

These included a proposal to include a traditional twin name for the village and to build a memorial in the village for the victims of the atrocity.

“I didn’t know I would get the amount of kick back from the article,” said Ms Brown, who led the meeting.

“But it’s good. It’s time to have these conversations and look at things like a name change for Coutts Crossing.

“What happened at Kangaroo Creek was a horrendous thing and not good for the Clarence Valley.

“It’s not good for a town to be named after a mass murderer.”

She said research into Gumbaynggir language revealed the original name for the area had been Daam Miirlarl, which meant a special place for yams.

However, she was reluctant to push this name as an alternative until there was further discussion among indigenous people about it.

Coutts Crossing resident Cr Greg Clancy said yesterday’s meeting was an initial step to move toward a name change.

“It’s not something that is going to happen next week,” he said.

Cr Clancy also made an apology for the deputy mayor Jason Kingsley, who was also the council’s delegate to the Aboriginal Consultative Committee. He said working through the council committee could be the best way to bring the push for a name change to the council.

Cr Clancy said the work of local historian and environmentalist John Edwards left no doubt Thomas Coutts murdered the 23 Gumbaynggir people with poisoned flour.

“In his book The History of the Coutts Crossing and Nymboida Areas, the chapter on the Kangaroo Creek massacre has all the transcripts from the court case,” he said.

“Its evidence is conclusive, but the case could not go ahead because the court at the time could not hear evidence from Aboriginal witnesses.”

The current owner of the property on which the massacre occurred, John Maxwell, had nothing positive to say about the original owner.

“What he did was cynical beyond belief,” Mr Maxwell said. “To poison 6kg of flour and give it to people, knowing they would take it home and kill a huge number more of their family, is too terrible to consider.”….