In fact, this is how even Bruce Pascoe acquired his own bit of ‘stolen’ land from the Crown. The Crown created a number of land title types, such as freehold, pastoral leases and indeed even Native Title, and then issued, and continues to issue, titles to land owners as required. Their titles were issued by the Crown, which holds sovereignty over the whole of Australia on behalf of the Commonwealth of Australia and all Australians.

In fact, many Australians have had enough of Bruce Pascoe ‘ wagging his finger in front of their faces’ accusing them of living on ‘stolen land’.Īustralians, whether they are descendants of convicts, settlers, immigrants, refugees or indeed Aboriginal people, have complete legal title to any land that they own. Well, Truth-Telling works both ways and many Australians find that when commentators such as Bruce Pascoe accuse them of owning land that was ‘stolen’ from Aboriginal people they feel, ‘that’s really hurtful’. Wathaurong Too Bloody Strong by Bruce Pascoe (Editor), 1997 by Pascoe Publishing Pty Ltd ‘Stolen children, stolen land, stolen freedom…’ Ethnic Council of Shepparton and District Inc, July 14, 2019 “Because I own land, it’s presumed that I got it easy from the government – that’s really hurtful. “Just normal funding for the underprivileged in society is what Aboriginal people get,” he said. Pascoe says that Aboriginal people get nothing more than other people on the same level of income, in terms of family and child support. from an Internal memo of 24 January 2012 of AIATSIS indicating that the Aboriginal Institute staff were harangued by Pascoe after they rejected his Dark Emu manuscript for publication (p2)

Bruce Pascoe ‘became quite critical of the assessor : “it seems to me the assessor is offended by the thesis and the patronage is deeply offensive to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who have had enough of having fingers wagged in front of their face.”

Bruce pascoe