Land Council Condemns Premier's Comments on Survival Day

The New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council has responded with alarm to comments reportedly made by NSW Premier Bob Carr, lauding Australia's first Governor, Arthur Phillip.

"I thought Mr Carr of all people would be more sensitive at a time such as this. While the rest of the country is celebrating Australia Day, we are reflecting on what we have lost in 214 years of non-Indigenous occupation, " NSWALC Chairman Rod Towney said.

"It has been reported that Mr Carr described this man as the 'greatest Australian'. Such a statement is an affront to this Nation's first peoples," Chairman Towney said.

"While white historical records tell us he was considered a benign and just leader for his time, his governorship heralded a horrific period for non-Indigenous Australians. Indeed, it was the beginning of the end of life as we, as a people, knew it.

"That life was one which had sustained us for tens of thousands of years.

"But just one year after Governor Phillip arrived with the First Fleet, half of the local population of the Sydney area was wiped out by disease.

"To quote the Department of Aboriginal Affairs' own website, official records show that in 1790, a campaign of terror to crush resistance was waged against Aboriginal people.

"We agree with the Premier that we must not live in the past, but as one of our great Indigenous Australians, the late Charles Perkins, used to say, the past lives in us.

"We would appreciate it if the Premier did not forget that," Chairman Towney concluded.