It is said that the first Indigenous Australians arrived to the continent circa 60,000 BCE. By the time English explorer James Cook arrived in 1770, just under a million Aboriginal Australians were living and moving around in nomadic communities. Despite the area already being inhabited, Cook ‘claimed’ the continent and it became a colony of the United Kingdom. British settlers subsequently began arriving by boat to this untamed land and settled, driving the Indigenous communities further inland and away from reliable water sources and verdant hunting grounds. Having little exposure to other people outside of their communities, the Indigenous people were susceptible to diseases the British brought with them, and were easily seduced by the tobacco and alcohol to which they were introduced and which was used in common trading.

Since Australia’s colonisation, and in many social circles today, there is still a general hostility toward first Australians. The imperialistic practice of attempting to inculcate Ango-Australian values into Australian children, through forcibly removing Indigenous children from their families, was unforgiveable. In addition, Indigenous communities were dissuaded from continuing their traditional practices, speaking their native tongue, having contact with their families and moving about the land as they would normally have done.

Despite the long overdue apology, issued by the Australian Government in 2008 (by the then Labour Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd), the alliance between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians seems forever fragile. Currently, Aboriginal communities around the nation continue to experience high rates of suicide, incarceration, domestic violence, unemployment, and substance abuse, and are generally considered to be at the bottom of almost all social and economic indicators.