BY CHARLIE BROWNSNAKE IN CANBERRA

A BLUE IS DEVELOPING over who exactly were Australia’s First Peoples.

The Federal Government’s Voice to Parliament campaign has been run on the basis that anyone in Australia prior to January 26 1788, were, ipso facto, first peoples.

“That lumps together literally hundreds of tribes and language groups, and peoples who came to Australia at different times from as far back as 80,000 years ago,” says Professor James Stroller of the University of Walkabout Australia.

“So by Albo’s logic all us black fellas are the same – because – well – we’re black. Good start to the diversity argument. Why bother teasing out the different cultures, let’s just throw them all into the same pot because they all look the same to suburban whites. Bloody oath, if Pauline Hanson said something like that, she’d be arrested.

“Well, the problem with the “all blacks seem the same” argument is that they are not. And those people who came to this continent between 80,000 and say 50,000 years ago have a longer gap between them than do those who turned up around the last ice age and the white fellas.

“And the first first Australians want to be recognized as that. First. What Albo’s doing is the worst kind of lazy, ignorant, patronizing racism, just lumping people together because of their skin tone, just to make yourself feel better. And then there’s the languages. What language will this voice be in? What dialect? Go back to the drawing board, Albo.”