To The Australian
Paul Keating is on weak ground ethically in advocating 'a formal document of reconciliation or a treaty' with Aboriginals ('Indigenous treaty more meaningful: Keating', 14/11). He brushes aside one obvious impediment - that such a treaty would be '200 years late.' He ignores simple facts: that the tribes here in the late 18th century failed to defend their land and that now the nation of Australia exists in its own right with full de iure status.
The interests of the vast majority of Australians will not be served, nor dealt with justly, by nefarious political manipulation that takes no account of the reality that most Aboriginals today carry in part other ancestry, often derived from the European incomers, and benefit from their membership in our nation and enjoyment of its provision of peace, security and a high standard of living.
NJ, Belgrave, Vic