Letter to The Editor - Intermarriage of Aboriginals with persons of other ethnicity suggest that there is a gradual merging taking place

To THE AUSTRALIAN          In opposition to Fred Chaney’s claim (‘They were first, and they survived - we should listen’, 17/1) that Aboriginals should be recognised as ‘first nations within the nation’, that is no longer true in present time or acceptable to the majority of Australians who will not tolerate any proposal that might lead to dismemberment of our constitutional unity as the nation of Australia.
Also questionable is his assertion that the ‘collective identities’ of these ‘first nations’ have survived here.

     The considerable intermarriage of Aboriginals with persons of other ethnicity, as well as the dubious definitions of ‘Aboriginality’ promoted since the first Whitlam government (allowing part-Aboriginals to be viewed as Aboriginals), suggest that there is a gradual merging taking place of different ethnicities, which is good for national harmony.

     Finally, Chaney is wrong in stating that the ‘Aboriginal consultations’ that led to the Uluru Statement ‘accommodated the concerns of constitutional conservatives’. True conservatives such as Keith Windschuttle, Andrew Bolt, Gary Johns and Frank Salter support the government’s rejection of the Uluru proposals. The ‘conservatives’ said to support them appear to be radicals in conservative clothing.
  NJ, Belgrave, Vic