Letter to The Editor - No referendum to establish any kind of separatism has any hope of succeeding

To The Australian        No treaty with descendants of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples should be signed by any government ("Treaty 'won't lead people astray'", 19/2). There is no justification for such an action and it would be against the interests and will of the great majority of the Australian people. The fact is that the tribes living on this continent in the 18th century were unable to defend their territories from the incoming settlers and lost control of them. This failure cannot be reversed two centuries later. Misleadingly calling those tribes "First Nations" does not alter reality or trump constitutional propriety. No referendum to establish any kind of separatism has any hope of succeeding. The Prime Minister will win masses of votes at the coming elections if he simply guarantees that there will be no constitutional change of any kind under a Coalition government without a fairly conducted and successful referendum having been held first. He will be defending our security and political stability.
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave, Vic