War Memorial Boss Fudges Answer On Enduring Silence About Frontier Wars

Dr Brendan Nelson has provided a novel - and thoroughly unconvincing - argument against acknowleding the Frontier Wars in our official memorial.
Amy McQuire New Matilda June 9, 2015
The head of the Australian War Memorial has again claimed there was no declared war between Aboriginal tribes and settlers on the colonial frontier, and says if the institution were to acknowledge the ‘frontier wars’ it would also have to present the conflicts between Aboriginal people before invasion.
But that’s been debunked by a leading scholar on the frontier wars, who says the only time Australia declared war was during the Second World War……………
……….. Brendan Nelson…….. was recently questioned by Senator Nick Xenophon during a senate estimates hearing. Xenophon was probing the national institution’s continual refusal to represent the first wars of this country, where thousands of Aboriginal people died defending their lands against colonialists stretching over nearly 150 years.
There have been continual calls from Aboriginal groups for recognition of the nation’s first wars at the Australian War Memorial. A recent Frontier Wars march to shadow the official ANZAC Day commemorations and lay a wreath to remember the thousands of stolen Aboriginal lives, was held up this year by police, with Aboriginal attendees threatened with arrest………..
The only Aboriginal recognition comes in the form of two gargoyles of Aboriginal men, which are placed alongside gargoyles of flora and fauna overlooking the ‘Pool of Remembrance’.

………..the myth there was no declared war during the Frontier Wars was debunked by renowned historian Henry Reynolds in his recent work the Forgotten War………..
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