"We should change the date of Australia Day, as it doesn't truly celebrate all Australians"

The opposition is correct in stating that we are a culturally diverse national, however Aboriginals today still live in great poverty and struggle, and the government still isn't completely focused on helping to fund and provide these aboriginals with what they need. The arrival of the white settlement was the cause for thousands of aboriginal deaths. The lack of food but also the introduction of foreign food either starved or poisoned the aborigines. White settlement also introduced many diseases that had a dramatic and devastating effect on the Aboriginal inhabitants as they had no resistance to them and it killed majority of the population. Diseases such as the common cold, measles, influenza or other sexually transmitted diseases (sometimes by rape) killed thousand of Aboriginals. 50% of the Aboriginal population of Australia is believed to have been wiped out due to smallpox, introduced by the white settlers. (Carrodus, G., Delany, T. and Howitt, B. (2012) Oxford big ideas history 9 Australian curriculum student book + Obk/as MULTI. Australia: OUP Australia and New Zealand) The arrival of the first fleet symbolises the invasion of the White people and how they corrupted the lives of thousands of innocent Aborigines and were the cause of thousands of their deaths wiping out majority of the population. This has also affected the world today because these vast killings of the Aboriginal inhabitants during the times of white settlements is the reason why there are little remaining full-blooded/pure aborigines today. Some Aboriginals today limit themselves to opportunities and create restrictions for themselves because they live in fear of Australians and what we may do to them, but also the government still doesn"t focus on the needs and problems of Aboriginals and so their struggle and fear worsens each day. Finally, many aboriginals today identify the 26th of January not as a day to celebrate, but a day to mourn as it marks the destruction and symbolised the beginning of great loss and suffering experienced by the Aboriginal inhabitants of the land. On the 16th of January, may Aboriginals don"t celebrate the beginning of life but mourn the loss of so many lives and experience great suffering and loss. The native Aboriginal inhabitants of Australia during the settlement of the white destroyed the peace between within Australia and lead to massacres of attacks on the Aboriginals. Australia day divides us as it commemorates how unjustly and tragically treated the aboriginal inhabitants of Australia were as the white settlement caused great suffering and sorrow among their people. The arrival of the first fleet symbolised the beginning of great suffering for the aboriginals as their presence caused many violent attacks and massacres and that day marked aborigines as targets. The white settlers abused many aboriginal inhabitants, many of them were degraded and forced into labour where they were exploited and used by the white settlers for their own benefits as a labour force and the aborigines were poorly paid and abused by the Europeans. During the gold rushes, European gold miners abused the Aboriginal guides, and Aboriginal women were victims of sexual harassment (rape) in the gold areas.(Carrodus, G., Delany, T. and Howitt, B. (2012) Oxford big ideas history 9 Australian curriculum student book + Obk/as MULTI. Australia: OUP Australia and New Zealand) The aboriginal inhabitants of Australia were victimised and subjected to horrible and unfair conditions and lifestyles.