Howard government cabinet minister David Kemp has argued that the aspirations of British colonists, including the first Governor of the colony, Captain Arthur Phillip, that Indigenous Australians be treated equally “were misplaced and soon betrayed” by colonial governments.

Just three months before the 250-year anniversary of Captain James Cook’s voyage up the Australian east coast – an event that led to the establishment in 1788 of a British penal colony and changed the lives of Indigenous Australians forever – Dr Kemp's argument suggests a conservative shift in assessing the legacy of colonialism.