Was Australia ‘settled’ or ‘invaded’?

It’s not up to white people to tell Indigenous Australians how to feel about “invasion”, says Jesinta Campbell but columnist Sarrah Le Marquand argues such language is unhelpful.

Did Captain James Cook “discover” or “invade” Australia?

According to some of the nation’s top universities, it’s definitely the latter with news reports today revealing the recommended guidelines for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander terminology being taught to university students, which make it clear it is offensive to suggest Australia was “discovered” or “settled” and not “invaded.”

The issue was the centre of a debate between model and TV presenter Jesinta Campbell and RendezView editor and News Corp columnist Sarrah Le Marquand on the Nine Network’s Today show this morning, with Campbell expressing support for the university guidelines.

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“It’s disrespectful to say that Australia was ‘settled’ and I think we need to broaden our view on this by doing this in universities,” she said during show’s Mixed Grill segment. “It really gives universities students in Australia two perspectives because when you look at our Australian history, it is written from the perspective of a white man, so of course, from white people, we see that Australia was settled. But from our Indigenous people’s perspective, it probably was invaded ... well that’s how they see it.”

Jesinta Campbell with fiance Buddy Franklin. (Pic: Alex Coppel)

While Le Marquand agreed that there is merit in questioning the conventional claim that Australia was peacefully “settled”, she questioned the wisdom of the university’s guidelines.

“To say that Australia was ‘settled’ is euphemistic at best,” she said. “But should resources be allocated at universities to a so called ‘diversity tool kit’? I don’t think that’s very helpful, I think getting too bogged down in the debate is polarising to a lot of Australians and probably has a counter-effect, unfortunately, where a lot Australians will say: ‘Please don’t say that I’m an invader, that I was party to an invasion, I’m uncomfortable with that’.”

Jesinta Campbell and Sarrah Le Marquand on The Today show. (Pic: Today/Nine Network)

A better use of resources, Le Marquand went on to argue, would be for white Australians to tackle issues such as an inflated rate of imprisonment and lower life expectancy among Indigenous Australians in a practical way rather than obsessing about words used on inner-city university campuses.

“Let’s not kid ourselves that this is actually making any real impact for Indigenous Australians,” said Le Marquand. “Language is important, it’s important to be conciliatory ... (but) don’t get too bogged down in insular debates where the language can be divisive.”

But Campbell maintained focusing on language as the University of NSW guidelines call for can be helpful.

“The thing that I struggle with talking about something like this is as a white person, it’s very easy for me to sit here and say, yep, the word ‘invasion’ doesn’t bother me or it does bother me but I wasn’t the original person here on this land in Australia and it’s the same when we’re talking about racism. (Changing the terminology) is one part of the puzzle that will really help us come together as Australians and really reconcile with our Indigenous people. ”

You can watch the full discussion in the video above.

Originally published as Was Australia ‘settled’ or ‘invaded’?