Every now and then you get a glimpse of how our Asian neighbours view our nation as a remnant of the colonial powers that have largely left the region.
The recent referendum on reconciliation, which proposed constitutional recognition for a First Nations advisory to the Federal Parliament, was thought to have been unsuccessful in part because questions remain as to whether a Treaty of Truth-telling is required to move forward.
It is the reconciliation of Australia's position in the Commonwealth and this legacy that remains to be addressed.
Many of our country's residents, for example, do not ponder the genocide that allowed a legal term like Terra Nullius to exist until 1992.
The treatment of Tasmanian Aborigines that saw their culture almost entirely eradicated from the island state was so shocking that it inspired HG Wells to write War of the Worlds.
This is something that's been gaining discussion, particularly in the book Question 7 by Richard Flanagan.
For those of us on mainland Australia it is worth considering the question of whether smallpox was deliberately released in the late 18th Century.
First Fleet surgeon John White brought sealed bottles containing "variolous matter" (pus and scabs from infected individuals) with him, intending to use it for future inoculations in the new colony.
There were no recorded cases of active smallpox among the colonists or convicts during the long voyage.
Then a major smallpox epidemic broke out among the Aboriginal population of Sydney in April 1789, about 15 months after the First Fleet arrived.
This killed an estimated 50% to 90% of the Indigenous population around the Sydney area and spread inland, leaving dead bodies in campsites across the landscape.
Recently I learned that some marines in the First Fleet had served in North America where British forces had previously used smallpox-laden items against Native Americans.
The use of germ warfare was known and feared enough that George Washington sent smallpox survivors into Boston to occupy it after the city was evacuated by the British in 1776, since they were immune to reinfection and wouldn’t fall prey to smallpox-tainted items left behind.
It is this question of whether Australia waged a civil war through the early centuries of the colony that remains to be answered by the nation as it moves toward becoming an integrated society, along with many other important reforms to create equity among citizens.
