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Is that Broome Falah? How does your theory work out there?

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Can you explain how massacaring aborigines helped the aborigines and drove the white people off? It hardly sounds like a successful strategy to me on the part of the aborigines.

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Yeah, real hostile....

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Can you explain how this helped the aborigines repel them?

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Massacres of who?

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I see - climate first eh?

freediver wrote on Jun 3^rd, 2012 at 10:41am:


Freeliar, your argument is that Arnhem Land cannot support farming. You still have not provided any evidence to support such a claim despite every similar area in Australia being farmed in Australia.

Every part of mainland Australia except the harshest deserts and has been used for grazing or farming apart from the areas where Macassans traded.

Arnhem land gets plenty of rain and is rather green. So why could





freediver wrote on Jun 3^rd, 2012 at 10:41am:



I can't believe how dumb you are Freediver. Can't you see that the existance of cattle station across northern Australia - which have existed for over a century - demonstrates that this land is profitable?

If you can put lots of cattle on barren land, then you can surely put lots more cattle on the green fertile area of Arnhem Land. How can your feeble mind not grasp this.

Cattle stations make profits in deserts, yet you think that they cannot make profits in a green area that receives lots of rain. How is that logical? Do you realise how retarded you are?




freediver wrote on Jun 3^rd, 2012 at 10:41am:


I can't believe that you are so retarded that you cannot even grasp the fact that population density has nothing to do with it.

The population density in Arnhem Land is similar to that of much of Australia's agricultural land.

Furthermore, population density does not determine the viability of farmland.

In less densely populated areas, farms just get bigger. Big farms can still be profitable. Can you understand this simple fact?



freediver wrote on Jun 3^rd, 2012 at 10:41am:


It was part of the guerilla war strategy to spear as many cattle of the invaders as possible in Arnhem Land. But I don't see how that is relevant to the discussion.


freediver wrote on Jun 3^rd, 2012 at 10:41am:


If cattle stations can exist on more barren lands than Arnhem Land then surely cattle can survive in Arnhem Land. Do your tiny brain not comprehend simple logic?



freediver wrote on Jun 3^rd, 2012 at 10:41am:


Why is that Freeliar? Because cattle are the only type of agriculture understood to work in these areas by Europeans. Cattle are reared all over Australia, but in semi-arid areas only cattle station are profitable. If cattle stations can make profits in semi-arid areas surely they could be profitable in green Arnhem Land, can not your tiny brain process this?



freediver wrote on Jun 3^rd, 2012 at 10:41am:


Freeliar Arnhem Land is larger than Tasmania, it is almost half the size of Victoria. Most of Arnhem Land is fairly flat.

Europeans have cleared most of the forests in Victoria to make way for farms. Same could have been done in Arnhem Land. However, Arnhem Land is not as densely forested as southeast Australia, cearing land is not as much of an issue. The pastoralists who attempted to graze cattle in Arnhem Land did not clear the land before putting cattle on it.



freediver wrote on Jun 3^rd, 2012 at 10:41am:


Freeliar, I have been to cattle farms in Indonesia. If they can farm cattle there, then cattle can be farmed in Arnhem Land which receives less rain. I have seen plenty of cattle station in Far North Queensland which has a similar climate to Arnhem Land.



freediver wrote on Jun 3^rd, 2012 at 10:41am:


No, dumbass, that was minimum, based on a very large farm in a similar climate. Sadly it seems that your feeble mind cannot even grasp the meaning of "at least".



freediver wrote on Jun 3^rd, 2012 at 10:41am:


So are the semi-arid regions of Australia but you still find Europeans farming there.

Freeliar have you even been to the NT? I have seen plenty of farms up there.

Cattle stations, mango farms, cucumber farms, fruit farms, berry farms, grain farms, nut farms, vineyards, citrus farms. It all there Freediver.

http://www.anra.gov.au/topics/agriculture/statistics/nt/index.html

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No it isn't. It is more subtle than that.

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You yourself posted a map showing large areas immediately adjacent to Darwin that are not farmed. Of course you left out the bit of the index that indicated this. Was that a conscious choice?

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Not true. There are plenty of other areas. Like areas around Darwin, they are clearly unsuitable for farming.

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Like I said, european farming methods are not ideal for tropical coastlines.

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Some of it is marginally profitable - hence the extremely low population density. Some, like a lot of areas near Darwin which are similar to the yolngu areas, are still not profitable even with modern technology and a gradual shift towards adopting tropical farming methods.

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It is simply not true Falah. The areas in question are unsuiitable for grazing. The drier land to the south is actually more sutiable, and even there it is only marginally suitable - hence the 5000km2 farms. Your own evidence supports my argument on this.

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Falah, green on an areal map does not mean good grazing country. Yours is an incredibly naive approach to assessing farmability. There are all sorts of problems up north, which is why the drier areas were converted to grazing more unifromly, whereas large areas just near Darwin are not farmed at all.

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But it does Falah. Repeating yourself won't change the facts. Farm profitability per unit area and population density are very closely linked. It is the closest predictor of population density you will find. How you managed to write a thesis on it without finding this out is beyond me.

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It is similar to much of the marginal land. How many 5000km2 farms do you think there are around the south east coast? How far do you think you have to go from Melbourne to get one that big? Your own example of Mildura disproves your argument - a single inland country town, credited by you to citrus, with a population of one third of the NT's population outside of Darwin, including non-europeans.

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Duh. It is the other way round. Surely you considered this in your thesis. Farmability determines population density. I challenge you to find any other factor that comes even close to farmability as a predictor of population density.

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Sure. It is the interpretation of the fact that you get backwards. Farms don't get bigger in response to low population density. They have to start out bigger merely to survive, and the lack of people in the area (again due to lack of farmability) makes this possible.

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It is the farms as an economic unit that need to survive. The drier lands further south are better for cattle farming and your own evidence shows this.

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No Falah. It is one of the lowest value uses of land - often bordered by 'minimal use' land - like thos areas around Darwin. It is what people do with land that they can't put to more valuable uses like cropping, unless it is too dry.

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Because victoria is far more similar to the land the immigrants farmed in the old country.

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A 'minimum' of twenty family farms in an area the size of Tasmania? Are you sure you are not overstating the huge potential of this area?

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Because it is unsuitable for farming. Just like the Yolngu areas, and areas just outside of Darwin.

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Which one? Why did they leave out the index when the regions are present in the area they showed?

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Where is it from? It is based on reported swamps, in which case the data may merely reflect awareness. It is hardly a complete survey of swampland.

Converstations with you just seem to go around in circles Freeliar. So I will just makes some statements based on fact.

*Freeliar does not seem to have visited Arnhem Land

*Freeliar has expressed no expertise in determining the farmability of land.

*In the 19th century, many people that visited Arnhem Land believed it would be suitable for farming.

*Arnhem Land is mostly flat forested area which receives high levels of rain.

*Cattle stations have been established in much drier areas to the immediate south of Arnhem Land.

*Many cattle stations have been established in tropical areas which receive similar amounts of rain to Arnhem Land

*There are successful cattle farms in other places which are more tropical like Indonesia.

*Many attempts were made to settle in Arnhem Land.

*Many attempts were made to graze cattle in Arnhem Land, and establish other businesses.

* All attempts to settle the Arnhem Land failed, at least in part, due to the hostility of the Indigenous people. This is demonstrated in the newspapers, journals, and official corresponddence of Europeans as well as anecdotal evidence from Indigenous tribes.

*As a last resort, Europeans settled for Darwin, which is surrounded by swampland.

*Macassans did not establish a strong presence in the Darwin area probably due to the difficult swampy and inaccessible coastal areas.

* Most of Anrhem Land is not swampy - unlike the area around Darwin.

*Despite all historical reports indicating that Arnhem was considered suitable for farming, Freeliar says it is not.

*Freeliar likes to make statements which are not supported by evidence.

*Freeliar is a liar as demonstrated in dozens of posts on Ozpolitics.

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Falah has repeatedly demonstated complete lack of comprehension of the concept of farmability, how it relates to European immigrants and European farming methods, and how it relates to population density.

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Many people who actually attempted it believed it was not suitable. The CSIRO has done a lot of good work on this. Instead of actually using the information available, Falah dug up a letter from the 1800s from a man who decided it was suitable for farming (based on no experience in tropical agriculture), and relied on this letter and the colour of the land on google earth. He effectively equated the potential for european farming methods of tropical mangrove swamps and prime agricultural land in the south east of the country.

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Falah also appears to think that rainfall the the primary indicator of suitability for grazing, despite the clear patterns of a preference for grazing the middle band the NT, and the obvious problems experienced by european graziers in the wet tropics.

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Some of Falah's own evidence, based on the experience of farmers, shows that the primary reason was climate.

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That is because I rely on actual evidence and experience, which is plentiful, not predictions made by uninformed europeans before the farming was actually attempted. It does not take a genius to figure this out, just an honest assessment of the evidence that is available.

Whoo-hoo - Bun Fight at the OP Corral!

Sorry, guys - but you kinda lost me on the inclusion of the Broken Hill Massacre - and on exactly how this Macassan influence - with all respect - 'stopped genocide'.

Seems a very long bow to draw there - stretching all the way to Alpha Centauri, and you haven't even established that 'genocide' was in fact a reality - and not just a random series of events.

One could just as safely say that the influence of mixing with the French prevented the total genocide of the Irish by Cromwell and Co....it's simply drawing a conclusion without any solid base there.

Sorry, old mate - but I have lost faith in academics - and I can see why.

Now go ahead and offer this to the State Government of New South Wales.  Perhaps we could get some Macassan influence to help with the rise in Aboriginal incarceration of 56% since the 'Apology'.

_{“I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy."  ― John Adams}


ADDS:-  My prime clash of academia was in Peace Studies, where my response to the simple question "Do we live in a violent society?" was that indeed we did - and that the violence of our society started at the top and permeated its way down through each layer of society below - and then back up again in a never-ending cycle.

The prof would not accept that government had any hand in violence - since 'government should hold a monopoly on violence' (sic) and thus it was not 'violent'.

Lo and behold - four years later - while I am studying Terrorism etc - Lesson 1(a) is that THE most common and most casualty-causing Terrorism comes from government itself when allowed far too loose a rein.

Now - how are we to reconcile these two opposing 'academic' views?

Me?  I do it by being here - and elsewhere - and putting my views honestly in an open forum.

Bite me!

_{“There are two types of education... One should teach us how to make a living, And the other how to live.”
― John Adams}

P.S.  I am a great fan of John Adams - 2nd US President, and played by Sir Anthony Hopkins in the film Amistad.

freediver wrote on Jun 4^th, 2012 at 6:45pm:


Only after facing Aborigines who defended their land

freediver wrote on Jun 4^th, 2012 at 6:45pm:


Really. So you can gives us links to studies showing that Arnhem Land is not suitable for cattle grazing then?

freediver wrote on Jun 4^th, 2012 at 6:45pm:


That agriculture has been deemed to be suitable in the area is sustained by the repeated attempts by British and Australian governments to settle the area despite fierce resistance from local Aborigines.

British explorers like Philip Parker King wrote about  Arnhem Land in the following manner:

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At Port Essington, King wrote:

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Matthew Flinders wrote of Melville Bay area in East Arnhem Land:

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Based on such recommendations, settlements were attempted to be established at Fort Dundas, Fort Wellington, Port Essington, and Escape Cliffs.

Convicts grew vegetables at Fort Wellington on Raffles Bay, but this settlement had to be abandoned due to hostile natives.


Each settlement was abandoned after facing hostility from the natives.


There were the many attempts made by private entrepreneurs and investment companies to use the area for farming.

The fact that farming has been able to carried out in the less suitable area of Darwin as well as the NT/WA border and Northern Queensland demonstrates that farming in tropical areas by Europeans.





freediver wrote on Jun 4^th, 2012 at 6:45pm:


Freeliar, the Dutch settled in Jakarta for more than 300 years. The climate in Indonesia is more tropical than Arnhem Land. Europeans can survive in the tropics as evidenced by the settlement in places like Darwin, Cairns and Cooktown.



freediver wrote on Jun 4^th, 2012 at 6:45pm:


of which you provide none.