The Newcomers Poem by Francis Duggan

The Aboriginal people had lived in Australia
For sixty thousand years or more
Till captain James Cook the British explorer
With his crew members landed on shore.

And that was back in the seventeen eighties
Just over two hundred years ago
And the white men have since built great cities
Though little else they have to show

For two hundred years of occupation
Some may look to the past with pride
But due to white man's self glorification
How many poor natives have died? .

To land Cook did not seek permission
He did not have a visa in hand
And nowadays one must have a visa
For to enter this Southern Land.

They send home the Asian boat people
If they don't have a visa to show
Though Cook too had no documentation
Just over two centuries ago.

The native man on Cook's arrival
Did not seem to have any say
But white man has made his own rulings
And things are much different today.

The British of course the main culprits
And they always did things their own way
For God and their Sovereign and Britain
And afterwards the hip hooray.

They brought out some British as convicts
And they brought out some Irish as slaves
And they took from the natives their children
But their actions back then caused no waves.

And they felt so proud they were British
And proud of their true Britishness
To come and to claim without asking
To conquer, divide and oppress.

The white man may have built great Cities
But to Nature he's not been a friend
He cut down all the old growth forests
And brought something great to an end.

Many creatures have gone to extinction
These creatures can never return
Like trying to re-create the paper
That you've given the flame for to burn.

The thylacine gone to extinction
The continent's largest beast of prey
And many other species of creature
Since white fellow first came to stay.

They brought out their cats and their canines
To live in the Land of the roo
They brought out their hard hoofed mammals
And they brought out their wild creatures too.

The fox and the mouse and the rabbit
The rat and the timid brown hare
These creatures not meant for Australia
Of that they did not seem aware.

They brought out their guns to go shooting
They shot and did not seem to care
That the creature they'd killed was uncommon
And happened to be very rare.

Australia may be Governed by white man
This Land of the noble gum tree
But it's culture is hardly of Europe
As it has a black history.

The white man has lived here two hundred
The black man for thousands of years
They only killed creatures they needed
And hunted for food with their spears.

And the main culprits of course the British
And their only idea of success
Was to come and to claim without asking
To conquer, divide and oppress.