We stopped by the Melbourne Museum yesterday. It contains some of the usual depressing story about how the white folks turned up and got rid of anyone or anything local which was inconvenient. Sometimes that was by deliberate means (primarily shooting), but introducing a few new diseases was also pretty effective. One chap (the wonderfully named Mr Batman) tried to buy the land of modern day Melbourne from the locals in return for a few household appliances - doesn't really work where the land belongs to your nation, so buying and selling is not on the agenda.
The museum also reveals a bit of insecurity vis-a-vis Sydney - various comments strewn around the place about how Melbourne was the top city in Australia... As always with these things, it was also slightly selective - very proud of being the first place in the world to introduce the secret ballot, not so much detail on the "White Australia" policy or the fact that aboriginal peoples were listed as "fauna" in the census until the late 60s.
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