How about traditional owners help themselves as a first step.
Stop sexual attacks on their women
Stop alcohol and drug and petrol abuse
Stop violence against members of their community in the townships and camps
Send their kids to school
Parents take responsibility for their children or stop having sex with anyone and everyone
Look after and respect housing that has been provided by governments
That is just a few.

Think you forgot the "Elders" setting standards to improve their communities, then again perhaps they are setting the (low) standards and failing to improve their communities.

And I still maintain it isn't really what's on the flag, it's how much it's out there. The Canadian flag could still have a Union Jack in the corner, and 5 ice hockey pucks on it and still be just as recognised as the Canadian flag if it was as prevalent as the maple leaf one is. People only know it as the Canadian flag if they are worldly enough to recognize and equate a maple leaf with a particular country. Look at the Union Jack, nothing about it directly tells you what country it represents, but because of its overwhelming presence, most people will know. Same as the US because it is everywhere. Japan, a red disc on a white background - what says Japan about that? Unless you already know it is Japan's flag, there's no clue. The French flag? What the hell says France about that? Maybe they should put the Eiffel tower on it instead?
And only the 3 people who live there would have any clue what they were looking at. It doesn't say Norfolk Island to anyone else.
Flags have meaning to the people who live under them. It isn't about making up for other people's ignorance. Do we have to be reduced to pictograms to pander to the lowest common denominator?

Well said, the entire post in fact. If folks were to look at the flags of the world they would identify very few, unless they take close interest in that sort of thing.

Please. You will never, ever, hear a Canadian say, "ice hockey". It's "hockey", period. :p

I flew with a Turkish guy who was another emerging expert on the troubles of indigenous Australians. It was about twenty years ago so I don’t think First Nation people’s was widely in use so forgive me if I’ve offended. This guy had read a book on Aboriginal Australians and was quite enthusiastic at telling me historical woes. He really started pi$$ing me off as much as the Chardonnay-Harbour set had back home. So I pressed him on the Ottoman’s and touché he came back with the Dardanelles campaign. So I mentioned his days flying Phantoms and him napalming his own countryman, the Armenians, and he responded by saying they were just fuc$ing gypsies. Extraordinary and no less extraordinary is the virtue signalling and symbolism of many Australians toward an incredibly complex issue. I’m not about to join the thread in debate because the same issues will be around in another twenty years. Not sure a flag will fix the many problems though I wish it would. Dismantling the success and settlement of Australia probably won’t either-though its sure to please many! Not all settlers and convicts were the homicidal killers of Aboriginal Australians. The shameful history deserves better investigation, wider knowledge and perspective. How would a nomadic, diverse and dispersed nation of tribes faired under other European or Asian colonialists? There’s plenty of evidence to map scenarios.

So fly your flag and all will be well.

I think one of the biggest issues is the seeming lack of knowledge of what happened to Indigenous Australians upon settlement. "They'd better be grateful it was the British who settled here, if it was anyone else they'd truly have been stuffed!"

Except they were stuffed. Thoroughly. A substantial proportion of the pre settlement population were killed. Mostly through introduced diseases, but violent conflict also took it's toll. Up to 65,000 Indigenous killed in conflicts in Queensland alone, more than the number of all Australians killed in WW1, the deadliest post 1901 conflict Australia has been involved in. And barely anyone knows about it, I wasn't really taught about it in school, but you bet your dollar I was given almost weekly lessons on post 1901 Australian military history.

Before getting flags, anthems, heads of state, national days sorted out maybe it should be time to acknowledge our real history. I know it can be hard, I know the vicious debate that was had about the apology to Indigenous children forcibly removed from their families, but 15 years later that culture war debate is over, and those who vehemently deny it's existence have faded into obscurity.

That kind of behaviour is not unique to First Nation's people, most of which was transferred to them by the occupiers.

We're damned if we try to help Them, and we're damned if we don't.

Remember when They were not allowed to have alcohol? Much wailing and gnashing of teeth later, They were permitted to drink. Then alcoholism went rife, families broke down, foetal alcohol syndrome raised its ugly head, and They complained that the nasty white man had forced alcohol on Them.

We then establish a dry community to reduce the violence, and smuggling grog becomes a new way to make a buck.

Social groups try to fix the family breakdowns by removing at-risk children from the drug/alcohol/violence household, and we are accused of stealing the children and causing the loss of tribal history and family values.

Billions are spent on less than a million people. Programs are set up that Non-Them are prohibited from entering, and masses of money are thrown at them. But we can't have a whites-only program, because that's discrimination.

Even football games are run for Them only. But we can't have an Us only game, that's discrimination.

To paraphrase David Strassman's Ted E. Bare, "Have you got a pair of ruby slippers? No? Well, you're f****d."

But already you’ve quoted a debatable maximum in the number of fatalities in QLD. What of European fatalities? Was it War? If the First Nation were as capable at conflict as the American Indians, settlement would have failed over much of Australia.

Forcibly removing children is horrendous. So were the circumstances of many children. Many here would have seen this in the twenty first century.

I’m happy for a factual acknowledgment of history. However, it is also seems forbidden for factual acknowledgement of what life was really like in tribal Australia right up until now. Especially for women and children. Anthropology and early missionary writings offer a snapshot. Or you can believe agenda laden white-opinion. In my belief, it was impossible not to fail. Even now, the minds and money thrown the way of major issues haven’t been particularly successful.

I’d actually love to know what Aboriginal Australians want? It would probably be surprising that many would be happy to go along with that. However having seen minor indigenous issues of late, the closing of some national parks for example, most of these issues seem polluted by white agendas and ulterior motives.

Did you know you are actually the problem?

I'm reminded of the story of someone I respect a lot, Jimmy Barnes. Reading his biography "Working Class Boy" he described an upbringing in the working class suburb of Elizabeth in South Australia. He described an almost ghetto environment of youth pregnancy, domestic violence, spousal cheating, alcohol and drug abuse, sexual assault, gang related violence and petty crime. This was all in an environment of almost exclusively English, Scottish and Irish migrants. The countries on the Australian flag.

European fatalities were a few thousand, so the death toll was about 20x in the other direction. Some pretend it never really happened, but most would call it either a straight up massacre or genocide or would call it war. If it was a war then it wouldn't it be described as the first Australians bravely defending our Australian homeland against invading foreigners despite the odds being stacked against them? Shouldn't that be something to be honoured at the AWM?

No we were talking about far greater levels of abuse than Elizabeth, SA. A national shame. Perhaps it was too confronting for our society to deal with or perhaps it didn’t suit certain agendas.

Remember being shocked as a teenager while having a casual lunch at our elderly neighbours house . He telling stories about his grandfather coming back on horse back after a successful “ drive “ I was thinking he was talking about kangaroos but I worked out he was talking about people when he was describing how they chose to jump of cliffs into the ocean rather than surrender . He did point out where the tower was on top of farm house they used to defend attacks .
Can’t recall hearing about this in school ? Think this is what scares people ? What really happened and how bad was it .

"Flags have meaning to the people who live under them. It isn't about making up for other people's ignorance. "

Fair enough, but as to other peoples ignorance, try asking aussies which is the Federation star and what is its meaning.

When you look around the "australian" cities in the temperament climate zones that are close to water with abundant of green vegetation, how many indigenous people do you see? Not that many, why do you think that is? Here's a thought, they were systematically displaced from their land. What is the governments mantra? ... we will choose who comes to australia and the circumstances under which they come. So who granted Cookie and company permission to take up residency in australia?

Charles Darwin did.

… unless it’s “field hockey”! ;)

I was very confused by the terminology when I first crossed the Pond, many years ago.

How many Britons did the Romans displace? And what did the Romans ever give us? Civilisation is what.

fast forward 2000 years.

When the first fleet arrived, they saw what 50,000 years of indigenous occupation had given provided for them - huge areas of cultivated crops, massive cities with water and sewerage, roads, bridges, art works, sculpture, Sistine Chapel, St Paul's cathedral, the great wall of Wollongong, ..... oh wait... wrong program. Umm..what did they find... Terra Nullius, no real evidence of occupation, just migratory tribes fighting with each other. So the first fleeters occupied it. Tough luck, it was 250 years ago, and They keep crying poor and demanding apologies and more handouts.

To the victors go the spoils.