Squatting
Squatting is the action of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied area of land or a building residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have lawful permission to use. Author Robert Neuwirth suggested in 2004. Yet, according to Kesia Reeve, "squatting is absent from policy and academic debate and is conceptualised, as a problem, as a symptom, or as a social or housing movement."Squatting can be related to political movements, such as anarchist, autonomist, or socialist. It can be a means to conserve buildings or to provide affordable housing. In many of the world's poorer countries, there are extensive slums or shanty towns built on the edges of major cities and consisting entirely of self-constructed housing built without the landowner's permission. While these settlements may, in time, grow to become both legalised and indistinguishable from normal residential neighbourhoods, they start off as squats with minimal basic infrastructure. Thus, there is no sewerage system, drinking water must be bought from vendors or carried from a nearby tap, if there is electricity, it is stolen from a passing cable.
During the Great Recession and increased housing foreclosures in the late 2000s, squatting became far more prevalent in Western, developed nations. Besides being residences, some squats are used as social centres or host give-away shops, pirate radio stations or cafés. In Spanish-speaking countries, squatters receive several names, such as okupas in Spain, Chile or Argentina, or paracaidistas in Mexico. Dutch sociologist Hans Pruijt separates types of squatters into five distinct categories: Deprivation-based – i.e. homeless people squatting for housing need An alternative housing strategy – e.g. people unprepared to wait on municipal lists to be housed take direct action Entrepreneurial – e.g. people breaking into buildings to service the need of a community for cheap bars, clubs etc. Conservational – i.e. preserving monuments because the authorities have let them decay Political – e.g. activists squatting buildings as protests or to make social centres In many countries, squatting is in itself a crime.
Property law and the state have traditionally favored the property owner. However, in many cases where squatters had de facto ownership, laws have been changed to legitimize their status. Squatters claim rights over the spaces they have squatted by virtue of occupation, rather than ownership. Anarchist Colin Ward comments: "Squatting is the oldest mode of tenure in the world, we are all descended from squatters; this is as true of the Queen with her 176,000 acres as it is of the 54 percent of householders in Britain who are owner-occupiers. They are all the ultimate recipients of stolen land, for to regard our planet as a commodity offends every conceivable principle of natural rights."Others have a different view. UK police official Sue Williams, for example, has stated that "Squatting is linked to Anti-Social Behaviour and can cause a great deal of nuisance and distress to local residents. In some cases there may be criminal activities involved." The public attitude toward squatting varies, depending on legal aspects, socioeconomic conditions, the type of housing occupied by squatters.
In particular, while squatting of municipal buildings may be treated leniently, squatting of private property leads to strong negative reaction on the part of the public and authorities. Squatting, when done in a positive and progressive manner, can be viewed as a way to reduce crime and vandalism to vacant properties, depending on the squatter's ability and willingness to conform to certain socioeconomic norms of the community in which they reside. Moreover, squatters can contribute to the maintenance or upgrading of sites that would otherwise be left unattended, the neglect of which would create abandoned and decaying neighborhoods within certain sections of moderately to urbanized cities or boroughs, one such example being New York City's Lower Manhattan from the 1970s to the post-9/11 era of the New Millennium. Adverse possession is a method of acquiring title to property through possession for a statutory period under certain conditions. Countries where this principle exists include the United States, based on common law.
However, some non-common law jurisdictions have laws similar to adverse possession. For example, Louisiana has a legal doctrine called acquisitive prescription, derived from French law. There are large squatter communities such as Kibera in Nairobi. An estimated 1,000 people live in the Grande Hotel Beira in Mozambique; the Zabbaleen settlement and the City of the Dead are both well-known squatter communities in Cairo. In South Africa, squatters tend to live in informal settlements or squatter camps on the outskirts of the larger cities but not always near townships. In the mid-1990s, an estimated 7.7 million South Africans lived in informal settlements: a fifth of the country's population. The number has grown in the post-apartheid era. Many buildings in the inner city of Johannesburg have been occupied by squatters. Property owners or government authorities can evict squatters after following certain legal procedures including requesting a court order. In Durban, the city council ro
Sale, Victoria
Sale is a city situated in the Gippsland region of the Australian state of Victoria. It had an estimated urban population of 14,891 as of June 2016; the Aboriginal name for the Sale area was Wayput. Two famous Gippsland explorers, Paul Strzelecki and Angus McMillan, passed through the immediate area around 1840; the first white settler was Archibald McIntosh who arrived in 1844 and established his'Flooding Creek' property on the flood plain country, duly inundated soon after his arrival. In the 1840s, drovers heading south to Port Albert crossed Flooding Creek and were confronted with the difficult marsh country around the Thomson and Latrobe rivers. A punt operated across the Latrobe River. A Post Office named Flooding Creek opened here on 30 September 1848 being renamed, somewhat belatedly, as Sale on 1 January 1854; the first town plots went on sale in 1850. When the new settlement was gazetted in 1851 it was named'Sale' — a tribute to General Sir Robert Sale, a British army officer who won fame in the first Afghan war before being killed in battle in India in 1845.
An SBS TV documentary "Afghanistan: The Great Game" claims that it is named after his wife, Lady Florentia Sale, who wrote a famous journal of her experiences during the First Afghan War which became a best seller in the 1840s and was serialised in The Times and in Australia. Her letters to her husband were enthusiastically published in Australian papers; the town benefitted from the 1851 gold rush at Omeo as it was situated on the Port Albert to Omeo route and was an important base for the goldfields, until the arrival of the railways. It was an important service centre for East Gippsland and the Monaro Plains of New South Wales. A building boom took place c. 1855–65. In 1863 the population of Sale reached 1800 and it became a borough; the courthouse opened the following year. Shops and offices spilled over into Raymond Street and the first Anglican Church was erected on the site now occupied by St Anne's and Gippsland Grammar School; the Gippsland Times newspaper was established in 1861 while the first Star Hotel and the Criterion Hotel were built in 1865.
St Paul's Cathedral is the cathedral church of the Anglican Diocese of Gippsland in Australia. The cathedral building, built in 1884, is a double-storey building with a rectangular footprint and is constructed of red brick and slate roofing. In terms of access, the first reasonable road from Melbourne arrived in 1865 and Cobb and Co established a rough-and-ready 24-hour coach service linking Melbourne and Sale; the Latrobe Wharf was built in the 1870s and two hotels emerged to exploit the new centre of activity. It was located near the present swing bridge. Anthony Trollope visited Sale in 1872. Writing of the experience in Australia and New Zealand he spoke of the town's'innumerable hotels' and concluded from his impressions that the Aborigines had little chance of surviving as a race; the children's author Mary Grant Bruce was born in the town in 1878. A two-storey post office, with clock tower, was built in 1884. HM Prison Sale was completed in 1887 and it operated for 110 years until it was replaced by a private Fulham Correctional Centre.
The building has since been demolished, with only part of the large brick fencing still remaining. The site remained empty until 2014, it opened in March 2015. Other landmarks in the town include Our Lady of the Criterion Hotel; the former was designed by architects Reed and Tappin and built 1892-1901. Assembly halls and dormitory rear wing were added in 1938; the building is listed on the Register of the National Estate. The Criterion Hotel was built in 1865, it had a two-storey timber verandah, but this was replaced by a cast iron verandah between 1880 and 1900. It is considered "one of the most impressive hostelries in Victoria" and is listed on the Register of the National Estate; the Criterion Hotel closed in 2006 and its deteriorating condition caused local concern that it would be demolished. However, the site was subsequently purchased by a Traralgon-based developer who had previous expertise in restoration of commercial buildings; the Criterion received a complete rebuild in 2010/11 with the external heritage facade and verandah restored.
It re-opened as a hotel, function venue and restaurant early in 2013. With the growth of shipping on the local waterways and the Gippsland Lakes schemes emerged to develop Sale as a port; the construction of the Sale Canal duly commenced in the 1880s, thereby linking the town via the Thomson River and the Gippsland Lakes to the open sea. It was completed in 1890. Other elements were the Sale Swing Bridge, completed in 1883, a high wharf, a launching ramp which still exists in the heart of the city. However, neither the bridge nor the canal created the desired surge of trade and the depression of the 1890s soon engulfed the town. Sale became a town in 1924 and a city in 1950. In World War II, the West Sale RAAF base was the landing site of 2 Japanese Mitsubishi Zeros. Sale has seen much development and redevelopment in the past decade, one example being the multimillion-dollar redevelopment of the city's Port of Sale. Sale has a moderate oceanic climate made up of warm summers, mild autumns and springs and cool winters.
Sale records 595.9 mm of measurable precipitation per year, making it drier than the nearby state capital, Melbourne. The wettest month is November whilst. At 54.8 days, it gets more clear days than Melbourne. After oil was
Delegate, New South Wales
Delegate is a small town in New South Wales, Australia in Snowy Monaro Regional Council, 523 kilometres south of the state capital, Sydney. Delegate lies just a few kilometres from the state border between Victoria. At the 2016 census, Delegate had a population of 351 people; the township of Delegate lies on the Delegate River. The place name, could have derived from an aboriginal word meaning "high mountains"; the first village began in 1852 and was situated at Hayden's Bog on the property now called "Bendolba". Mount Delegate, or known in the local area as "Delegate Hill", is situated across the border in Victoria and stands at 1,325 metres above sea level, it is the only single mountain of an unusual shape. Because of its height, Mount Delegate now has several telecommunication towers servicing vital services to both NSW & Victoria; the original owners and inhabitants of this area were the Aboriginal peoples of the Ngarigo Nation. The Delegate area was settled by Europeans in the 1820s when Charles Campbell, youngest son of Robert Campbell of Duntroon, directed that "some of the shepherds move their animals towards the areas of the winter snows.
They trekked via Cooma, settled a large number of stock in an area where they formed a new station. This the Campbells called Delegate; the stock spread over a large area and, as there was no other occupant of the district, 34,000 acres were annexed to the occupation of Robert Campbell, who bought this property. Subsequently, while there were still no other serious competitors in the vicinity, Campbell's stock occupied a further 21,000 acres which came to be called Mt Cooper." Following Robert Campbell's death the property at Delegate passed to his unmarried daughter and from her to her nephews and Fredrick Jeffreys. In 1870 a petition was forwarded to the Council of Education to request educational facilities at Craigie and Delegate. In 1871 Delegate Public School was opened. Today Delegate Public School serves a community of children whose parents are farmers, professional people, those employed by the timber industry and others who work locally; the geographical location of Delegate Public School enables it to draw students from both New South Wales and Victoria.
The first place of worship on the Monaro district was the "Deligat" chapel. It was a slab building thatched with grass and stood on the bank of Church Creek and was of the Church of England denomination, now known as the Anglican Church of Australia; the site is identified in the Delegate Cemetery and marked by a shelter built during the 1988 Bicentennial Year. In October 1880 St Philip's Anglican Church in Heyden Street was licensed and consecrated in 1885; the Anglican Rectory was dedicated in 1938. In March 1978 the Anglican Parishes of Delegate and Bombala amalgamated to become the Parish of the Southern Monaro; the original Catholic church in Church Street, the street being appropriately named because of the church, was built in 1877 and in 1915 the present St Joseph's Catholic Church was built on the same site. The Catholic Parish of Delegate includes St Peter's Corrowong west of Delegate. In 1921 the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart opened a school in Delegate, first conducted in the church building.
Sisters Alphonsus Kirton, Rodrigues Miller and Josephine Cahill, Cahill who in years became Mother General of the Josephite Order, opened the school with 16 boys and 25 girls on the roll. The nuns first lived in Craigie Street on the site of the now Delegate Multi Purpose Service. A house was purchased in Church Street for the nuns as a convent and an adjacent outbuilding served as the school. In 1943 a new school building was constructed in the church grounds; the Sisters raised their school to make secondary education available to the people of Delegate. With the introduction of the Wyndham Scheme and bus transport the Secondary section closed in 1963; when the Presbytery closed in 1973 the convent was sold and the nuns moved into the Presbytery and hence it became the new St Joseph's Convent. With the low numbers of Sisters to teach and an enrolment of only 33 pupils, St Joseph's Convent School closed in 1981. In November 2015 the Catholic Parish celebrated the 100-year centenary of the present church with a special Mass and dedicated a permanent history display in the former school building to record the history of the parish.
The school building was modified with new facilities in 2017 and renamed as St Joseph's School Centre. St Andrew's Presbyterian Church was opened in 1878; the church was built by William Moore and had a shingle roof, replaced by an iron roof in 1912. The original organ was installed in 1901 and the bell in the church grounds was erected in 1905. Families prominent in the church's history are the Campbells, Olivers, Sivewrights and others of Scotch ancestry; as numbers of Presbyterians diminished over the years, the church was sold in 2009. The Delegate Progress Association have taken ownership of the church, local religious of other denominations now conduct services there to keep it maintained as part of the Delegate Community; the local School of Arts building has a museum. Honour rolls in the main part of the building record the names of locals who served in both wars as well as a memorial stone at the front of the building commemorating the original Men from Snowy River March in 1916. Like many country halls, it served as a picture theatre for many years.
Delegate was the start for the Men from Snowy Marches during World War I and World War II. In the early 1920s, artist Hilda Rix Nicholas stayed
Tambo River (Victoria)
The Tambo River or Berrawan is a perennial river of the Mitchell River catchment, located in the East Gippsland region of the Australian state of Victoria. With a total length in excess of 186 kilometres, the Tambo River is one of the longest rivers in the East Gippsland drainage basin, extending from the steep forested southern slopes of the Victorian Alps through forest and farmland to the Gippsland Lakes; the Tambo River rises in the Bowen Mountains, below Mount Leinster in the Victorian Alps, part of the Great Dividing Range, about 20 kilometres east of Benambra. The river flows south by south southeast by south southwest, joined by sixteen tributaries including the Little and Timbarra rivers, before reaching its mouth and emptying into Lake King, one of the main lakes in the extensive Gippsland Lakes system. Within the lake, the Tambo River forms confluence with the Mitchell River, west of the village of Metung, with the Mitchell River draining into Bass Strait southwest of Lakes Entrance, in the Shire of East Gippsland.
The river descends 1,060 metres over its 186-kilometre course. Along its route it passes by the towns or localities of Bindi, Swifts Creek, Tambo Crossing, Tambo Upper, Swan Reach, Johnsonville; the river leaves the mountains and the Mount Tambo Scenic Reserve forming its headwaters near the locality of Bindi, north of Swifts Creek, from Bindi flows through the Tambo Valley to Bruthen. The Great Alpine Road picks up the route of the river at Tongio and follows the river for much of the distance through the Tambo Valley south of this point; the valley from Bindi to just south of Ensay is open and flat and is settled as farmland, however it again closes in to become steep forested mountain beyond Ensay. From just north of Bruthen the valley opens out into fertile river flats for the remainder of the river's journey to Lake King. At Swan Reach, the river is traversed by the Princes Highway; the river flats support cropping and beef cattle grazing. Around Bindi the river channel is about 5 metres in width.
By the Swifts Creek and Ensay region the river is up to 12 metres wide, with deep pools of up to 140 centimetres, a substrate of rubble and gravel. In the steep forest sections between Ensay and Bruthen the channel width is up to 20 metres, with a varying substrate of bedrock, rubble and mud. Between Bruthen and Tambo Upper there is extensive sedimentation with channel width exceeding 25 metres, but a summer depth less than 50 centimetres. Substrate in this section is all sand; the river narrows around Tambo Upper and the substrate becomes mud beyond this point. The Tambo River has a number of significant tributaries, with the two largest being the Little River which enters the Tambo from the north at Ensay, the Timbarra River which enters the Tambo from the east, south-east of Tambo Crossing; the Tambo River South Branch, which originates on the Nunniong Plains in the hills east of Bindi, flows north to join the main river near its origin. The Tambo has a number of more seasonal creeks entering along its length, including Swifts Creek which enters from the west at the town of the same name, Haunted Stream which enters from the west to the north of Tambo Crossing, with other minor tributaries including Junction Creek and Deep Creek.
The central Tambo River area around Ensay and Swifts Creek have a mean annual rainfall of 500–700 millimetres, with the lower section of the basin around Bruthen getting 700–1,000 millimetres. Upper reaches of the significant tributary the Timbarra River get higher rainfalls; the Tambo and Timbarra have reliable flows. There are some significant wetlands in the basin of the Tambo/Nicholson River systems; the upper areas of the rivers include tall eucalyptus ash forests and alpine/subalpine vegetation, with the middle and lower reaches having a more low growing mixed species forest. The riparian vegetation in the Swifts Creek/Ensay region is grass and willows, with little erosion of the banks or sedimentation present; the riparian vegetation in the steep forest sections between Ensay and Bruthen is more natural, with wattles and other native species, while introduced species only become more prevalent again nearer to Bruthen. The nationally vulnerable Australian greyling has significant populations in the Tambo River.
It is a noted fishery for black bream. Low river flows that have been typical for a number of years have impacted on these species; the estuary perch is common in the Tambo. Other fish that may be found in the river include native species such as the Australian bass, short-finned eel, long-finned eel and the river blackfish, introduced species such as brown trout and carp; the health of river has been impacted to various extents in its different sections by sediment run-off, introduced weeds such as willows and blue periwinkle. Algal blooms related to sediment run-off have been seen in the lower Tambo system and the Gippsland Lakes. Recreational boating and fishing have resulted in river bank erosion in the lower reaches; the Lower Tambo Landcare Group was formed in 1998 and covers an area of 10,965 hectares on the lower parts of the river. The group aims to help re-establish Australian native vegetation on the river banks and roadsides, to encourage landowners to fence off sensitive areas to help preserve them for native species, to control and manage pest species.
Due to its length, the Tambo stretched across the lands of at least two Aboriginal nations. The Jaitmathang people from the Upper Murray areas occupied the upper reaches of the river, while the Brabiralung of the Gunai/Kurnai nation occupied the lower
Moe, Victoria
Moe is a town in Latrobe Valley in the Gippsland region of Victoria, Australia. It is 130 kilometres east of the central business district of Melbourne, 45 kilometres due south of the peak of Mount Baw Baw in the Great Dividing Range and features views of the Baw Baw Ranges to the north and Strzelecki Ranges to the south. At June 2015, Moe had an estimated urban population of 16,734, it is administered by the Latrobe City Council. Moe was known as The Mowie Little Moi; the town's name is believed to derive from a Kurnai word meaning "swamp land". Moe is a navigation point and stopover for tourists en route to Erica, the historic goldfields township of Walhalla, the Walhalla Goldfields Railway and Mount Baw Baw. Lake Narracan is nearby, Moe is home to the annual Moe Cup horse races, the Moe Jazz Festival and the recreated historic settlement Old Gippstown; the city has locally produced Aboriginal/Koori art and is home to local Australian Football and Netball Finals in the Gippsland Football & Netball Leagues and the Mid Gippsland Football League.
The region is represented by Gippsland Power in the TAC Cup competition. A small gold discovery was made in 1852; the small settlement on the Narracan Creek was a stopover en route to the Walhalla goldfields further north. A Post Office opened on 17 March 1862. In 1878 the Shire of Narracan was proclaimed, the railway arrived from Morwell. Moe railway station was a key station, with a roundhouse, connections to the now-closed Walhalla and Yallourn lines; the town was surveyed in 1879. Moe was declared a city in 1963. A major local industry is based around the brown coal deposits in the Latrobe Valley east of Moe and electricity generation; the area is noted for its dairy industry. Moe High School opened with the Official opening in November of the same year; the school was closed and merged into Lowanna Secondary College in 1994, with the previous Moe High School location becoming a housing estate. On the night of the 2011 census there were 15,292 residing in the Moe urban centre: 51.7% female and 48.3% male.
At the time Moe had an Indigenous population of 1.4%, whilst 79.8% of the overall population were born in Australia. The other main countries of origin were: England, Scotland and Malta. Moe Railway Precinct Revitalisation Project: A clock tower was constructed in 2012 incorporating two bronze clocks that chime on the hour; the clocks were manufactured in Moe by local clockmaker Alan Cox. Electricity supply lines on George Street have been placed underground at a cost of over $2 million; the undergrounding included the installation of new street lighting and two 66KV distribution boxes which will be used to place the remaining supply lines in the CBD underground in the future. Moe has three large urban housing developments. Mitchell Grove is a two-kilometre walk west of the CBD of Moe and has two residential housing stages next to a newly completed artificial wetland; the first entrance street to the new development has been named Discovery Boulevarde. Mitchell Grove development is to exceed 1,000 residences.
Monash Views is a 221-lot development in final implementation off Monash Road and Coach road in the suburb of Newborough five kilometres from the Moe CBD. The development plan includes a partial redevelopment of the Yallourn Golf Club which borders the estate to the north by Ogilvy-Clayton; the final size of Monash Views development through to Haunted Hills Road may exceed 1,000 residences. Another large-scale development is in final planning stage near Lake Narracan, a few kilometres from the Moe CBD; the development will be bordered by Thompsons Road, Moe Golf Club, Hayes Road and the south shore of Lake Narracan—then extending to Becks Bridge Road to the west. The first developed section is in an area planned to have around 1,000 homes—of a total of 4,000. Moe is serviced by a number of primary schools including: Moe Primary School Moe Primary School Moe Primary School St Kieran's Primary School Barringa Special School St Mary's Primary School Newborough Primary Newborough East PrimaryMoe is serviced by two secondary colleges: Lowanna Secondary College, a single campus year 7–12 state secondary college located in nearby Newborough, Lavalla Catholic College, a multi campus Catholic secondary college with its year 7–9 Presentation campus located in Newborough.
Tertiary education is offered through GippsTAFE. Federation University has its Gippsland campus at nearby Churchill; the economy is driven by primary industry, natural resources and secondary industry including coal mining and fossil-fuel power generation for the National Electricity Market. The local agriculture industry is involved in the production of wool and dairy products, as well as vegetable growing. Moe has a varied and wide range of sporting facilities available for use. Australian Football & Cricket Ted Summerton Reserve in the west end of Vale Street, Moe is used for Australian Football and Cricket and is a long walk south along Fowler Street to Vale Street from the Moe V/line train station and CBD; the reserve is undergoing development and has had an upgrading of its facilities including an upgrade to the players facilities, preparation of the surrounds of the playing surface for spectator stands to be cons
Sidney Lee
Sir Sidney Lee was an English biographer and critic. Lee was born Solomon Lazarus Lee in 1859 at 12 Keppel Street, London, he was educated at the City of London School and at Balliol College, where he graduated in modern history in 1882. In 1883, Lee became assistant-editor of the Dictionary of National Biography. In 1890 he became joint editor, on the retirement of Sir Leslie Stephen in 1891, succeeded him as editor. Lee wrote over 800 articles in the Dictionary on Elizabethan authors or statesmen, his sister Elizabeth Lee contributed. While still at Balliol, Lee had written two articles on Shakespearean questions, which were printed in The Gentleman's Magazine. In 1884, he published a book with illustrations by Edward Hull. Lee's article on Shakespeare in the 51st volume of the Dictionary of National Biography formed the basis of his Life of William Shakespeare, which reached its fifth edition in 1905. In 1902, Lee edited the Oxford facsimile edition of the first folio of Shakespeare's comedies and tragedies, followed in 1902 and 1904 by supplementary volumes giving details of extant copies, in 1906 by a complete edition of Shakespeare's works.
Lee received a knighthood in 1911. Between 1913 and 1924, he served as Professor of English Literature and Language at East London College. Besides the editions of English classics, Lee's works include: Life of Queen Victoria Great Englishmen of the Sixteenth century, based on his Lowell Institute lectures at Boston, Massachusetts, in 1903 Shakespeare and the Modern Stage Shakespeare's England: an account of the life & manners of his age King Edward VII, a Biography. There are personal letters from Lee, including those written during his final illness, in the T. F. Tout Collection of the John Rylands Library in Manchester. John Denham Parsons Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Chisholm, Hugh, ed.. "Lee, Sidney". Encyclopædia Britannica. Cambridge University Press. Sidney Lee Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome Works by Sidney Lee at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Sidney Lee at Internet Archive Works by Sidney Lee at LibriVox Works by Sidney Lee at Open Library
Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of Australia, descended from groups that existed in Australia and surrounding islands before British colonisation. The time of arrival of the first Indigenous Australians is a matter of debate among researchers; the earliest conclusively human remains found in Australia are those of Mungo Man LM3 and Mungo Lady, which have been dated to around 50,000 years BP. Recent archaeological evidence from the analysis of charcoal and artefacts revealing human use suggests a date as early as 65,000 BP. Luminescence dating has suggested habitation in Arnhem Land as far back as 60,000 years BP. Genetic research has inferred a date of habitation as early as 80,000 years BP. Other estimates have ranged up to 100,000 years and 125,000 years BP. Although there are a number of commonalities between Indigenous Aboriginal Australians, there is a great diversity among different Indigenous communities and societies in Australia, each with its own mixture of cultures and languages.
In present-day Australia these groups are further divided into local communities. At the time of initial European settlement, over 250 languages were spoken. Aboriginal people today speak English, with Aboriginal phrases and words being added to create Australian Aboriginal English; the population of Indigenous Australians at the time of permanent European settlement is contentious and has been estimated at between 318,000 and 1,000,000 with the distribution being similar to that of the current Australian population, the majority living in the south-east, centred along the Murray River. A population collapse principally from disease followed European settlement beginning with a smallpox epidemic spreading three years after the arrival of Europeans. Massacres and war by British settlers contributed to depopulation; the characterisation of this violence as genocide is controversial and disputed. Since 1995, the Australian Aboriginal Flag and the Torres Strait Islander Flag have been among the official flags of Australia.
The word aboriginal has been in the English language since at least the 16th century to mean, "first or earliest known, indigenous". It comes from the Latin word aborigines, derived from origo; the word was used in Australia to describe its indigenous peoples as early as 1789. It soon became employed as the common name to refer to all Indigenous Australians. While the term Indigenous Australians, has grown since the 1980s to be more inclusive of Torres Strait Islander people, many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples dislike it, feeling that it is too generic and removes their identity. Being more specific, for example naming the language group, is considered best practice and most respectful. Terms that are considered disrespectful include Aborigine and ATSI The broad term Aboriginal Australians includes many regional groups that identify under names from local Indigenous languages; these include: Murrawarri people -- see Murawari language. Anindilyakwa on Groote Eylandt off Arnhem Land.
These larger groups may be further subdivided. It is estimated that before the arrival of British settlers, the population of Indigenous Australians was 318,000–750,000 across the continent; the Torres Strait Islanders possess a heritage and cultural history distinct from Aboriginal traditions. The eastern Torres Strait Islanders in particular are related to the Papuan peoples of New Guinea, speak a Papuan language. Accordingly, they are not included under the designation "Aboriginal Australians"; this has been another factor in the promotion of the more inclusive term "Indigenous Australians". Six percent of Indigenous Australians identify themselves as Torres Strait Islanders. A further 4% of Indigenous Australians identify themselves as having both Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal heritage; the Torres Strait Islands comprise over 100 islands which were annexed by Queensland in 1879. Many Indigenous organisations incorporate the phrase "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander" to highlight the distinctiveness and importance of Torres Strait Islanders in Australia's Indigenous population.
Eddie Mabo was from "Mer" or Murray Island in the Torres Strait, which the famous Mabo decision of 1992 involved. The term "black" has been used to refer to Indigenous Australians since European settlement. While related to skin colour, the term is used today to indicate Aboriginal he
