Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate

(a) acknowledges that April 2020 marks the 250th anniversary of Captain James Cook RN FRS and the HMS Endeavour's first voyage to Australia and the Pacific;

(b) notes that:

(i) Captain Cook's first voyage, departing Plymouth Dockyard in August 1768, was a joint expedition between the Royal Navy and Royal Society to travel to Tahiti to observe the 1769 transit of Venus across the Sun, and to find evidence of the unknown southern continent (Terra Australis Incognita), as theorised by classical Greek geographers and recorded by early Continental European explorers,

(ii) the expedition reached New Zealand in September 1769, where they charted the coastline for six months, and then discovered the south eastern coastline of Australia on 19 April 1770 (ship's log date) or 20 April 1770 (calendar date),

(iii) Captain Cook was the first known European explorer to reach the east coast of Australia, land at Point Hicks and Botany Bay, and map the eastern coastline,

(iv) Captain Cook successfully navigated the Great Barrier Reef, one of the most challenging natural maritime hazards in the world, and

(v) Indigenous Australians had been living here for over 60,000 years at the time of Cook's arrival;

(c) acknowledges Captain Cook's contribution to furthering human knowledge in public health:

(i) no crew were lost to scurvy due to innovative crew health and welfare practices implemented during the voyage, and

(ii) Captain Cook's crew health and welfare practices later proved essential in establishing the link between a deficiency in ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and scurvy; and

(d) acknowledges Sir Joseph Banks (botanist) for his contribution to furthering human knowledge and understanding of the natural world, meticulously documenting a wide variety of previously undiscovered Australian flora and fauna.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to make a short statement.

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Leave is granted for one minute.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The arrival of Captain Cook and the First Fleet in Australia had catastrophic and tragic consequences, for First Nations peoples, that continue today. For many people Captain Cook's arrival symbolises the beginning of the brutal frontier violence and massacres, the forced removal of children from their families, indentured and slave labour and violent attempts to wipe out First Nations languages and culture. It marked the beginning of the ongoing dispossession and oppression for First Nations peoples in this country, the effects of which continue today. First Nations peoples had never ceded sovereignty over their land. We must tell the truth about our shared history, and change is possible when you tell the truth.

Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to make a short statement.

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Leave is granted for one minute.

Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor will support the motion but we also would like to acknowledge that this motion should acknowledge that First Nations people were living in Australia for tens of thousands of years before James Cook set sail and, contrary to some of the words in the motion, the east coast of Australia was not discovered by Cook, it was indeed very well known to First Nations people who were living along the coastline at the time—just as the plants and animals of this continent were understood, used and managed by First Nations Australians for tens of thousands of years before Cook's voyage.

Question agreed to.