The failure of last year’s referendum still troubles the country. The focus on the Voice to Parliament took attention away from the far more consequential question of truth telling, while paradoxically displaying how much it is still needed.

The intense and prolonged debate displayed how historical interpretation still divides the country rather than providing the foundation stones for reconciliation. First Nations have always lived with a tradition of loss, violence and discrimination passed on by word of mouth within families and communities. How could it be otherwise? They are the victims of profound human rights violation comparable in many ways to the legacy of slavery which is currently driving intense debate in both Britain itself and much of the erstwhile Empire, with rising demands for reparations and at least a recognition of the great wealth accruing from the trade.

Much of this angry controversy has passed Australia by, but the parallels are compelling. Lancashire grew to global prominence benefitting from cheap cotton produced by slave labour. The Yorkshire woollen mills increasingly drew on fine Australian fleeces grown on stolen grasslands; the product of generations of careful land management by the traditional land owners who were killed or driven away. Slaves were brutally treated, but as property they were not killed with the abandon which accompanied the squatting movement from the 1830’s to the 1880’s.

But things had started to go wrong for the First Nations before the First Fleet arrived in January 1788. In his dispatch case Arthur Phillip carried the documents which predetermined how the disaster would unfold. The British officials planning the foundation of the convict settlement ignored the traditions for dealing with the North American Indians in place for several generations as well as international law of the period when they decided what to do with the indigenous people of New South Wales. As is widely known now they concluded that Australia was a terra-nullius. The Aborigines did not own or were even in possession of their traditional lands nor did they exercise dominion over it because they had neither laws nor recognisable customs. There was perhaps some excuse for this decision given the ignorance of the relevant officials in 1786. But the same legal recipe was chosen when in 1824 and 1829 Britain annexed the rest of the continent.

We should be quite clear about what this meant. The First Nations across the whole land mass were dispossessed by legal fiat. While the settlers progressively learnt that traditional owners were deeply attached to their own country, it took our courts until the Mabo judgement in 1992 to put the legal stamp on the indigenous nation’s ownership and possession of their own country. This put beyond judicial doubt what had long been obvious. In 1788, 1824 and 1829 the British Crown stole the vast lands of the continent, stole them without compensation or even apology. It was one of the most brazen and audacious crimes in modern history.

The Mabo judgement was an extraordinary decision. But it was only about land ownership, not sovereignty. That left the law as it had been established between 1788 and 1829. Despite everything we now know about traditional society the courts continue to uphold the view that in the absence of indigenous sovereignty Britain gained an original, not a derived sovereignty. So, unlike the situation in America and later New Zealand, there was no need for treaties or conquest to achieve dominion. The matter is even more complicated by the view taken by our courts, when asked to deal with the question of sovereignty. Because the original annexation was an act of state employing the royal prerogative it is not a matter that can be construed by domestic courts. So there it is. Critical aspects of our laws are still bound by the decisions signed off on long ago by the King’s Hanoverian ancestors and which predetermined the decades of violence on the frontiers because no peaceful way was provided to resolve the conflicting claims to land.

In one of his speeches, King Charles expressed an interest in our process of reconciliation. That was all very well but it is obvious that it must include serious input from Britain and specifically from the Crown. Up until now there has never been an apology or expression of regret, let alone any talk about reparations in return from the great wealth extracted from the purloined land of the First Nations. It would have been a welcome gesture if, while in the War Memorial, he had made reference to the thousands of warriors who died in what have now come to be called the Australian Wars fighting to preserve their homelands, their way of life and even their existence as a people.

We can safely assume that the Albanese government failed to make any suggestion about the desirability, even the need, for an apology as a condition for our invitation. This would have placed Australia in line with so many of the one-time British colonies in the Global South which play roles in the radical re-evaluation of Imperial history.

Deference is what was expected and deference was dutifully delivered.

But it means that First Nations views of the past and the historical narratives favoured by main stream Australia are still far apart, as the failure of the referendum showed.