So what happens next, sports fans, fellow Australian citizens? Now that Israel is starting to run out of Palestinian children and women to kill, hospitals to smash, and people to starve.

All the while aided and abetted by countries like ours, which have supplied them with weapons and fighter jet spare parts, and quelled the unrest and opposition at home.

Supported, as always, by corporate media’s dutiful parroting of what the Israeli and US Governments want to hear about the unprovoked aggression and evilness (etc.) of the Palestinians and the divine right of Israel to do more or less as it pleases in "self-defence" and for the greater good.

As a US supplicant, Australia has clearly done its bit to keep this US/Israeli show on the road.

How can this be compatible, you might wonder, with the image of the good global citizen that we like to project? Is there any chance that we will come to our senses, admit our wrongdoing and accept accountability? And, if we do, what recompense might we offer to those we have wronged?

Or will we simply discard our blood-spattered clothes, take a shower, and act as if nothing untoward had happened?

In the spirit of our supposedly “fair-go” society, let’s be charitable, let’s suppose that these are not rhetorical questions, and consider what insights some snapshots of our post-invasion history might provide.

Terra Nullius

In the 140 years following the colonisation of Australia, there were at least 270 state-sponsored massacres of First Nations people. These massacres and introduced diseases (syphilis, smallpox, flu), reduced the Indigenous population from 1-1.5 million before the invasion to less than 100,000 by the early 1900s.

Since then, Australia’s Indigenous peoples have continued to experience inordinate deprivation, injustice and impoverishment. For example, infant mortality rates are about twice those of other Australians; on average, life expectancy is about 10 years less; and Indigenous people are 17 times more likely to be imprisoned than the rest of the population.

The Albanese Government’s recent announcement of a token $77 million development package will do little to rectify the deep-seated causes that underly these statistics. Like the permission to perform traditional dances and make “welcome to country” speeches at sporting events, it is an inadequate, patronising gesture that heaps more insult on longstanding injury.

Cambodia and Laos

Our involvement in all aspects — air, land, and sea — of the war in Vietnam made us complicit in the devastating “spillover” of that war into Cambodia and Laos.

Following Gahima in Blunt _et al._ (2025), from 1965 to 1973, the US and its allies dropped 2,756,941 tons of bombs on Cambodia, killing about 150,000 civilians.

In addition, two million tons of bombs, delivered in 580,000 bombing missions, were dropped on Laos. Tens of thousands of Laotians were killed, and a quarter of the population was displaced.

There are about 80 million live bomblets still in the ground in Laos and between four and six million unexploded bombs scattered throughout Cambodia.

We have never apologised to either country or offered them anything meaningful in the way of recompense, except “development assistance” whose thinly disguised purposes invariably give precedence to our interests over theirs.

East Timor/Timor-Leste

Australian- and US-backed Indonesian rule of East Timor resulted in the deaths of about 150,000 East Timorese — 25% of the population — and widespread rape and torture. In the weeks leading up to, and after, the 1999 vote for independence, an additional 2000 people were killed. About half a million fled their homes, the majority forced across the border into Indonesian West Timor.

In order not to jeopardise negotiations over sea boundaries and the oil and gas bonanza that had been discovered in the Timor Sea, at no time did Australia criticise or question Indonesia’s actions. Throughout, Australia’s sole concerns were fossil fuel acquisition and profit.

Following McGrath in Blunt et al. (2025), later, when negotiating with an independent Timor-Leste, in order to gain advantage whatever the cost in terms of decency or fair dealing, the Australian Government bugged the cabinet room of a fledgling Timorese Government exhausted by years of war, prosecuted Australian whistleblowers who threatened to expose its bad behaviour, and showed a cavalier disregard for international law and conventions.

We have never apologised to Timor-Leste or admitted any wrongdoing. Indeed, for decades “the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has denied any link between Australia’s support for Indonesia’s invasion and occupation of Portuguese Timor and Australia’s economic interests in the Timor Sea”.

Our straight-faced, seamless transition from supporter of genocide to provider of development assistance to Timor-Leste continued to be lubricated by our fixation with maximising the extraction of oil and gas from the Timor Sea and profit.

Conclusion

Clearly, there is nothing to be proud of in this callous, blood-soaked history. A history whose early stages — as in the colonisation of the US and other places — fuelled the beginnings of what would become a rapacious capitalist state, bent on serving the interests of its ruling classes.

It is a history that provides no grounds for optimism for survivors of genocide either carried out or supported in some way by Australia, or for those who are horrified by their government’s behaviour. The record offers no hope for meaningful reparations to be paid or even for an apology to be made.

Not a single member of the concentrations of government and corporate power that made and implemented the decisions that led to all of this has ever been held to account.

But never fear, you too can be like us. Anyone for some “nationally owned” development assistance and a dollop or two of “capacity building for good governance” a la Australie?

Or would you prefer something more tangible, perhaps some grass skirts and seashells to “help you to get in touch with your innermost feelings and cultural heritage” or the opportunity to make “welcome to country” speeches at football matches?

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.