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Prime Minister Morrison has today admitted that the country DOES have a history of slavery, after being met with bipartisan outrage for his comments yesterday that attempted to erase the dark chapter in Australian settlement known as ‘blackbirding’.
The comments arose during a radio interview which saw Morrison defending the legacy Captain James Cook, arguing why the English explorer’s statue in Sydney’s Hyde Park should stay put.
“Australia when it was founded as a settlement, as New South Wales, was on the basis that there be no slavery,” Morrison told 2GB.
“And while slave ships continued to travel around the world, when Australia was established, yes sure, it was a pretty brutal settlement… but there was no slavery in Australia.”
As expected, these comments sparked backlash yesterday, with the Prime Minister being accused of minimising the suffering of the South Sea Islanders who were kidnapped and put to work in Australian cane fields for no pay, which is basically the dictionary definition of slavery.
Historians have been quick to correct the Prime Minister’s suggestion that British convicts, Aboriginal, Chinese, Irish, Italian, Polynesian and Melanesian people were never forced to work for free in the early years of Australian settlement.
Morrison’s whitewashed belief that everyone that ever lived in Australia received a go in exchange for having a go is now becoming a problem for the Government – with the general public growing concerned that our nation’s leader hasn’t read many books.
However, today in the face of outrage, The Prime Minister has had to concede that Australian history isn’t all jet skis and lebo-bashing – like the people of Cronulla would like to believe.
“I guess, I should have been more clear about what I was saying” said Scotty From Marketing in yet another interview with 2GB this morning.
“I meant to say that Australia doesn’t have any slavery, right now”
“Like, what I was saying, is that, like, slavery doesn’t exist in Australia at this very moment. That’s if you ignore the fact that droves of UberEats cyclists have been spotted at homeless soup kitchens around the country. But that’s not slavery. That’s tech”
“Anyway. I know a lot of people will argue with this assertion. Depends how you define slavery. I mean, if anyone had a good look at the Morrison household last night you might argue that slavery is well and truly alive..”
“Jenny had me doing chores like I was a kidnapped Vanuatuan haha”
“Get it? I was doing housework like some sort of indentured black person. “
“Bit out of character for someone as important as me aye haha”
