Tony Abbott sees the arrival of the first fleet as Australia’s defining moment. Other Australians disagree: they want it to be archaeological evidence of the first people 52,000 years ago

In late August, Tony Abbott launched a National Museum of Australia initiative to identify the defining moments in this country’s history.

Predictably perhaps, and controversially, the Anglophile Abbott nominated the arrival of the first fleet on 26 January, 1788, as the defining moment in this continent’s history.

It was the moment this continent became part of the modern world. It determined our language, our law and our fundamental values. Yes, it did dispossess and for a long time marginalise Indigenous people. As Noel Pearson frequently reminds us, modern Australia has an important Indigenous and multicultural character. Still it’s British settlement that has most profoundly shaped the country that we are.

It has provided the foundation for Australia to become one of the freest, fairest and most prosperous societies on the face of the earth. So Arthur Phillip is as significant to modern Australia as George Washington is to the modern United States . . . His instructions from the British government were to build amity with the local inhabitants and Phillip tried hard and faithfully to carry these out. Most notably, he declined to order punishment after himself being speared.

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