Talk:Squatting (Australian history)

social prestige

Squatters did not always become to be people of "high social prestige" as suggested by Iain Stuart. In this area (Gundagai) they were not well regarded by the Crown or even the ordinary worker at all because of some of their antics.

Money may have bought them 'high' social status but not necessarily prestige.

Many of the squatters were also dummies for so called landed gentry (not necessarily the leprauchan variety gentry).

The bunyip aristocracy or squattocray were from where the best known bunyip also is. jacqui —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.54.9.172 (talk • contribs) 13:52, 1 June 2007

Name

Interesting read! I think that this page would better be called Squatting (Nineteenth century Australia) or suchlike because it has been split off from Squatting which deals with the better known type of squatting ie occupation of empty buildings. I will leave it as a suggestion for now, since it is true that most of the latter squatting is urban. Mujinga (talk) 18:44, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Not just in Australia

I thought I'd point out that the term squatter was also used in New Zealand. The Squatters Club, which later became the Dunedin Club, is an example. Schwede66 10:12, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Runs?

The article repeatedly refers to "runs" with no explanation of what they are. It would be good if somebody with knowledge of the term could explain it in the article. Kevin McE (talk) 10:33, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

i found a useful definition in a book and added it to the article - a run is "land claimed by the Squatter as sheepwalks, open, as nature left them, without any improvement from the Squatter." Mujinga (talk) 14:56, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

WP:SQUAT

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Squatting is a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of topics related to squatting. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks. Everyone is welcome, from beginner to experienced editor. Feel free to pass by with suggestions. Let's get it going again! Mujinga (talk) 18:44, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Improving this article

This article used to be called Squatting (pastoral) and is about the history of colonial squatting and the squattocracy in Australia. I don't think it's a good idea to have changed the name to Squatting (Australia) since at the moment the article is purely historical and does not include the information that is at Squatting#Sydney and Squatting#Melbourne. I am wondering what the best way forward is... the info at Squatting#Australia is approaching the size to spin it off into Squatting in Australia but then how to rename this page?

@Kevin McE: you put a tag saying "The neutrality of this article is questioned because it may show systemic bias" - would it be possible to explain what your intention was? Because there's no discussion on talk and i'm a bit baffled. Would the perceived bias be removed if the article was renamed Australia's colonial squatting history for example? Mujinga (talk) 18:40, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Squatting on agricultural land is not an exclusively Australian phenonemon, and at the time, the article title did nothing to restrict its claim to any one country, although the content was thus restricted. Doesn't seem to be an issue anymore: I have no real opinion on the suggested name change. Kevin McE (talk) 21:40, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, that's grand then. I have created Squatting in Australia as an offshoot from Squatting and have requested this page becomes Squattocracy Mujinga (talk) 15:27, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 15 May 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 08:03, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

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Squattocracy → Squatting (Australia) – Controversial undiscussed move that was incorrectly pitched as an uncontroversial request and has since been challenged by two editors: the "squattocracy" and "squatters" in general are not the same thing, and the former is an opinion term in any case. The Drover's Wife (talk) 13:42, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

This is a contested technical request (permalink). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 20:25, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

• @The Drover's Wife, Mujinga, and BarrelProof: queried move request Anthony Appleyard (talk) 20:27, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose i don't think a revert will solve this problem, please see ongoing discussion at Talk:Squatting in Australia. In short, renaming Squattocracy to a name everyone agrees on seems like a better option. Mujinga (talk) 14:23, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
• Comment: But it is a request to revert a recent undiscussed move, so the revert should happen first, and the discussion should happen afterwards. —BarrelProof (talk) 20:23, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Agreed. Why on earth wasn't this just done? It's obvious that the user who requested it has no particular understanding of the subject of the article and it's been universally opposed. The Drover's Wife (talk) 23:01, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Agree. We should revert first, then discuss. But either way, why not call the article squatter (Australian historical pastoral landholder), then the content can be limited to that concept, which is what we need to link to for articles on Australian history, and anyone else can create articles with variant names for different times, places and land type. Squattocracy should be restored to an article that discusses this particular term (in relation to the general concept of Australian historical pastoral landholding). Kerry (talk) 00:07, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
    • That works, but it's long and convoluted: I still don't see a problem with the original squatting (pastoral) beyond changing the tense to squatter (pastoral). The Drover's Wife (talk) 03:55, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

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Discussion copied in from User talk:Anthony Appleyard#Advice re best way to deal with a so-called uncontroversial move:-

Recently you [1] implemented an uncontrovesial move request. However, the user involved first rewrote a number of articles to remove distinctions that existed between a small number of articles and then renamed the articles, including requesting this "uncontroversial" move. There was no prior proposal to undertake this redefinition and renaming and I have explained now on Talk:Squatting in Australia why I don't agree. I do not know if the editor involved is familiar with Australia and squatting in Australia (a historical term with a quite particular meaning) so it may have been done in good faith, but certainly no time was allowed to establish if it was controversial. What is the appropriate way to unwind this and have a more open process where people get to have input on this. Thanks Kerry (talk) 12:36, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

@Kerry Raymond:hiya probably the best place to discuss this is where the discussion has already begun at Talk:Squatting in Australia. however i would like to respond that it's not the case at all that I "first rewrote a number of articles to remove distinctions that existed between a small number of articles and then renamed the articles." Please check my contributions and you'll see that afterwards i was busy changing links from squatting (pastoral) to squattocracy. Further, I first suggested a name change in 2008 so i'm surprised by the accusations of overhasty activity. Anyway, i hope we can reach a solution that satisfies everyone. Cheers! Mujinga (talk) 14:30, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Could you please undo the rogue "uncontroversial technical request" you acted on that's been opposed by every single person who replied, and which, looking at the talk page, was made by a user not actually familiar with the subject of the article? These kinds of random administrative roadblocks on a whim leading to absurd conclusions (no consensus to do the absurd thing in the first place, consensus needed to fix it) are one of the most disheartening things about contributing to Wikipedia. The Drover's Wife (talk) 23:00, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

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Continued discussion:-

• @The Drover's Wife, Mujinga, BarrelProof, and Kerry Raymond: Current edit history and pages' public logs seem to say that this happened:
  • Squatting in Australia: created at 14:46, 14 May 2019‎ by User:Mujinga by splitting a section off page Squatting
  • Squatting: created at 04:30, 29 October 2001‎ by 61.9.128.xxx
  • Squatter: stub disambig-type page, created at 04:30, 29 October 2001‎ by 61.9.128.xxx, later redirected
  • Squatting (Australia): created at 04:48, 7 December 2006‎ by User:Ikeshut with text taken from Squatting, then at 19:25, 14 May 2019‎ moved to Squattocracy (leaving a redirect) by User:Anthony Appleyard (requested by User:Mujinga at WP:RM/TR)
    • Anthony Appleyard (talk) 05:02, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Name

This page is developing a chequered history for name changes but i really don't think Squatting (Australia) works very well. Squatting (pastoral) was objected to above since it was seen as discussing a phenomenon which isn't specific to Australia, my suggestion of Squattocracy was shouted down by two people who have so far suggested: squatting (pastoral), squatter (pastoral) or squatter (Australian historical pastoral landholder). I suggested Squatting (Nineteenth century Australia) some time ago. None of these options seem very good. In any case now we have a situation in which there are two pages talking about different aspects of squatting in Australia, one called Squatting (Australia) and one called Squatting in Australia. My further thoughts on the matter are here, interested to hear what other people think, I've dropped a line to WikipediaProject:Australia. Probably best to continue the discussion here, because at least in my opinion this is the page that needs its name changing. Cheers! Mujinga (talk) 09:12, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Interesting to see who turns up - the squatter links given looks like they both be merged. JarrahTree 09:26, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Return to naming discussion

Hi @ScottDavis:, I saw your recent edits and I also remember you were proposing Squatter (pastoral) as a page to describe the worldwide phenomenon which I though was a good idea. At the moment that page redirects here, which as others have already said isn't ideal since it makes the term peculiar to Australia. So I thought I'd ask what you think this page should be called. Regarding the taxonomy, in my opinion Squatting is the mother page, then there are daughters defined by country (eg Squatting in the United States, Squatting in England and Wales) or theme (eg Athens refugee squats), possibly Squatting (pastoral) would fit there. Then below that in the hierarchy we have movements, individual squats, squatters and squatting in literature and culture. So then the question is where does this page fit and how to name it. When we discussed this before, for some reason people blew in and blew out again and didn't seem to have read the discussion above on this page, leaving us with Squatting (Australia) and Squatting in Australia, which isn't optimal since they are very similar names. I would suggest Squatting (Australian history), what do you think? If we (and others) can settle on a new name, then it can be proposed. Mujinga (talk) 10:40, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Squatting (Australian history) would be my choice. Kerry (talk) 20:22, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

I am OK with Kerry's suggestion (or Squatter (Australian history)/Squatter (Australia)), which makes the scope narrow and clear. The Australian scope seems to have been an issue for the title Squatting (pastoral) or Squatting (historic) as Australia's colonial history was not unique. I would prefer to tease out the overlap between the two similarly-named articles. Squatting in Australia is about occupying urban land and buildings for political or residential purposes. Squatting (Australia) is about colonial practices of pushing beyond the boundaries of colonial settlement, and is the precursor to modern pastoral leases that cover much of outback Australia. A broad coverage of the topic could extend into Terra nullius and Aboriginal land rights. --Scott Davis ^Talk 23:06, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

great since we had three votes for Squatting (Australian history) and none against after several weeks, i moved the page Mujinga (talk) 15:12, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Aboriginal or Crown Land

I have reverted an edit by 194.193.130.179 (talk) with the edit summary Reverted possible vandalism. The reason I have reverted the edit is that it seeks to perpetuate the myths that Aboriginal people did not occupy the land, that Australia was unoccupied and that all land was owned by the crown. These myths, encapsulated by the phrase terra nullius, was emphatically rejected by the High Court in Mabo. --Find bruce (talk) 01:31, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

@Find bruce: I think we need to find a better way to deal with this. At the time the squatting was taking place, the prevailing belief was that it was Crown land for them to deal with as they chose. And when the government decided to open that area up for settlement, squatters were often given first option on formalising their occupation of the land (which suggests that the squatters also believed it was Crown land or why else would they negotiate with the government?). It was not until 1992 that this view was officially changed by the Mabo case. Should we not explain this to the reader (particularly for the non-Australians who probably won't know about Mabo)? Maybe something along the lines of

Squatting is an historical Australian term that referred to someone who occupied a large tract of land in Australia for the purposes of grazing livestock.

-- and the para below is a short version of terra nullius#Australia (but introducing the term Crown land)

Although Aboriginal Australians inhabited Australia for over 50,000 years before European settlement commenced in 1788, the colonial governments believed that Australia was Terra nullius at the time of settlement and that Indigenous Australians did not own the land they occupied but rather that the colonial governments possessed the land as Crown land and could sell or lease that land to settlers. The belief in terra nullius persisted until 1992 when the High Court of Australia found in the case Mabo v Queensland (No 2) that the Mer people had owned their land prior to annexation by the colony of Queensland (1872–1879). The ruling overturned the doctrine of terra nullius in Australia and had far-reaching significance for subsequent land claims of both Torres Strait Islanders and other Aboriginal Australians.

-- then write the rest of the article in terms of Crown land as that is how the situation was understood by the government and settlers at that time

Your thoughts? Kerry (talk) 04:04, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Kerry. I could debate belief v justification re terra nullius, but that's for another time & place. What's missing from what you propose is how the situation was perceived & experienced by the Aboriginal people at the time - for those outside the Nineteen Counties, squatting was the process in which they were removed from exclusive possession of that land. That didn't happen all at once nor was it the same at every place or time, but how can an article about squatting have a neutral point of view without including the point of view of the people whose land was being squatted on? Even from the squatters perspective, part of their challenge was in their interactions with the aboriginal people. See, for example Reynolds & Dalziel Aborigines and Pastoral Leases - Imperial and Colonial Policy 1826-1855 --Find bruce (talk) 07:02, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

@Find bruce: Point taken and that point is also missing from Terra nullius#Australia which I was summarising. What about

Although Aboriginal Australians inhabited Australia for over 50,000 years before European settlement commenced in 1788, the colonial governments decided/claimed/assumed [best word choice here??] that Australia was Terra nullius at the time of settlement and that Indigenous Australians did not own the land they occupied but rather that the colonial governments possessed the land as Crown land and could sell or lease that land to settlers. As Indigenous Australians were the traditional owners of their lands, the arrival of settlers upon their land was often resisted leading to the frontier conflict. The justification of terra nullius persisted until 1992 when the High Court of Australia found in the case Mabo v Queensland (No 2) that the Mer people had owned their land prior to annexation by the colony of Queensland (1872–1879). The ruling overturned the doctrine of terra nullius in Australia and had far-reaching significance for subsequent land claims of both Torres Strait Islanders and other Aboriginal Australians.

I am trying to not overload this article with the broader issue of land ownership in Australia but to give enough of an introduction to the issues with appropriate links to the articles that do (or should) cover it in more depth. This article exists because we needed to link the term "squatter" from other articles, to explain what the term "squatter" means in the Australian colonial sense (as opposed to "settler" and "selector") but the article got re-oriented into contempory urban squatting issues and it's ended up a bit of a mess in the attempt to disentangle it. Kerry (talk) 05:23, 15 May 2021 (UTC)