The announcement of a grant of half a billion dollars to the Australian War Memorial for a massive program of extensions has reignited the long-smouldering controversy about frontier conflict. Despite criticism reaching back many years the memorial has steadfastly refused to admit Aboriginal warriors into the shrine, which director Brendan Nelson calls the soul of the nation. His excuse is that the relevant legislation prohibits such an innovation. This has always been a debatable assertion and rather misses the point. If Dr Nelson wanted to embrace frontier conflict he could ask for a minor amendment to the legislation, which could be passed in a matter of months, very likely with bipartisan support and public acclaim.

It is a pertinent fact that the controversy has progressed in parallel with the emergence of a whole new generation of scholarship relating to frontier conflict that was stimulated by the history wars of the early years of the century and has reached into many parts of the continent. As a result the verdict is now beyond doubt. Frontier conflict was violent and universal, accom-panying national life for 140 years. The death toll was almost certainly much higher than the 20,000 I suggested in the early 1980s. It seems entirely plausible that many more Aborigines were shot down in Queensland alone. Definitive accounting may always be out of our reach, but frontier deaths may rival those of the First World War.