There is a shield in the British Museum, taken by Cook on his 1770 landing in the place he named Botany Bay, in what was to become New South Wales.

Called the Gweagal shield, it has a bullet hole near the centre. Oral history held by the Gweagal people says the man who owned that shield was shot.

Carved of wood, it was incapable of withstanding a threat his people had never experienced and almost certainly had never imagined.

PHOTO It is believed the man who owned the Gweagal shield was shot. SUPPLIED: THE TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM
It was never my intent to write apocalyptic fiction, to write about dystopias.

It was my intent to write a novel that would explain and contextualise the invasion of Australia in 1788 in such a way that it would help white people understand what the invasion meant for my people. I…