CANBERRA, Aug. 25 (Xinhua) -- Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has declared that Australians should be proud of their nation's history even if the first Australians were not perfect, rubbishing claims that some monuments remembering historical figures should be edited or changed.
Earlier this week, respected Indigenous journalist and activist Stan Grant said some statues, such as one which declared that James Cook founded Australia in 1770, should be edited to show that it was in fact Indigenous Australians who were the first people.
But speaking on Macquarie radio on Friday, Turnbull said that trying to "edit" Australia's colonial history was "dead wrong."
"I am an admirer of Stan's but he is dead wrong here," the prime minister said, "trying to edit our history is wrong."
"All of those statues, all of those monuments, are part of our history and we should respect them and preserve them -- and by all means put up other monuments, other statues and signs and sights that explain our history."
He said that Australia was the "greatest country in the world," declaring that Australians should "be proud" to acknowledge the colonial past even if the relationship between white settlers and the Indigenous population was fractured during the early years.
Meanwhile former Prime Minister and Liberal Party leader John Howard agreed with his contemporary, saying that while Australia's colonial policies were "not without fault," acknowledging them was crucial to understanding and forgiveness.
"Their settlement policies, their colonial policies, were not without fault, but they were infinitely better than the alternatives from around the time," Howard said.
"If you start mucking around with statues then you might as well start tearing down the pyramids."
