Massacres conducted by numerous parties involved in the colonisation of Australia, including the British Army, European colonists, and members of the New South Wales Mounted Police, Border Police, Australian native police, Western Australia Police and Northern Territory Police. Most massacres of Indigenous Australians were perpetrated as summary and indiscriminate punishment for the killings of colonists or the theft or killing of livestock. There are over nine recorded instances of mass poisonings of Aboriginal Australians.