Liberals move to divide Aboriginal Community to abolish the Aboriginal Tent Embassy : Melbourne Indymedia

The Liberal government announced its plans to attempt to use members of the Aboriginal Community in Canberra to legitimise their longstanding agenda to get rid of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy. And it wouldnt be the first time that the Liberal party had sought to divide the Aboriginal community to carry out its own agenda. Quoting Senator Gary Humphries, Liberal Party Senator "The embassy as it stands is doing more harm than good to the reconciliation process. It has gone beyond the role an embassy serves, becoming an unattractive and intimidating camping ground. This is not appropriate for the Parliamentary Triangle".

But what could be more appropriate then a constant vigil that for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people across Australia the reconciliation process has not brought peace from the genocidal war which started when Captain Cook illegally claimed Australia to be Commonwealth Land. For many the reconciliation process was just a white wash, a feel good exercise in PR - and did little to better the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. If the Aboriginal Tent Embassy may not attractive enough for the parliamentary triangle perhaps though it is a constant reminder to politicans and senior bureaucrats in Canberra of the living conditions of Aboriginal people everywhere. Its these living conditions that the Liberal party should be addressing, its the disproportionate rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in custody and deaths in custody, its the apartheid style living conditions for Aboriginal people in Port Augusta, the poor health conditions and the low life expectancy of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, these are the issues that the Liberal party should be seeking input from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community about.

The Liberal government is whittling away our rights, and the final blow will be to abolish the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra. Now more than ever we need the Aboriginal Tent Embassy as the grassroots platform for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices for Land rights and sovereignty, an end to black deaths in custody, an end to the genocidal war against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, for peace and for JUSTICE.
Write to Sen Gary Humphries info@canberraliberals.org.au to show your support to the Aboriginal Tent Embassy.
Below is his media release

> Date : Tue, 15 Feb 2005 Subject : COMMUNITY
> INPUT SOUGHT ON TENT EMBASSY Author : Sen.
> Gary Humphries ACT Liberal Senator Gary
> Humphries is seeking the input of local residents over
> the future of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy.
> Senator Humphries said a consultation process with Aboriginal leaders
> would commence shortly under the auspices of Territories Minister Jim
> Lloyd.
> "It is appropriate that Aboriginal leaders largely determine the future
> of the embassy but I am also interested in hearing the views of the wider
> community," Senator Humphries said.
> "Consequently I will soon be commencing my own consultation exercise with
> the broader ACT community.
> "The embassy as it stands is doing more harm than good to the
> reconciliation process. It has gone beyond the role an embassy serves,
> becoming an unattractive and intimidating camping ground. This is not
> appropriate for the Parliamentary Triangle.
> "When it makes news today, it is usually for the wrong reasons. Rather
> than aiding the reconciliation process, it now hinders it.
> "The Territories Minister would like an educational interpretative centre
> on the site. There is some merit in this. A modern, well resourced
> interpretive centre with amenities would do a much better job conveying
> the history and struggle of the Aboriginal people.
> "But what do other people think?
> "Resolving the Tent Embassy issue is a high priority for the Territories
> Minister. I believe a successful outcome is more likely to be reached if
> he and indigenous leaders have as much community input in this as
> possible," Senator Humphries said.
> ACT residents can express their view on this issue by emailing Senator
> Humphries at senator.humphries@aph.gov.au
>
>

We need to know who the ppl of these embassies are....their names and contact details..

it hard to relate to anonymous ppl to write to fat assed senators who give a crap

Never recovered from the shock I got from wandering past when the Socialists decided to improve Gazza by removing his dacks.

Yep, every group should have a spokesperson who can put a press statement out everytime they take a piss and then go on to bigger things when they will moderate previous views considerably.

clean up the street of the protest Tiamamen square.....

Its the failure of the Government to provide for its "people", ask your self why anyone should have to protest at the place of government and justice....

do you see a paradox here???

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"The important truth of the tent embassy
Thursday, 17 February 2005

T HE MINISTER for Territories, Jim Lloyd, has just spoken that the end of the Aboriginal tent embassy in Canberra is near. In the place of the existing, unauthorised protest, he wants something like an interpretive display paying tribute to Aboriginal people - one that is properly structured and organised.

Our hope should be that his comments reflect inexperience rather than foolishness, and that he will come to recognise that the embassy in its current form is one of this nation's glories.

It is true that Walter Burley Griffin never imagined a tent embassy protest and never considered that fringe dwellers would make an anarchic political point in the middle of his modern city.

For some, the presence of blackfellas in this way, at the symbolic heart of the white Australian democracy, is not to be tolerated. To custodians like the new minister, it is little more than an unplanned, unhygienic bush camp.

The place where the embassy is located, the Parliamentary Triangle, is a symbolic showcase. Inside its confines are found the qualities and features of our national life that we recognise as important.

The High Court embodies justice; the National Gallery, beauty. The Library is a repository of our knowledge about our lives and our history. Parliament, at the apex of the triangle, gives a place for democratic practice.

As well as being buildings that house important civic functions these structures are also sculptures. They provide a visual representation of what this nation is and what it aspires to be - not the complete or uncontested representation, not the truth, of course, but important nevertheless.

We place these structures so prominently in the Parliamentary Triangle because we believe the values and practices they embody to be fundamental to our own good government.

The embassy is the same - and different. It is the same because it serves an important symbolic purpose, much like the High Court or gallery.

By a process of ramshackle and organic design, the embassy has evolved to a point where it articulates another important truth of contemporary Australian society.

The truth on display here is the nation's treatment of indigenous Australians. This is an open wound that nice, decent people do not see and which governments, to our discredit, have still not properly dressed.

Larissa Behrendt, Professor of Law and Indigenous Studies at the University of Technology, Sydney, hit the nail on the head last month when she explained that we can measure the effectiveness and fairness of our laws and institutions by assessing the impact on indigenous people.

In this sense, the embassy warns us that chronic unfairness still exists and tells us that our law and institutions need to be improved.

A previous chairman of the National Capital Authority, David Evans, a retired air marshal, once described the embassy as an eyesore and a blight that should be removed. Admittedly, the embassy is different from the official, ordered structures of state, and for this reason we can understand why an air marshal might find it disconcerting. Yet it is this very difference that gives the embassy its authenticity and power.

Unlike other structures in the Parliamentary Triangle, the embassy owes its voice to no government, no minister and no committee of bureaucrats.

The embassy exists as a reverse occupation, which challenges our established practices of justice and democracy and beauty. Because it sits cheek by jowl with official and sanctioned institutions, this ragged collection of tents portrays an indigenous experience that is real, not merely abstracted: our fellow Australians actually do live in eyesores and camps, and because of this their health and their lives are at risk.

If the embassy is sanitised and pasteurised, then a legitimate voice of contrast and protest will have been made silent.

By insisting that the embassy presence in the Parliamentary Triangle be made whiter and more inert, Jim Lloyd robs the nation of a reminder that his government and we as a people must do better.

An authentic voice would be silenced and in its place there would be only political silence and political convenience. It is not difficult to see who would be the beneficiaries.

A well-functioning democracy needs to preserve difference, even if difference seems to the majority or the government of the day to be objectionable or offensive.

A healthy democracy requires not just a toleration of alternative views, but the endorsement of such views as being legitimately heard.

It is true that the tent embassy sends a message of chaotic and dishevelled defiance. Its existence is an indigenous rejection of the not particularly good works of the ruling class.

That most of us implicitly condone a protest of this kind is to our national credit. And is why the day the embassy is lost is the day when all Australians lose.

Chas Savage is a Canberra writer"
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