Aboriginal Tent Embassy - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Aboriginal Tent Embassy is a controversial semi-permanent assemblage claiming to represent the political rights of Australian Aborigines

Australian Aborigines

Australian Aborigines , also called Aboriginal Australians, from the latin ab originem , are people who are indigenous to most of the Australian continentthat is, to mainland Australia and the island of Tasmania...

. It is made of a large group of activists, signs, and tents that reside on the lawn of Old Parliament House

Old Parliament House, Canberra

Old Parliament House, known formerly as the Provisional Parliament House, was the house of the Parliament of Australia from 1927 to 1988. The building began operation on 9 May 1927 as a temporary base for the Commonwealth Parliament after its relocation from Melbourne to the new capital, Canberra,...

in Canberra

Canberra

Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...

, the Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n capital. It is not considered an official embassy by the Australian government.

History

On the 26 January 1972 at 1 a.m. four Aborigines, led by Michael Anderson, established the Aboriginal Embassy by ramming a sun umbrella into the lawn outside Old Parliament House in Canberra. The next day Quakers came and helped out by erecting tents. The Tent Embassy was established in response to the McMahon Coalition Government's refusal to recognise Aboriginal land rights

Native title

Native title is the Australian version of the common law doctrine of aboriginal title.Native title is "the recognition by Australian law that some Indigenous people have rights and interests to their land that come from their traditional laws and customs"...

and saw a new general purpose lease for Aborigines which would be conditional upon their ‘intention and ability to make reasonable economic and social use of land’ and it would exclude all rights they had to mineral and forest rights. The embassy has existed intermittently since then, and continuously since 1992.

The main people involved in setting up the embassy were the founder and first ambassador, Michael Anderson and three co-founders, Billy Craigie, Tony Coorey and Bertie Williams.

Other people associated with the embassy include Gary Foley

Gary Foley

Gary Foley is an Australian Aboriginal Gumbainggir activist, academic, writer and actor . He is best known for his role in establishing the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra in 1972 and for establishing an Aboriginal Legal Service in Redfern in the 1970s...

, Chicka Dixon

Chicka Dixon

Charles "Chicka" Dixon was an Australian Aboriginal activist and leader.He was active in campaigns around the 1967 referendum and the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, dedicating his life to the fight for basic human rights and justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.In 1970 Dixon was...

, Pearl Gibbs

Pearl Gibbs

Pearl Gibbs was an Indigenous Australian activist, and the most prominent female activist within the Aboriginal movement in the early 20th century...

, Roberta Sykes, Pat Eatock, Kevin Gilbert

Kevin Gilbert (author)

Kevin Gilbert was a 20th century Indigenous Australian activist, artist, poet, playwright and printmaker. He is also a past winner of the National Book Council prize for writers.- Life :...

, Dennis Walker, Paul Coe

Paul Coe

Paul Coe ', a Wiradjuri man, is an Australian Aboriginal activist. He was the son of Leslie Coe, and the grandson of Paul Joseph Coe and Edith Murray and the great grandson of Thomas Coe and Jessie Mary, née Waggerah ....

, Isobelle Coe, John Newfong

John Newfong

John Newfong , Aboriginal Australian journalist and writer, was the first Aboriginal person to be employed as an journalist in the mainstream print media.Newfong was born in Wynnum, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland, in 1943...

, Mum Shirl Smith, Kevin Buzzacott

Kevin Buzzacott

Kevin Buzzacott , often referred to as Uncle Kev as an Aboriginal elder, is an Indigenous Australian from the Arabunna nation in northern South Australia...

and Neville Williams

Neville Williams

Neville "Chappy" Williams is an elder of the Wiradjuri Nation, in Western New South Wales. Known as "Uncle Chappy" to those who follow indigenous Australian customs, he is a regular at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra and a key opponent of the Barrick Gold Corporation's gold mine project at...

.

In February 1972 the Aboriginal Tent Embassy presented a list of demands to Parliament:

Control of the Northern Territory
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...

as a State within the Commonwealth of Australia; the parliament in the Northern Territory to be predominantly Aboriginal with title and mining rights to all land within the Territory.
Legal title and mining rights to all other presently existing reserve lands and settlements throughout Australia.
The preservation of all sacred sites throughout Australia.
Legal title and mining rights to areas in and around all Australian capital cities.
Compensation money for lands not returnable to take the form of a down-payment of six billion dollars and an annual percentage of the gross national income.

The demands were rejected, and in July 1972, following an amendment to the relevant ordinance, police moved in, removed the tents, and arrested eight people.

In October 1973, around 70 Aboriginal protesters staged a sit-in

Sit-in

A sit-in or sit-down is a form of protest that involves occupying seats or sitting down on the floor of an establishment.-Process:In a sit-in, protesters remain until they are evicted, usually by force, or arrested, or until their requests have been met...

on the steps of Parliament House and the Tent Embassy was re-established. The sit-in ended when Labor

Australian Labor Party

The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...

Prime Minister

Prime Minister of Australia

The Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia is the highest minister of the Crown, leader of the Cabinet and Head of Her Majesty's Australian Government, holding office on commission from the Governor-General of Australia. The office of Prime Minister is, in practice, the most powerful...

Gough Whitlam

Edward Gough Whitlam, AC, QC , known as Gough Whitlam , served as the 21st Prime Minister of Australia. Whitlam led the Australian Labor Party to power at the 1972 election and retained government at the 1974 election, before being dismissed by Governor-General Sir John Kerr at the climax of the...

agreed to meet with protesters.

In May 1974 the embassy was destroyed in a storm, but was re-established in October.

In February 1975 Aboriginal activist Charles Perkins negotiated the "temporary" removal of the embassy with the Government, pending Government action on land rights.

In March 1976 the Aboriginal Embassy was established in a house in the nearby Canberra

Canberra

suburb of Red Hill

Red Hill, Australian Capital Territory

Red Hill is a suburb of Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia. The suburb is named after the northernmost hill of the ridge to the west of the suburb. The ridge is a reserve and managed as part of the Canberra Nature Park. The hill is an element of the central Canberra design...

, however this closed in 1977.

For a short period in 1979, the embassy was re-established as the "National Aboriginal Government" on Capital Hill

Capital Hill, Australian Capital Territory

Capital Hill , is the location of Parliament House, Canberra, at the south apex of the land axis of the Parliamentary Triangle....

, site of the proposed new Parliament House

Parliament House, Canberra

Parliament House is the meeting facility of the Parliament of Australia located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. The building was designed by Mitchell/Giurgola Architects and opened on 1988 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia...

.

On the twentieth anniversary of its founding, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy was re-established on the lawns of Old Parliament House

Old Parliament House, Canberra

. Despite being a continual source of controversy and many calls for its removal, it has existed on the site since that time.

As well as political pressure, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy has also been under attack from criminal elements, having been fire bombed on a number of occasions.

Some local Aboriginal Ngunnawal people

Ngunnawal people

The Ngunnawal people are the Indigenous Australian inhabitants whose traditional lands encompass much of the area now occupied by the city of Canberra, Australia and the surrounding Australian Capital Territory...

have also called for the eviction of residents of the tent embassy.

Despite this, in 1995 the site of the Tent Embassy was added to the Australian Register of the National Estate

Natural Heritage Trust

The Natural Heritage Trust was set up by the Australian Government in 1997 to help restore and conserve Australia's environment and natural resources....

as the only Aboriginal site in Australia that is recognised nationally as a site representing political struggle for all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

When the 2000 Olympic Games

Olympic Games

The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...

came to Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

, Aborigines set up a second Tent Embassy on the Olympic grounds.

A tent embassy has also operated intermittently in Victoria Park, Sydney

Victoria Park, Sydney

Victoria Park is a large park in Sydney, situated on the corner of Parramatta road and City road, within the grounds of University of Sydney and across Parramatta road from Broadway Shopping Centre...

in recent years.

A symbol at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy is the so-called Sacred Fire

Sacred fire

Sacred fire or holy fire may refer to:religion*any instance of fire worship*fire personified in Indo-European religion**Atar in Zoroastrianism**Agni in Vedic religion and Hinduism*Sacred fire of Vesta in Roman polytheism...

which represents peace, justice and sovereignty. The Sacred Fire is said to have been kept alight since 1998.

Issues

The Tent Embassy promotes Australian Aboriginal Sovereignty

Australian Aboriginal Sovereignty

Australian Aboriginal Sovereignty is a political movement amongst Indigenous Australians and supported by others in the 20th century, demanding control of parts of Australia by Indigenous peoples....

. Their demands included land rights

Real property

In English Common Law, real property, real estate, realty, or immovable property is any subset of land that has been legally defined and the improvements to it made by human efforts: any buildings, machinery, wells, dams, ponds, mines, canals, roads, various property rights, and so forth...

and mineral rights to Aboriginal lands, legal and political control of certain sacred sites, and compensation for land that they claim was stolen. Their demands have been consistently rebuffed by past and current governments.

It has also been used as a site for protesting against other issues, such as against uranium

Uranium

Uranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table, with atomic number 92. It is assigned the chemical symbol U. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons...

mining at Jabiluka

Jabiluka

Jabiluka is a uranium deposit and mine development in the Northern Territory of Australia that was to have been built on land belonging to the Mirarr Aboriginal people...

in the Northern Territory during the 90s. Currently Elders such as Uncle Neville Williams

Neville Williams

, from the Aboriginal Tent Embassy are working to protect traditional Wiradjuri

Wiradjuri

The Wiradjuri are an Indigenous Australian group of central New South Wales.In the 21st century, major Wiradjuri groups live in Condobolin, Peak Hill, Narrandera and Griffith...

land in Western N.S.W at Lake Cowal

Lake Cowal

Lake Cowal is the largest inland lake in New South Wales, Australia. The lake is ephemeral, being fed by the small Bland Creek and by the occasional flooding of the Lachlan River. Despite this, it retains a considerable amount of water in about 70% of years....

which is in the process of being mined for gold.

The group describes itself as an embassy, a designation the Australian government objects to. The group claims to represent a displaced nation of peoples, unjustly occupied by the Australian government. The subject remains controversial in Australian politics.

There have been a number of suspicious fires at the site, with the most devastating being the loss of 31 years of records when the container burnt down in June 2003. The ABC covered the story.

The future of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy

In August 2005 the Federal Government announced a review into Canberra's Aboriginal tent embassy. They consulted with the Aboriginal communities around Australia to determine what shape the tent embassy should take in future. The group was headed by Minister Jim Lloyd and contained a number of Aboriginal Elders from around Australia. Professional mediators Callum Campbell and Tom Stodulka were called in to facilitate the process and consult with indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, to obtain and represent their views. This organisation was called Mutual Mediations. They reached a decision on the Embassy's future early in December 2005.

Jim Lloyd released a media statement in December 2005 stating that the Embassy will have no residents and shall be replaced with a more permanent structure. A sign stating "No Camping" has been erected at the Embassy, although Minister Lloyd has stated that no residents will be removed against their will.

The Embassy remains intact and plans for the annual Corroboree for Sovereignty are still going ahead. Corroborree for Sovereignty is always held on 26 January, Australia Day

Australia Day

Australia Day is the official national day of Australia...

, known to some Indigenous Australians as "Invasion Day".

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

History

Issues

The future of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy

Further reading

External links