Aboriginal Tent Embassy

thumb|[[Bob Maza addresses a protest at the Embassy, 30 July 1972]]

The Aboriginal Tent Embassy is a permanent protest occupation site as a focus for representing the political rights of Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islander people. Established on 26 January (Australia Day) 1972, it is the longest continuous protest for Indigenous land rights in the world.

First established in 1972 under a beach umbrella as a protest against the McMahon government's approach to Indigenous Australian land rights, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy is made up of signs and tents. Since 1992 it has been located on the lawn opposite Old Parliament House in Canberra, the Australian capital. It is not considered an official embassy by the Australian Government. The Embassy has been a site of protest and support for grassroots campaigns for the recognition of Indigenous land rights in Australia, Aboriginal deaths in custody, self-determination, and Indigenous sovereignty.

Background

Chicka Dixon said that he had attended a political rally in 1946 where the initial idea and inspiration for the Embassy was raised by Jack Patten, President and co-founder of the Aborigines Progressive Association. Patten had called for an Aboriginal mission station to be placed in front of Parliament House, where the eyes of the world could see the plight of the land's First Peoples.

In 1967, Australians voted in an historic referendum to amend the Australian Constitution to allow the Commonwealth Government to include Aboriginal people in official population counts for constitutional purposes, and to be able to make separate laws for them; however, young urban Aboriginal people were not happy with progress since then. There had been many years of conservative governments in Australia, and during the 1960s there were also large protests against Australian involvement in the Vietnam War as well as against apartheid in South Africa. This energy was tapped into by Indigenous rights protesters.

1972: establishment

thumb|[[Gough Whitlam speaking at the Embassy, 8 February 1972]]

On 26 January 1972, four Aboriginal men, Michael Anderson, Billy Craigie, Tony Coorey and Bertie Williams (son of singer Harry Williams; later Kevin "Bert" Johnson), arrived in Canberra from Sydney, to establish an Aboriginal Embassy by planting a beach umbrella on the lawn in front of Parliament House (now Old Parliament House).

Williams suggested calling the tiny protest, at that point just a camp with a few placards, an embassy. The term "embassy" was deliberately chosen to draw attention to the fact Aboriginal people had never ceded sovereignty, and that there had never been any kind of treaty process with the Crown; they were the only cultural group in Australia who did not have an embassy to represent them. Dr Gary Foley later wrote in his 2014 book about the embassy that the term "tent embassy" was intended to serve as a reminder that Aboriginal people were living in substandard conditions, and treated "like aliens in their own land". Senator Neville Bonner, who in 1971 became the first Indigenous Australian elected to federal parliament, sympathised with the motives of the protestors, but stated they should obey eviction orders and "disagreed with the term 'embassy' because of its implication that Aboriginal people were foreigners". On a visit to the site he received "a steady stream of racial taunts from protestors during an outdoor interview" with the ABC.

The beach umbrella was soon replaced by several tents and Aboriginal people, including activists such as Gary Foley, Isabell Coe, John Newfong, Chicka Dixon, and Gordon Briscoe, Support grew around the world too.

The demands were rejected, and following an amendment to the Trespass on Commonwealth Lands Ordinance 1932 (which made the occupation a squat which could then be evicted), police moved in without notice on 20 July 1972. Three days later, on 23 July, 200 activists returned to the site and were prevented from reoccupying it by 200 police,

During the first six months of its life in 1972 the Embassy succeeded in uniting Aboriginal people throughout Australia in demanding uniform national land rights, and mobilised widespread non-Indigenous support for the cause.), Pat Eatock, Kevin Gilbert, Denis Walker, and Shirley Smith ("Mum Shirl").

Many of the main participants in the Embassy, including John Newfong, Cheryl Buchanan, Gary Foley and Michael Anderson, also produced Indigenous newspapers, which published alternative information from that found in mainstream newspapers. The Embassy also began to attract attention in the international press such as The New York Times and BBC News, and comparisons were made with apartheid in South Africa. Some of the protesters in the Aboriginal rights movement had been involved in the Black theatre, and performed street theatre as well as being heard on the stage. after it had been symbolically re-erected.

In February 1975 Aboriginal activist Charles Perkins negotiated the "temporary" removal of the Embassy with the Government, pending Government action on land rights. In December 1976 the embassy was dismantled after the passing of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976 with bipartisan support by the Fraser government, having been introduced by the Whitlam government in mid-1975. The protest site was then relocated to various sites in Canberra until 1992. In March 1976, the Embassy was established in a house in the nearby suburb of Red Hill; however, this closed in 1977.

On the 20th anniversary of its founding in 1992, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy was re-established at the original site on the lawns of Old Parliament House. Despite being a continual source of controversy, with many calls for its removal, it has existed on the site since that time. This sacred fire was originally made by Kevin Buzzacott and lit by Wiradjuri man Paul Coe at the embassy in 1998.

The 30th anniversary was celebrated in January 2002, when at which time a group of Aboriginal elders, including Uncle Kevin Buzzacott, reclaimed the sacred totems of the kangaroo and emu (which come with cultural obligations) from the Australian Coat of Arms, which was put on public display in front of the ceremonial fire. Police were called, and Buzzacott was charged with "dishonestly appropriating a bronze coat of arms with the intention of permanently depriving the Commonwealth of its property". Buzzacott also made an unsuccessful attempt to charge the Australian Government with genocide, but this was turned down by the Attorney-General.

There have been a number of suspicious fires at the site. Police again attempted to remove protesters from the site after this.

thumb|Corroboree for Sovereignty, Aboriginal Tent Embassy, January 2010

In August 2005, the Federal Government (then the fourth term of the Howard government) announced a review into the Aboriginal Tent Embassy. A non-Indigenous professional mediation firm, Mutual Mediations, was appointed by the Territories Minister, Jim Lloyd, to meet tent residents and Aboriginal leaders to develop a plan. They reached a decision on the Embassy's future early in December 2005. The key recommendation was that there should be an "evolving concept of the tent embassy without permanent camping", with seven other main recommendations which, according to Gary Foley, were designed "to bring the anarchistic embassy site effectively under government control and direction", which "would be the total antithesis of the concept of the embassy and its significance to Indigenous communities Australia wide".

2012: 40th anniversary

thumb|Aboriginal Tent Embassy, 2015

On Australia Day, 26 January 2012, the Embassy celebrated its fortieth anniversary. The National Congress of Australia's First Peoples planned a series of events over two days, to celebrate the struggle for Aboriginal land rights and the theatre of political protest.

What became known as the Australia Day 2012 protests occurred when Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott went to the Lobby Restaurant, close to the embassy site. That morning Abbott had been asked whether he found the Embassy "still relevant" and he had replied "I think the Indigenous people of Australia can be very proud of the respect in which they are held by every Australian and, yes, I think a lot has changed since then and I think it probably is time to move on from that".

These comments angered activists since they felt Abbott was proposing that the Embassy should be evicted. Gillard and Abbott were hastily escorted from the restaurant under the protection of police officers, and during the scramble Gillard lost one of her shoes, which was collected by protesters. At first the Embassy posted on its Facebook page that the shoe would be returned only in exchange for stolen land, but the shoe was later returned to her.

2020s

In December 2021 and January 2022, "Sovereign Citizens" along with anti-vaxxers, with a focus on reparatory justice and moving forward in the future. Around 2,500 people, including Ngalan Gilbert, grandson of Kevin Gilbert, attended the main march which finished at the site of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy. At a separate event, a crowd was addressed by the only surviving member of the original embassy, Ghillar Michael Anderson, and early participant Cheryl Buchanan. The film Ningla A-Na, a documentary film charting Black activism in South-East Australia made in 1972, was screened at the event.

In film

Ningla A-Na

The film Ningla A-Na, a documentary film charting Black activism in South-East Australia made in 1972, documents the events, including the eviction by police. is held in the National Film and Sound Archive owing to its heritage value. Directed and produced by Alessandro Cavadini (brother of producer Fabio Cavadini,), the film contains interviews with Fred Hollows, Mum Shirl, Bob Maza, Carole Johnson and Paul Coe.

The term "Ningla A-na" was also used for the Black Moratorium marches on 14 July 1972.

Still We Rise

Still We Rise is a feature documentary film about Aboriginal activism of the 1970s and since, marking the 50th anniversary of the Tent Embassy. The film was written and directed by Indigenous filmmaker John Harvey, who is from Sabai in the Torres Strait Islands. It premiered on ABC Television on 8 December 2022. It features interviews with Paul Coe, Gary Foley, Bobbi Sykes, Chicka Dixon, and Denis Walker, and music by King Stingray, Dan Sultan, Miiesha and others. Billy Craigie, Bertie Williams, Tony Coorey, and Ghillar Michael Anderson also appear in the film, Harvey was informed by talks with Gary Foley, now an academic and historian. Still We Rise had a special screening at ACMI in Melbourne on 18 December 2022, which included a Q&A with Harvey and Gary Foley, Harvey has produced and directed several other short films and television series.

Significance and commentary

At the time, the Tent Embassy focused international attention on injustices in Australia, which had gone largely unnoticed hitherto.

The Redfern Tent Embassy was set up in 2014 by Lyall Munro Jnr, his wife Jenny Munro, and other activists, to protest against a planned redevelopment of The Block in the Sydney suburb of Redfern.

References

External links

Aboriginal Embassy Official website
Clips from the film Ningla-A-Na (1972), NFSA, including footage of police marching on protesters in June 1972
Koori History page, with links
Speeches recorded at the Embassy, 30 July 1972 (part 1)
Speeches recorded at the Embassy, 30 July 1972 (part 2)