It’s time to reassess Australia Day … and the Aboriginal Tent Embassy

So Abbott's comments " ... that the Tent Embassy may no longer be relevant and that we should move on, ... " were ill-timed and insensitive. .. but also " ... it's time to reassess Australia Day … and the Aboriginal Tent Embassy ... " ?

Surely the original point about the Embassy was that it was incongruous and ironic - people having to set up an embassy to a government, in their own country ? A sort of post-modern joke, before post-modernism ? That some people, in the Lucky Country, did not have anything like the same access to opportunities that the rising middle classes in Australia took for granted ?

On the other hand, and perhaps a generation after the Anglo working class, Indigenous people did have access to universities and professional careers, and home ownership and overseas holidays - that forty years after the Embassy was set up, Indigenous people now can take advantage of a similar range of opportunities as other Australians. At the time of the Embassy, there were perhaps a hundred tertiary-educated Indigenous people, and now there are around twenty eight thousand - fifty thousand, one in every six or seven adults - by 2020. A fifth of Australia is now under Indigenous control. The walls of segregation, which kept Indigenous people out of towns and cities, have been broken and around three-quarters of the Indigenous population now live in urban areas, as we shall see when last year's Census data are published later this year.

The Gap is closing.

Robin - whilst I agree with a lot of what you said I am unsure why Abbot's comments were ill-timed and insensitive.
That suggests a rather 'protective' position to take and I would be interested to see you elaborate.
I have read the entire transcript and find it unremarkable and rather bland and to apportion any blame to him seems 'over sensitive' to me.
Thank you for the article

Robin

You have made a couple of howlers in this opinionated piece. Tony Abbott is not a recent immigrant, but was born in London of Australian expatriate parents who returned to Australia when he was a young child.

Mr Abbott's reply to a question from a journalist in Sydney was anodyne, and to call them 'ill-timed and sensitive' really only displays your political inclinations. You merely support his comment by stating the 'Tent Embassy needs to have its role and relevance reviewed'.

Storm in teacup much beloved by media and politicians, generating hype, spin and fug to prevent clarity in regard to some really important issues for debate including the need to:
1. reform that other 'modern' institution in Canberra - the Australian Parliament
2. design a new Peoples' Constitution - and to do so in a spirit of cultural partnership with First Peoples.

Australia Day seems to bring out the worst in us. While Tony Abbot's comment was quite bland, but delivered on Australia Day, was ill-timed and insensitive. We need Australia Day to be a time of reflection and unification as well as superficial flag waving nationalism. The timing of Mr Abbot's comment was provocative and divisive. The overreaction was also inexcusable. On another day, and perhaps with slightly different language, it would have passed unnoticed. Sadly, he probably still doesn't realise why it was divisive. We need our leaders to show statesman like qualities, and be honest but in a way that stimulates reflection, discussion and reconciliation. The lack of these qualities in our current politicians does not bode well for the future.

The tent embassy people were saying that only aborigines have a right to occupy australia and as I have heard on several previous occasions said that all other australians are "boat people".

Hello Robin

As others have suggested - isn't Abbott saying exactly what you're saying? And Abbott was simply answering a question from a journalisty - you've actually gone to the effort of writing a piece to say the Embassy may no longer be relevant.

Just worth considering!

Cheers

James

The whole thing is looking like a game of whispers. In the very first news reports there was someone from the Tent Embassy on video saying that Tony Abbott had said the tent embassy should be "bulldozed". This hasn't been reported in the subsequent media. It seems that some one went to the protesters and said something inflammatory and riled the crowd up. A childrens game of he said she said with a nasty outcome and an over reaction on both sides.

The ugliest display of anger that I witnessed came from a cop, who with as much force as could be mustered with one arm, shoved an indigenous person. And I doubt too whether the sanctimonious condemnations of honorary whiteys Mundine and Gooda will have an impact on the 2000 protestors (black and white) who rallied in Canberra on Australia Day.

However, rather than speak to these protestors, Abbott and Gillard did a runner and left the goons to incite the protestors. Understandably it would be difficult for Gillard or Abbott to have appeased an outraged mob by denying that they are indeed, the true representatives of the land-grabbing, anti-native title, anti-environment polluting plunderers - Quarry Australia.

I believe the media's role in this whole schemozzle needs to be assessed. .. as well as the total lack of judgement by the Gillard staffer. Mr Abbott's statement in response to the interviewer was quite measured and acknowledged improvements since the establishment of the orginal embassy - thanks for the outline of this in the above article . However , he lacked the sensitivity to refrain from a comment that could be misinterpreted - just the sort of thing the interviewers were possibly hoping for. And an over-enthusiastic media staffer then leaked to a contact at the Tent Embassy which was seized on by some of the Embassy group spoiling for some more dramatic media exposure which was obligingly provided by the security personnel plus Ms Gillard's bad luck in tripping. Now the event is being labelled a 'riot' by both media and Opposition people , with even the so-called responsible media - Fairfax - giving front page exposure to tendentious reports implying that the reaction to Hodge's confession by staff and PM was inadequate , as well as plenty of exposure to Christopher Pyne and Eric Abetz's calls for police investicgations etc. Apparently there was a marathon meeting of PM's staff on the first available occasion - Friday afternoon , after a busy Australia Day, a flight to Victoria and meeting with Black Saturday survivors and emergency and welfare groups on Friday morning and preparations for the next day's New Zealand trip. Hodges resigned , but recent Fairfax commentary seems to be determined to portray the PM's office and the government as incapable of anything other than bumbling and backdowns . And the TV exposure that went world-wide encouraged more provocative actions by a few aboriginal demonstrators -flag burning etc which really brought out the anti- aboriginal rights prejudice . When media outlets keep on portraying events like the burning of MDBA 's "Guide" by a few Griffith hotheads as representative of irrigators' views, or trucks circling parliament house as any significant comment of the Carbon Reduction legislation we can just expect even more street theatre and even less balance and fairness, it seems.

And according to Michelle Grattan there was an AAP report on Thursday at 1.35 stating that "Tony Abbott says it's time to move the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra" which Ms Grattan goes on to use as evidence that Hodges and the PM might not be truthful in saying that Hodges reported Abbott's words correctly. Fair dinkum. Any admission that the media make mistakes , anyone???

After the restaurant protest on australia day Michael Anderson said "We have been set up!" and blamed Abbott, Gillard staff, and even the occupy movement for the behaviour of the protesters.