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Indigenous protesters call for greater recognition on Survival Day
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
9:12:41 AM
By Simon Jenkins
NATIONAL, January 27, 2010: About 100 protesters gathered outside Old Parliament House in Canberra on Tuesday calling for greater recognition of Indigenous people.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd may have issued his formal apology to the Stolen Generations shortly after he took office but many in the Indigenous community believe his words have not been backed by action.
Indigenous elder, Isabelle Coe, who helped establish the Aboriginal tent embassy in 1972, called on Mr Rudd to come down and talk to the group on what they refer to as "Sovereign Day".
"We've been here for 38 years this year," she told the protesters.
"We've been fighting for our rights and we're not going to change."
Ms Coe said former Labor prime minister Gough Whitlam was the only leader to meet with Indigenous elders but because he had tried to enforce change, he was removed from government.
"Come and talk with us Kevin Rudd, come and sit down and talk with us."
Ms Coe was one of six Indigenous people to be arrested last year for trying to stop the culling of 500 kangaroos in the ACT.
"They don't care that these animals are ours because that's how they treat us.
"So Kevin Rudd get your backside down here, this is where the real people are."
Les Coe, her brother, called on all Indigenous people across the country to come together to fight for Indigenous rights and welfare.
"Our mob right across this country have got to start waking up and start standing up and have got to realise it doesn't matter who's in power in this country ... they will not do anything for Aboriginal people," Mr Coe said.
Mr Coe said Labor was as much to blame as the coalition for many Indigenous issues, including the Northern Territory intervention.
"We've got to come out of the dark ages that has been imposed on us by Labor and the coalition governments over the last 40 years in this country.
"They want to keep us in the dark. Well I say it's time we start standing up and say no more to this f****** bullshit."
Marie Bennett, from Lake Mungo, has challenged Mr Rudd to a debate on national television on the federal intervention.
"We've got to take Kevin Rudd and debate him on national television on why he has put on this federal intervention. It is wrong," she said.
Outspoken Indigenous activist Darren Bloomfield said the protest was about "the theft of lands, culture, language, children, and peoples".
"The issue is sovereignty, it is the true, grass roots right of this land," he said. - AAP
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