kathleenjoy:

This made my Invasion Day.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard dragged away from a restaurant by security after protestors from the Aboriginal Tent Embassy gathered and banged on the glass walls, yelling “shame” and “racist”. This was in response to comments by Opposition Leader Tony Abbott that the Tent Embassy should close. He actually said, “I think a lot has changed for the better since then…I think it probably is time to move on from that.”

This year is the 40th Anniversary of the Tent Embassy. Another “Australia Day” passes without acknowledgement of invasion, colonialism, genocide, massacres or frontier wars. A government that upholds systems of apartheid in jails and income quarantining and the Northern Territory Intervention; and deaths in custody; and forcing people to move off their homelands; and education and health inequalities, and dying languages and schools where children learn only english; and mining companies stealing and raping land and telling traditional owners they should work on their stolen land to end a so called “welfare mentality”. Happy fucking Australia Day. We still don’t have a treaty and Indigenous peoples never ceded sovereignty. We are not a post-colonial country.

I’m glad the protesters were there yesterday after Opposition Leader Tony Abbott suggested the Aboriginal Tent Embassy take dismantle their tents after 40 years on probably the most controversial day of the year. It’s a shame though that Julia got dragged into it when the target was Mr Abbott. But this is what happens I guess.