I COMMEND the Advertiser for publishing Ditchy’s excellent cartoon, “The Tent Embassy Aborigines didn’t want’’, January 31.
As to the question following the “Unruly protest was a disgrace” editorial of
January 28, I would like to point out that the reaction of some of the people commemorating the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the Embassy to Mr Abbott’s provocative statement, especially as conveyed to the commemorators, should be of no surprise to anyone.
Especially given the coalition’s past record of opposition to the Tent Embassy, including ordering the police to forcibly remove it on the July 20, 1972, to land rights, native title and now to the proposed recognition of Aboriginal peoples in the body of the constitution.
To me the facts that no members of the parliament attended this important commemoration, no government official bothered to address the demonstrators to assure them of government’s support for the embassy and that we still persist in celebrating Australia Day on the day that marks the beginning of the invasion, disposition, killings and oppression of the indigenous peoples of this their land is the real disgrace.
STANISLAW PELCZYNSKI,
Kennington
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