Violence predicted from Aborigines

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32975, 22 July 1972, Page 15

Violence predicted from Aborigines

( N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

BRISBANE, July 21.

Australia’s first and only Aboriginal member of the Federal Parliament, Senator Neville Bonner (Queensland), has predicted an upsurge in black-power violence in Australia after the removal of an Aboriginal tent “embassy” on the lawns of Parliament House in Canberra.

Police removed the embassy in a violent struggle’ with demonstrators yesterday on the Gazetting of an ordinance prohibiting Aborigines from camping on Federal property.

“I just can’t see how violence can be avoided now,” Senator Bonner said in an interview from Charters Towers, 992 miles north-west of Brisbane. Senator Bonner is on a “Meet the people” tour of Queensland. He criticised the Government for enforcing the ordinance under which the police acted, and said he had been assured by colleagues in the Liberal Party that nothing would happen while Parliament was in recess.

“They knew my feelings on the matter; I wanted the right to have this ordinance debated in Parliament,” he said.

GUERRILLAS TRAINING The former spokesman for the Aboriginal embassy, Mr John Newfong, says that his people will ask African and Asian States to bring a censure motion against Australia at the next Commonwealth Prime Ministers' conference, to “throw Australia out of the Commonwealth” because of its racism. To a demonstration at Parliament House, Canberra, Mr Newfong said that Aborigines with patience had "just about given up the so-called correct channels.” He said that there was an Aboriginal guerrilla movement with people being trained at centres in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. “There are governments

outside Australia anxious to see the guerrillas successful,” he said. He did not elaborate. ARRESTS, INJURIES Police moved against the embassy and tents yesterday after the Gazetting of the new ordinance yesterday morning empowering them to evict the Aborigines. Four Aboriginal youths, an Aboriginal girl and three white supporters were ar-

rested when fighting broke out Between police and demonstrators. Two of the demonstrators and seven of the squad of 50 police were injured in the struggle, police said later.

The embassy was first set up on Australia’s national day this year—January 26—to protest against white Australians’ treatment of Aborigines. It was in response to defeat for the Aborigines in the High Court in a test case over tribal land rights. The embassy at one stage had 11 tents with a semipermanent population of about 15 Aborigines but was reduced to about six Aborigines and five tents in the chill Canberra winter. “SOMETHING GAINED” Political observers in Canberra say that the Aboriginal campaign to spur the white Australian conscience has had remarkable success. The Opposition Australian Labour Party has pledged itself to grant tribal title over traditional hunting grounds should it become the Government, while the present Government has agreed to grant leaseholds for Aboriginal agricultural projects. Health services for Aborigines supervised by the Federal Government have been improved also. DEBATE WANTED The Leader of the Opposition (Mr Gough Whitlam) has criticised the Government’s move, saying it had acted “forcibly and furtively” against the embassy. His party has lodged a notice of motion for disallowance of the ordinance. It will bring an urgency motion to have the issue debated when Parliament resumes in August.