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Aboriginal Legal Service won’t help Musgrave Tent Embassy By Callum Clayton-Dixon Nganyaywana
[Kevin Vieritz] for defending the Embassy’s sacred fire. Standing between them and the fire, Mr Arjin told Brisbane City Council workers they “weren’t getting through” and was subsequently detained by police for “breaching the peace”.
The CEO of Queensland’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service (ATSILS) said last month his organization would refuse assistance to members of Musgrave Park’s Tent “I’ve spoken to everyone in Embassy because of “opposition the family, and there’s no elder in by traditional owners”. the Jaggera clan who opposes the Below are two excerpts from Shane Embassy,” said Mr Vieritz, a longtime Duffy’s response on February 6 this sovereign-rights campaigner. year to an enquiry about why ATSILS In an interview with Brisbane’s would not provide Kooma man Dennis 4ZZZ, Jaggera man James Bonner Wharton with legal assistance. praised the Embassy, labelling it “a very In the eyes of a number of important and useful tool that provides traditional owners, Mr Duffy’s claims traditional owners with a voice”. were simply not true. The tribal “The people involved with the groups that lay claim to the Musgrave tent embassy are giving up their time Park area include the Jaggera, and effort, and they’re helping to Yuggera and Turrubal peoples. advance Australia more fairly,” said On 18 December 2012, police Mr Bonner. “They’re doing it for arrested Jaggera elder Arjin Warrugara traditional Aboriginal people.”
DUFFY: Traditional Owners don’t want Embassy on their land
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JAGGERA ELDER: I support the Embassy 100% the Embassy and support it.” Ms Bonner-Bray suggested First Nations people would be better off asking for assistance from mainstream legal services “because they’ll get more help there”. Yuggera woman Karen Coghill questioned whether ATSILS was putting the same conditions on “the rest of black Brisbane”. “ATSILS is atrocious,” she said. “We should start our own legal service.” Ms Coghill, one of the original members of the Embassy, also noted that she didn’t like the term ‘traditional owner’ because “it’s a Native Title reference, a white man’s label”. “The Native Title applicants should never been included in any decision making in the Musgrave Park area, because that just gave way to controversy,” she said. “Native Title is blackfellas agreeing with the government to put our land, our culture and our spirituality underneath this foreign regime that has no legitimacy in these lands.” Ms Coghill said the whole of Musgrave Park should be recognized as an embassy for First Nations people. Yuggera elder Eddie Ruska also reaffirmed his support for the Embassy. On 18 December 2012, police arrested Jaggera elder Arjin Warrugara [Kevin Vieritz] for defending the Embassy’s sacred fire. Mr Vieritz says “there’s no elder in the Jaggera clan who opposes the Embassy”. IMAGE: Brendon Qu
“I don’t know who they’re Jaggera woman Madonna Thomson believes “a lot of the talking about,” she said. “It’s really traditional owners do support the weak grounds for Duffy to refuse Embassy and recognize what it Aboriginal people legal aid.” represents and its value”. According to Jaggera elder “Duffy needs to do his research Caroline Bonner-Bray, ATSILS and talk to people who have “should be ashamed”. registered claims over the area,” said “The Embassy is making a Ms Thomson. statement to the world that we’ve been According to Ms Thomson, ATSILS “hasn’t been forthcoming in disclosing who these traditional owners are [referred to in Duffy’s letter]”.
forgotten, and that we’re still here. They should have the right to light a fire there. I support their statement 100%. Everyone should get behind
Yuggera Elder Des Sandy on the other hand, maintained his position that the Embassy had “lost its way” and was hijacked by outsiders. Turrubal Elder Joe Kirk spoke out against the Embassy at a meeting with Brisbane City Mayor Graham Quirk on December 5 last year. Turrubal song and law woman Maroochy Barambah declined to comment at this time. Veteran black activist Wayne ‘Coco’ Wharton said a recent court decision was the proof in the pudding that the embassy was in fact supported by the traditional owners of Musgrave Park.