Land And Connection To Country: The Tent Embassy, Australia 1972

Land and Connection to Country

The Tent Embassy, Australia 1972

On the 26th of January 1972, four indigenous men set up a beach umbrella on the lawns opposite Parliament House in Canberra and calling it the Aboriginal Embassy. Michael Anderson, Billy Craigie, Bertie Williams, and Tony Coorey set up the Aboriginal Embassy to protest the McMahon government’s approach to Indigenous land rights (National Museum Australia, 2022)

The day before the Aboriginal Embassy was set up, the announcement of the implementation of a new system that rejected granting independent ownership of traditional land to Indigenous peoples. This caused the sit-in protest to begin as Indigenous peoples felt like “aliens in our own land, so like other aliens, we needed

They achieved political advocacy through making in impact through influential networks and opinion leaders such as the government and gaining attention from diplomats from countries including Canada and Russia. Through endless protests marches, growing support from Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australians and gaining media attention political advocacy was achieved. The Tent Embassy was further used to advocated for funding for Aboriginal communities, the political representation of Indigenous Australians, self-determination, and Aboriginal sovereignty of Australia, further expressing political advocacy. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, in the area of foundational rights, more specifically in article 1 and article 5, The Tent Embassy embodies these key points of having “the right to full enjoyment, as a collective or as individuals, of all human rights and fundamental freedoms” (Article 1, UNDRIP, 2007) as the traditional owners of Australia. In Article 5 it explores the “right to maintain and strengthen their distinct political, legal, economic, social and cultural institutions” (Article 5, UNDRIP, 2007) in Australia which is vital in advocating for Indigenous rights in restoring the connection to land and

This largely untouched land is now currently now collaboratively owned by the Tasmanian Aboriginal community, the Tasmanian Land Conservancy, the Australian Government and the TAC, the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre. This collaborative ownership process began through TAC, the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, which from funding from the government they were able to acquire this land with the assistance of these other organisations. This Gowan Brae holds a vast, diverse, and largely pristine property of land that was returned to the Indigenous community to share stories, connect to country, and make discoveries about their traditional lands (Tasmanian Times,