ABSTRACT
With its flags fluttering proudly in the breeze, the Aboriginal Embassy on the lawns opposite the Federal Parliament has been one of the most successful press and parliamentary lobbies in Australian political history. The tent conference with Federal Opposition Leader, Mr Whitlam, turned out to be one of the greatest coups ever for the Aboriginal advancement movement. Very much to the Embassy’s credit is the fact that it managed to get such a heavy commitment from a party seemingly so close to power. Discussion with the Federal Opposition leader centred on the Embassy’s five-point plan for land rights:
Control of the Northern Territory as a State within the Commonwealth of Australia; the parliament in the NT to be predominantly Aboriginal with title and mining rights to all land within the Territory.
Legal title and mining rights to all other presently existing reserve settlements throughout Australia.
The preservation of all sacred sites throughout Australia.
Legal title and mining rights to areas in and around all Australian capital cities.
Compensation monies for lands not returnable to take the form of a down-payment of six billion dollars and an annual percentage of gross national income.
While the front lawn conference fell far short of gaining everything the Embassy had asked, it nevertheless went a great deal further than most people had expected. At a press conference immediately after the discussion, Mr Whitlam said that a Labor Government would be committed to a ‘properly representative body in the Northern Territory with full legislative powers’; to a ‘complete reversal of the present Government’s land rights policy where it denies corporate title to reserve lands’; and to the ‘protection of all those areas of spiritual significance to the original inhabitants of this country’. Paul Coe questions Prime Minister Gough Whitlam at the Aboriginal Embassy, 8 February 1972. Photograph: Leith Duncan. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203771235/9f7c5dd1-3f97-4f6d-bfc5-d707430cb6e0/content/fig9_1_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> Source: Gary Foley Collection.