Are Julia Gillard, Tony Hodges and the Tent Embassy ambassadors the most stupid politicians in Australia?
SO. What really happened in the Australia Day protest that saw the county’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition leader Tony Abbott besieged by the Aborigine Tent Embassy in Canberra?
Well, the agressors know:
An Aboriginal community leader who was at the protest, Fred Hooper, said the event had been peaceful until Mr Abbott made his remarks.
“The opposition leader on national television made a comment to tear down something that have built over 40 years, which is sacred to us,’’ he said. “So what do you expect us to do when we’re 200 yards away from the person that makes that comment? Do you expect us to say, ‘yeah Tony we’re gonna do that now? We’re gonna rip it down?’”
The Tent Embassy founder Michael Anderson added:
“He said the aboriginal embassy had to go, we heard it on a radio broadcast.”
Is that what Tony Abbott said? No:
Before yesterday’s havoc, Mr Abbott, speaking in Sydney, was asked whether the embassy, which sits in a park opposite Canberra’s Old Parliament House, should be dismantled. The Opposition Leader said: “The indigenous people of Australia can be very proud of the respect in which they are held by every Australian. I think a lot has changed since then, and I think it probably is time to move on from that.”
The Sun hears a different version:
Embassy founder Michael Anderson said Mr Abbott’s comments were disrespectful.
He said: “He said the aboriginal embassy had to go, we heard it on a radio broadcast. We thought, no way, so we circled around the building.”
So. Why was Julia Gillard attacked? In the kerfuffle, she lost a shoe as about 200 protesters began “banging on the three glass sides of The Lobby restaurant chanting ‘shame’’ and ‘racist’’:
Protester Gwenda Stanley of Moree almost tried the shoe on before changing her mind. “I don’t want to walk in the shoes of a dead woman!” Ms Stanley joked, referring to Ms Gillard’s unpopularity.
Dead? The facts are getting blurry. Gillard is alive. And about the aforesaid radio broadcast:
The Prime Minister is yet to respond today to a report that one of her staffers rang an Aboriginal tent embassy protester yesterday to say Tony Abbott wanted the camp torn down.
An announcement by protester Barbara Shaw that Mr Abbott wanted the tent embassy removed sparked a near riot, forcing Ms Gillard and the Opposition leader to flee a Canberra restaurant.
Sydney radio presenter Ray Hadley today said he’d received information that Ms Shaw or another protester had received a call from a Gillard staffer about comments Mr Abbott made earlier in the day about the tent embassy.
“Once she was told that, she was also told Mr Abbott was across the road, ‘maybe you can give them a bit of a liven up’,” the 2GB presenter told his audience today.
Oh?
Here we go:
A senior media adviser within the Prime Minister’s staff has been forced to resign after tipping off protesters about Tony Abbott’s remarks over the Canberra tent embassy.
Tony Hodges, who has been on Julia Gillard’s staff since July 2009, admitted making a phone call alerting a person to the Opposition Leader’s comments.
That person then contacted people at the tent embassy, sparking ugly scenes that have gone around the world.
The revelation is a major embarrassment for the PM, who this morning denied any knowledge her staff were involved.
Gillard isn’t dead. But her political career must be on life support…
A group of Aboriginal protesters hit the headlines again today after they set fire to the Australian flag outside the country’s Parliament in Canberra. A video captured showed protesters outside Parliament setting light to the flag and spitting on it while chanting, ‘Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.’
And that shoe?
The shoe – a dark blue, size 36 Midas pump – has been handed to an Aboriginal elder, Pat Eatock, who says Ms Gillard should collect it within a week or it will be sold on ebay. A shoe purported to be Ms Gillard’s fetched bids of £1400 today before it was removed from sale. “I see it sitting like Cinderella’s shoe in a glass case in a museum 10 years from now as this is part of the history of race relations in Australia,” said Ms Eatock, 75, who was the first Aboriginal woman to seek election to Parliament.
Says Gillard:
“I’m in the fortunate situation where I am a woman with a few pairs of shoes.”
With passions already enflamed the Gillard camp’s Tony Hodges chucks in a bomb? Are these the most stupid politicians on the planet?
Note: Still want to be Republic, Australia? President Gillard?
Posted: 27th, January 2012 | In: Politicians Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
