There must be another event on. Perhaps something on the Futsal slab, or at Regatta Point. It was Sunday morning at 11.30. Perhaps something at the Bishop’s house. There were a lot of cars and the number seemed to be swelling.
I had three reasons for being on the northern side of Commonwealth Avenue Bridge. The first was reconciliation. As a white Australia I would like to see the Government that represents me make a statement that it and we are sorry for past injustices to the indigenous people of Australia. Why now, and not earlier in our history? Because of the report by Sir Ronald Wilson into the Stolen Generations. Sure, you can quibble over the some of evidentiary details like former Aboriginal Affairs Minister Peter Howson, but the tale is essentially true: a huge number of Aboriginal children were taken from their parents to be assimilated into white society.
Coming from the southside I turned under the bridge and into the Regatta Point carpark. I was early. Before long the left lane both north and southbound of the bridge were at a standstill. So what else was going on here? It was extraordinarily cold. The lowest May maximum on record. Despite the mythology of negative minimum temperatures advertised to the rest of Australia every winter’s news bulletin, Canberra is not a cold city. It has low wind and high winter daytime temperatures. Who cares if it is minus 3 at 3am? But plus 4 in the middle of the day is bitter. And still the crowd built up.
Yes; they were all here for the reconciliation walk which was to start at noon. They were also asserting the inalienable right of all Canberrans to leave home at the most 20 minutes before the start of an event and to park free for as long as they like 50 metres from it. That right was being denied today.
My second reason for being there was also to assert a Canberra viewpoint. The nation’s capital is Canberra, not Sydney. We should not be seen as a suburb of Sydney, so we should have our own expression in favour a reconciliation. This was view put by Robert Macklin in his Capital Times column last Wednesday. His phone ran hot. Yes, we should have our own walk. No-one else was pushing it, so he ran another item last Friday saying, well, let’s do it. WIN-TV picked it up for its Friday night bulletin. We ran a snippet on Saturday and Sunday, and ABC radio picked it up in early radio bulletins on Sunday morning. So that was a third reason for walking: to add my little bit for it not being a fizzer.
The crowd continued to build up. And at noon we walked. Up from Regatta Point to Commonwealth Avenue Bridge. It soon became apparent that the bottle neck on the approach to the eastern footpath was too narrow. We would need to take the left traffic lane as well. The walkers, now 5000-strong, took the whole bridge. The AFP did some quick rethinking. They wisely stopped all the south bound traffic.
The last time I had marched across Commonwealth Avenue Bridge in protest was 30 years previously – the Vietnam moratorium. There were perhaps a similar or greater number.
But that was different. It had had a huge publicity build-up. And it was a protest against something rather than an expression for something. (Though, I suspect there was a fair sentiment of protest against the Prime Minister mixed up with general pro-reconciliation sentiment.)
It was extraordinary. Four tiny press items, a couple of TV bulletin mentions and a mention in a radio bulletin had got 5000 Canberrans on the street. And bear in mind, a huge number who felt passionate about the issue had gone to Sydney anyway.
The Prime Minister has misread this morally and politically. In concentrating on the bush he is preaching to the converted among 20 to 25 seats most of which the conservatives hold comfortably. The swinging voters in suburban seats hold the key, and there are many more of them than regional and rural seats.
The critical thing about reconciliation (and other emotional issues) is they can be vote-changing on that issue alone. Vietnam took many otherwise conservative voters to Labor. So might reconciliation. Many city conservative voters might cop a term or two of Labor’s inevitable economic mismanagement to get this moral issue right.Then again, some of the Prime Minister’s party colleagues might find another solution for a leader so out of touch.
There must be another event on. Perhaps something on the Futsal slab, or at Regatta Point. It was Sunday morning at 11.30. Perhaps something at the Bishop’s house. There were a lot of cars and the number seemed to be swelling. I had three reasons for being on the northern side of Commonwealth Avenue Bridge. The first was reconciliation. As a white Australia I would like to see the Government that represents me make a statement that it and we are sorry for past injustices to the indigenous people of Australia. Why now, and not earlier in our history? Because of the report by Sir Ronald Wilson into the Stolen Generations. Sure, you can quibble over the some of evidentiary details like former Aboriginal Affairs Minister Peter Howson, but the tale is essentially true: a huge number of Aboriginal children were taken from their parents to be assimilated into white society. Coming from the southside I turned under the bridge and into the Regatta Point carpark. I was early. Before long the left lane both north and southbound of the bridge were at a standstill. So what else was going on here? It was extraordinarily cold. The lowest May maximum on record. Despite the mythology of negative minimum temperatures advertised to the rest of Australia every winter’s news bulletin, Canberra is not a cold city. It has low wind and high winter daytime temperatures. Who cares if it is minus 3 at 3am? But plus 4 in the middle of the day is bitter. And still the crowd built up. Yes; they were all here for the reconciliation walk which was to start at noon. They were also asserting the inalienable right of all Canberrans to leave home at the most 20 minutes before the start of an event and to park free for as long as they like 50 metres from it. That right was being denied today. My second reason for being there was also to assert a Canberra viewpoint. The nation’s capital is Canberra, not Sydney. We should not be seen as a suburb of Sydney, so we should have our own expression in favour a reconciliation. This was view put by Robert Macklin in his Capital Times column last Wednesday. His phone ran hot. Yes, we should have our own walk. No-one else was pushing it, so he ran another item last Friday saying, well, let’s do it. WIN-TV picked it up for its Friday night bulletin. We ran a snippet on Saturday and Sunday, and ABC radio picked it up in early radio bulletins on Sunday morning. So that was a third reason for walking: to add my little bit to it not being a fizzer. And the crowd continued to build up. At noon we walked. Up from Regatta Point to Commonwealth Avenue Bridge. It soon became apparent that the bottle neck on the approach to the eastern footpath was too narrow. We would need to take the left traffic lane as well. The walkers, now 5000-strong, took the whole bridge. The Australian Federal Police did some quick rethinking. They wisely stopped all the south bound traffic. The last time I had marched across Commonwealth Avenue Bridge in protest was 30 years previously – the Vietnam moratorium. There were perhaps a similar or greater number. But that was different. It had had a huge publicity build-up. And it was a protest against something rather than an expression for something. (Though, I suspect there was a fair sentiment of protest against the stand by the Prime Minister on reconciliation mixed up in the sentiment for reconciliation.) It was extraordinary. Four tiny press items, a couple of TV bulletin mentions and a mention in a radio bulletin had got 5000 Canberrans on the street. And bear in mind, a huge number who felt passionate about the issue had gone to Sydney anyway. The Prime Minister has misread this, morally and politically. In concentrating on the bush he is preaching to the converted among 20 to 25 seats most of which the conservatives hold comfortably. The swinging voters in suburban seats hold the key to elections, and there are many more of them than regional and rural seats. And the critical thing about reconciliation (and other emotional issues) is they can be vote-changing on that issue alone. Vietnam took many otherwise conservative voters to Labor. So might reconciliation. Many conservative voters might cop a term or two of Labor’s inevitable economic mismanagement to get this moral issue right.