Thousands of First Nations people and allies marked Invasion Day on Ngunnawal and Ngambri country, marching to the Aboriginal Tent Embassy outside Old Parliament House. Elliott Guerrero reports.
Wayne Wharton
Uncle Wayne Wharton told Green Left that the federal Coalition government are hypocrites for spending millions of dollars marking James Cook’s 1770 landing on the east coast. He said First Nations communities are “totally insulted” by the millions of dollars being spent on the celebrations.
Prominent Aboriginal elder Wayne Wharton is making a tilt for the senate in Queensland this election, campaigning on issues such as justice for Aboriginal people, justice reinvestment and an improved aged care system.
Wharton told Green Left Weekly: “The systems that we’ve had for the last 230 years is broken, they’re useless.”
These include the legal system which, he says, is based on a “feudal system of punishment” instead of rehabilitation, and the two-party system, in which the big parties have become dominated by “top-end-of-town corruption”.