Police attacked the Goori Camp Embassy and other culture defenders on May 29 during Reconciliation Week to pave the way for construction work on an Olympic stadium at Barrambin/Victoria Park.
This was only the first of many incursions over the May 30-31 weekend and the following week. The Camp has been disrupted and developers have fenced off large areas of the park but the Sacred Fire still burns.
The police action came ahead of a May 31 rally to save the park from destruction and in the context of a widely advertised invitation to activists and supporters to camp overnight on May 31 to prevent construction equipment from entering the Park on June 1.
At 1am on June 1, Embassy representatives and allies were painted in ceremonial ochre and gathered around the Sacred Fire (which had been burning continuously for more than 70 days) when police arrived and removed activists from the site.
Police allege that people with the Embassy were trespassing. Embassy spokesperson, Deejay, disputes this charge.
The Embassy has now moved to the last accessible corner of Barrambin/Victoria Park.
“Our peaceful resistance at this camp sits against colonial processes and injustices like increased cost of living, preparation for the Olympics, communal gentrification and other legislative violence enacted by systemic control,” the Embassy says at its Chuffed account.
Celebrating western sports on these lands of First Nations peoples risks “paving over and neglecting interconnections throughout the city”, it said.
Police continue to harass activists who are monitoring developer actions and still working to save the park.
The state government development plans (that have the support of the Brisbane City Council, both controlled by the Liberal National Party) involve cutting down hundreds of trees in the giant, inner city park and filling in a massive gully.
There is widespread public opposition to the plan to build stadiums in the park and premier David Crissafulli explicitly promised before the last election that he would not do so.
The May 31 rally went ahead with well over 500 people taking part (1000 according to organisers).
This community is serious about protecting Barrambin/Victoria Park, they said.
Among other speakers, hated former premier Campbell Newman, who is now a member of the Libertarian Party, spoke at the rally.
“Do you feel like you might be on the right side of history, ladies and gentlemen?” he asked the crowd.
“Because those people were back then, and over the years since we’ve all heard how terrible it was that Brisbane lost such heritage. That is what’s happening here: we are about to lose something precious to an act of barbarism and expedient political calculation.”
Former Greens councillor, Jonathan Sriranganathan reminded people that “it’s not too late to stop the stadiums” in a June 1 social media post.
“There are still numerous pathways open to prevent this project going ahead, and to save the money and construction resources for more important things like domestic violence shelters or regional public transport infrastructure or whatever else we as Queenslanders think is most worthwhile,” he said.
The most promising, he suggested is to pressure the federal Labor government to either pull pull the $3.4 billion they’re contributing to Olympic venue construction, or to put conditions on it.
