TAC tells Rudd to "go back home

Issue 

"Kevin Rudd, go back home, leave us black fellas alone!" 100 protesters yelled as the prime minister sped past in his luxury car on his way to a "community Cabinet meeting" at New Town High School on October 13.

The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre organised the protest. TAC committee member Karlie Olive Burgess Goodwin told Green Left Weekly the protest was to "give support to Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory" suffering under the racist policies of the NT intervention.

She said the government is looking to introduce the same measures in Tasmania. "We don't want it to happen to us and we hate that it's happening to them", she said.

Aboriginal legal field officer Trudy Maluga said: "We're here today to say we want that intervention scrapped and want our independence and self-determination back, we want the Racial Discrimination Act to be reinstated and want Aboriginal land returned to Aborigines."

Police arrested TAC secretary Nala Mansell-McKenna for obstructing police.
Mansell-McKenna told GLW: "We weren't obstructing anyone entering the forum, we just sought to express our opinion." She was bailed to appear in court in January.

Goodwin said that rather than the government continuing the NT intervention, she wanted it "to support the Aboriginal community. [Rudd] has said 'sorry' but done nothing else to support the Aboriginal community."

She said if the intervention was spread to Tasmania she would "fight against it, and continue protesting until they stop the intervention".

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