Australia Day an uncomfortable reminder
Into the symmetry and order of Canberra's parliamentary triangle on Monday will flow curry and chai, music, a rainbow tent with rugs and cushions, traditional healing workshops accompanied by a 'healing spirit' campfire billowing smoke. Every January 26 Aboriginal people from all around Australia come to the lawn across from the old Parliament House for an annual corroboree supporting indigenous freedom, at what is arguably one of the world's longest 'occupy' sites in the world, Australia's Aboriginal Tent Embassy. The fracas in 2012 when Julia Gillard lost a blue suede shoe, as a bodyguard whisked her away from the nearby Lobby Restaurant because of misplaced concerns about violence drew the media then, but only until the shoe was returned. (Incidentally, the woman wrongly accused of inciting the 'riot', the highly respected community leader Rosalie Kunoth-Monks, is this year's Northern Territory Australian of the Year and finalist in the na...