Sandon Point Aboriginal Embassy celebrates 10 years
For ten years the Kuradji Sandon Point Aboriginal Tent Embassy (SPATE) has resisted attempts of Wollongong Council and Stockland developers to expand a housing development on the coastline. SPATE is trying to protect a sacred Aboriginal area where the bones of ancestors and old tools were discovered over a decade ago
Last month, the Embassy celebrated ten years of resistance with a festival coinciding with the lunar-solar eclipse.
Wollongong Council acted on a complaint from residents in the new estate and applied to the Land and Environment Court to halt the cultural event. In spite of this, the festival went ahead to local headlines “Council can’t stop the music”. The festival hit the front pages of the local press two days in a row and drew much attention to the fight to resist money-hungry developers cashing in and destroying an area of significant ecological and cultural heritage.
Uncle Dootch, elder and guardian of the Embassy, welcomed visitors to the event. He spoke frequently about the campaign, Council’s corruption and the local and ancient history and creation stories.
The long-weekend festival attracted about 1000 supporters and extended family for the fire ceremonies, cultural workshops and concert including local and visiting bands and DJs. Melbourne hip hop outfit Combat Wombat put on a blistering performance on the Sunday night after Christine Anu’s much publicised and emotional performance.
The celebration of SPATE’s ten years of occupational protest at Sandon Point was a cultural melting pot, ancient and modern blending in harmony, culminating with a beach party to celebrate the rare full-moon eclipse solstice night.
Tony Spanos and the newly revamped Peace Bus and Bondi Board riders came to the event and seeded the idea for a Sandon Point Masters Indigenous surf comp.
SPATE’S efforts to raise awareness of the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage of Sandon Point and leading many legal battles trying to protect the Aboriginal place from threats posed by new residential development in the area is recognised and respected by Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities around Australia and throughout the world.
Apart from the ominous earth moving trucks destroying the hill area just inland from the wetland where the Embassy sits the place is like paradise, with the Embassy shack a stark contrast to the ugly new development in the area.
Days surfing, mixing music, meeting new people, chatting by the fire, sharing food, ideas and music made me think this has to be the future. The mainstream system has no vision for us. It’s up to our many faceted underground to join up and make the minorities a united majority, to co-create a new mantra based on mutual respect for each others’ diversity and the environment that we share.
BY PETER STRONG
