This wide, brown, racist land

It was at this stage that I felt that to do nothing - as was my intention - was in fact an exercise in condoning what had taken place.

I posted a media release the afternoon my concerned relatives visited. The story was initially picked up the following day by my local ABC Radio station and it snow balled from there.

Most newspapers did a story on the controversy or ran the Australian Associated Press (AAP) coverage of it during the next couple of days before A Current Affair (ACA) decided they wanted a piece of the action.

Although initially apprehensive about the angle the commercially-geared ACA was going to take on the story, I did agree, after some assurances were made, to assist them in their presentation.

I was somewhat relieved that the finished product shown nationally on Channel 9 not only subjected the flyer’s author to ridicule from Indigenous people but also provided a platform for Cunnamulla’s non-Indigenous population to vilify him for attracting such bad publicity to their small community.

This is Mayoral aspirant Kevin Wise’s suggestion:

I will petition the federal government to offer 25 “indigenous” families $50,000 each to relocate any-where away from the Paroo shire and for their places to be allocated to 25 non English speaking Vietnamese peasant families with upwards of 100 sub teen children on a five year contract to remain in the Cunnamulla area.

I guarantee that within that five years these families will have advanced this shire's wealth and future prosperity out of all proportion to that achieved to date with the integration on totally racial grounds of this “dead in the water”, last one leaving “turn out the lights” community.

It was also dismissed by a representative of the Vietnamese community in Brisbane for being divisive and offensive.

In Alice Springs the Haven Backpacker Hostel joint owner, Greg Zammit issued a statement of apology for the alleged racism of the 16 Aboriginal people evicted from his hostel because other tourists were scared of them.

The resort manager told Bethany Langdon from the Yuendumu Young Leaders program the group would have to leave.

“The manager came out and told me that we weren’t suitable to stay there,” she told ABC1’s Lateline program.

“They said, because you’re Aboriginal, other tourists were making complaints that they were scared of us.