This is a speech given by Sam Waiburra Watson outside Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers office in Logan Central on 9 February 2024. The speech is important because it contains a rebuttal of prominent aboriginal leaders (Langton, Peris, Pearson) who have sided with Israel’s genocide in Gaza claiming falsely that Israelis are indigenous to Palestine. Nova Peris condemned those aboriginal activists like Sam Watson who carried the Palestinian flag alongside aboriginal flags on Invasion Day. Sam vows to do this again calling out the Zionist narrative adopted by the christian Nova Peris. All power to Sam and others who see this as one struggle, one fight. – Ian Curr, Ed., 12 Feb 2024.
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Phil Monsour: I’d like to acknowledge that we’re here on the unceded lands of the First Nations people and we respect their continued resistance and their ownership of this country.
Sam Waiburra
Thank you, Phil. I, I also want to make that acknowledgement. But I want to make that acknowledgement as a statement of solidarity. That acknowledgement needs to be a commitment to fight against colonialism, and to fight for land rights and self-determination. And, you know, could justice for Aboriginal people? You know, and, and I think that I can say that I know a thing or two about that myself. I’ve organized deaths in custody rallies, I’ve organized climate justice rallies, I’ve sat with families who have lost family and with who’ve lost family members in custody to the police and prison officers.
I’ve organized invasion day. You know, and I’ve obviously been coming to these Palestinian rallies.
And what I can say with pretty much you know, absolute surety is that I do more for my community without being paid than any Aboriginal politician in the Labor Party. I think that the likes the likes of, you know, Marcia Langton and Noel Pearson, you know, are the scum of this earth. They have put themselves in elevated positions of power, and have left the community in slums that have and you have politicians like Nova Peris, who tries to say that people bringing an Aboriginal flag to a Palestine rallies are misappropriating Aboriginal peoples flag, I say shame on her. I brought this flag here today (aboriginal flag). I brought this flag (Palestinian) here today. I said the Palestinians should match with us on invasion day with their flags, and I will do that every rally. Nova Peris is the Zionist mouthpiece. That’s all she is. She doesn’t speak for Aboriginal people any more than Scomo on Tony Abbott. She sold her soul when she came part of the Labor Party. Absolutely. And I say to other Labor Party members that they sold their souls too.
A few months ago, when I spoke at a vigil in Brisbane against this genocide. I said that Labor is a party of genocide, I said that they have supported this genocide, I said that they are accomplices. And I said it bears responsible as Israel because they’ve allowed Israel to do what they’re doing. And instead of taking this off, instead of instead of taking this on as a valid criticism, because it is people like Graeme Perrett (Member for Moreton), who call themselves Labor Friends of Palestine, instead wanted to target me and trying to scapegoat me. When Palestinians were questioning him about why their families haven’t been granted visas. How can you call yourself a friend of Palestine and then turn away from that criticism? There are no friends of Palestine in labor. There are no friends of Aboriginal people in Labor. It’s the Labor Party don’t lock up our kids on longer bail conditions before they’ve been convicted. Just like Palestinian kids who were thrown into prisons without a trial. It is the Labor Party that steal and destroy our land by selling it off to mining companies, just like Israel has taken Palestinians land. So Jim Chalmers, I think you deserve a nickname. I think that we should call you genocide. Jim. You’re supplied. You supply Israel with weapons, you supply Israel with ideological cover and you have cut funding to aid going to Palestine. You are the scum of the earth. And we should we should be proud that just by calling this mobilization, we forced them to close the office for three days.
I saw that video that Nova Peris posted yesterday or this morning rather, and I just had to get that off my chest. I’m also a organizer with a collective called Shutdown Ferra. We are a group of Brisbane activists who came together late last year start organizing around weapons company that’s based in Tingalpa are called Ferra Engineering and they make the mechanisms that drop bombs from F-35s. And these are planes that Israel uses to drop 900 kilogram bombs on Gaza. And Ferra is the only company in the world that makes these mechanisms. So, you know, you can bet that the mechanisms that released those bombs on schools and hospitals were built right here in Brisbane. So, a group of people on the 8th of January entered Ferra, and they pressed all of the emergency stop buttons on their machinery and shut down the factory. Because this is an emergency, people are losing their lives in the 1000s in the 10s of 1000s. And you know, they are losing their lives because of machines that were made in that factory. Because these emergency stop buttons, you know, are meant for emergencies, and they don’t let the machine powered down in enough time. All of the machines had to be reset, and one machine is now inoperable in that factory. [Applause]
And while two weeks later, five activists were arrested for that action. Something you know of a silver lining is we found out that Ferra has been struggling to meet their business contracts and government agreements since that factory shut down.[Applause].
So I wanted to get up to today. And you know, ask you all you know, to be a part of that. We’ve done two pickets of Ferra since the occupation and shutdown of the factory floor, both lasted about two hours. And you know, stopped any trucks from delivering or picking up anyways, from Ferra. We are planning more actions. So if you want to find out more and get involved, please find shut down Ferra on Instagram and Facebook. JFP (Justice for Palestine) has shared some of those posts. And you know, if you can’t find shut down Ferra go to JP and look through their posts. This is this is something that has been done in other parts of the world. You know, in the UK, a group called Palestine Action shut down several factories and head offices of a company called Elbit who makes drones and missiles and surveillance systems for the IDF. Their head office in London was shut down at a factory in Oldham shut down and had to sell another factory, I believe, because it was just becoming too untenable. So I don’t think that it is outside the realm of possibility that we can shut down Ferra.
And I want to say one last thing is that this struggle is not just the Palestinian struggle, this is an Aboriginal struggle. And in the same way, it is a struggle for all those who want justice, for all those who want peace, for all those who want an end to colonialism. The machines that are made here in Australia, that are sent to Israel are not done out of the kindness of Australia’s heart. Australia gets the things that Israel makes back, I think are at 80% of Israel’s exports are military exports, things like surveillance, unmanned drones, facial ID you know, things that are used to repress populations through the police and as well as this, the IDF also trains the Australian police.
You know, if you look here, you see how many cops for us, you see how many cop cars over there for us, and you know that they are not here to protect us. You know that it was revealed. It was revealed last week that the police fed a 15 year old boy who had autism and a fixation on the Islamic State, they fed him extremist material and entrapped him. And they found him because his parents went to the police because they were concerned. They were concerned about their son and they went to the police to get help and the police entrapped him.
The police can do that so effectively, because they have the technology. We need to fight against Zionism, not just because it is an unspeakable evil that destroys so many lives, but because it affects our lives, it affects our lives right here in Australia. And it will keep sinking its claws in around the world until it is stopped. Just like Australia will not stop, you know, interfering in Palestine, or West Papua until we make it.
So I want you to make that commitment today to not just fight for Palestinian Liberation, and to not just see Palestinian Liberation as something that you are doing for someone else but as something that you were doing for yourself and your friends and your family and your community. Thank you for having me. Hope to see you all connect at the next rally here and the next Justice for Palestine rally and at the next aboriginal rally. Thank you.