This is the second major government attack on Aboriginal sovereignty in Brisbane Magan-djin in the past 15 years. The first came in 2012, when hundreds of police moved on the Aboriginal Sovereign Embassy at Musgrave Park. Staunch Aboriginal resistance held the line and secured continuing control of the DOGIT area at the northern end of the park, including Jagera Arts Centre and the sacred fire.
Ironically, Queensland Premier Campbell Newman, who now says he supports saving Barrambin/Victoria Park, initiated the police attack on Musgrave Park on the very first day of his government. The pretext then was the Paniyiri Greek Festival.
Unfortunately, after the first occupation in 2012, the Aboriginal Cultural Centre promised by successive governments was never built. The $11 million set aside for the project was redirected elsewhere. The old tennis courts, intended to form the foundation of the Cultural Centre, remain on the site as a reminder of that broken promise.
At the time, the movement was not strong enough to bring the project to fruition, despite Uncle Sam Watson securing an undertaking from then Deputy Premier Jackie Trad that the Cultural Centre would be built if Labor were re-elected. That commitment was never honoured.
The Cultural Centre therefore remains an unfinished but vital expression of Aboriginal self-determination and economic independence in Magan-djin. If Brisbane is to host the Olympics and welcome international visitors, an Aboriginal-run Cultural Centre would be an obvious and meaningful investment — a place of cultural exchange, and a source of employment and opportunity for Aboriginal artists, performers, organisers and community.
Something positive for a change must come out of these struggles.
I can remember as a boy, on cross-country runs through Victoria Park, passing alongside the wetland known as York’s Hollow. Even then it felt distinct from the rest of the park — lower ground, damp underfoot, with water lingering in the reeds and paperbarks.
Barrambin was never just open parkland or a golf course. York’s Hollow was part of a living wetland and spring system long before the golf course was laid out, and long before the city spread around it.
It is something Aboriginal people have held onto for generations. Not far along breakfast creek there were Aboriginal encampments all the way up to where it meets the Brisbane river, the Maiwar. This is where Newstead House stands today overlooking the Hamilton reach once rich in fish, prawns, and bird life. Some things we should just leave alone. At Hamilton near North Point there are great stretches of concrete by the riverside probably about a venue for an Olympic stadium. In the avarice they intend to destroy the parkland, the trees, and the wildlife.
I think there was a farm nearby on the edges of hill and creek, on the other side of the Herston medical school — were there market gardens and cultivated ground supplying produce into Brisbane, I wonder? The area was once part of a much broader landscape of water, cultivation and gathering: wetlands, camps, gardens and pathways, all before it was drained, filled and remade into parkland. This area is now occupied by Northey Street City farm beside what used to be at industrial area housing print shops and car workshops and the junk that went with it. Not pretty.
Springbok apartheid tour. In response to a government declaration of a state of emergency, several hundred students, trade unionists, anti-apartheid activists and community supporters gathered in and around Victoria Park near the Exhibition Grounds. Police had sealed off the RNA and much of the surrounding area, but the protest continued to build throughout the day.
Victoria Park became a staging ground for resistance. Demonstrators assembled on the open ground below Gregory Terrace before moving toward the Exhibition Grounds and into the city. Mounted police and large numbers of officers were deployed across the park and surrounding streets. Protesters were met with batons, arrests and police lines, but they continued to march in defiance of the emergency powers.
For many in Brisbane, the confrontation at Victoria Park and the Tower Mill nearby during the 1971 Springbok tour remains one of the defining moments of political resistance in Queensland — a moment when opposition to apartheid collided directly with a racist. state government.
So we should be looking towards what we can bring out of this latest struggle in Barrambin. What about that cultural centre, eh?
Ian Curr, 1 June 2026