Minister for Indigenous Australians Malarndirri McCarthy has condemned the attack on Camp Sovereignty in Melbourne, declaring there is "no place for hate in Australia".
The site, established in 2006 by Krautungalung Elder Robbie Thorpe, is described as a place of peace where the community can gather, yarn and reflect. It is also the resting place for the repatriated remains of 38 Aboriginal Victorians.
"It is where our ancestors lay at rest, and it stands as a symbol of survival, resistance, and cultural strength," said the Bunurong Land Council in a statement on Thursday afternoon, calling it a "sacred place".
Speaking in the Senate on Thursday, Senator McCarthy described the incident as "hateful violence".
"We've seen the chilling footage; dozens of men wearing black storming Camp Sovereignty in Melbourne — a culturally significant site seen as sacred by many, where First Nations people have held a vigil to care for the remains of ancestors," she said.
"We saw footage of men armed with sticks and rods. We saw brutal beatings of people at the camp. We saw the Aboriginal flag — an official flag — stomped into the mud.
"But they came to do more than that. They came to stoke fear and they came to silence."
Footage obtained by National Indigenous Times and widely circulated online shows men dressed in black — many identified as members of the National Socialist Network (NSN) — attacking people at King's Domain after the nationwide anti-immigration rallies on Sunday.
A 16-minute Facebook Live video, posted shortly after 5 p.m. on Sunday, captures camp members pleading with the men to leave.
"Stop stop, no stop," one person can be heard yelling. "Please leave."
NSN leader Thomas Sewell has since been remanded in custody on 25 charges over the attack. Three other alleged participants have been charged and bailed.
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Attacks on the newest and oldest Australians by "thugs"
Senator McCarthy thanked Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe for her advocacy and for facilitating contact with Uncle Robbie Thorpe.
She said she had been hearing the "hurt and anger of so many Australians, both First Nations and non-Indigenous" since Sunday's attack, which has sparked anguish among Indigenous leaders and condemnation from both sides of politics.
Arguing the perpetrators were "thugs" who "set out to attack migrants and First Nations people on the same day", Senator McCarthy said: "They attacked newest Australians, and our oldest."
"These kinds of attacks — be they on religious institutions or be they on these culturally significant Aboriginal sites; use hate and violence to divide us. But we will not let them divide us," she said.
"As Minister for Indigenous Australians, I condemn the violent and reprehensible attack on Camp Sovereignty in the strongest possible terms.
"I stand in solidarity with those injured and impacted at the site, and those affected right across this country."
Needs to be labelled a "hate crime"
Senator Thorpe, along with other Indigenous leaders, has called for the incident to be classified as a hate crime.
Calling it an "unprovoked, coordinated Nazi attack on Aboriginal people," the Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung Senator told National Indigenous Times this week: "A bunch of Neo-Nazis storming a sacred site; desecrating a sacred site, certainly fits in the category of a hate crime."
"The aim of this attack was to cause fear and terror in the hearts and minds of our people, and Black and Brown people across the country," Senator Thorpe said.
"Now this is our place of worship. People were assaulted. Flags were stomped on the ground. Fires were put out. Sacred fires were put out.
"Just because we don't have bricks and mortar. We have our land, and this is how we worship our land and our water and our people and our animals in the sky, and the air that we breathe. We have a spirituality that you can't always see, and that's certainly what you find at Camp Sovereignty."
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Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service chief executive Nerita Waight told The Age the attack had sickened Aboriginal people and could amount to serious criminal offences under strengthened anti-vilification laws coming into effect later this month.
"We still expect these actions will be investigated as hate crimes and acts of domestic terrorism," she said.
The Bunurong Land Council also called for accountability from both the police and the Victorian government.
"This was a hate crime, and it must be treated as such," they said.
"These actions caused harm, fear, and deep hurt to community. We do not believe what happened was random. We believe this was a deliberate act carried out by a Neo-Nazi extremist group."
