Advertisement
Advertisement

Aboriginal flag set to fly permanently on Sydney Harbour Bridge

By:
Reuters
Published: Jun 19, 2022, 04:37 UTC

SYDNEY (Reuters) - The Aboriginal flag will fly permanently on the Sydney Harbour Bridge as part of a "healing process" and reconciliation efforts with Australia's indigenous community, New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet said on Sunday.

A depiction of the Australian Aboriginal Flag is seen on a window sill in Sydney

SYDNEY (Reuters) – The Aboriginal flag will fly permanently on the Sydney Harbour Bridge as part of a “healing process” and reconciliation efforts with Australia’s indigenous community, New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet said on Sunday.

The distinctive black, red and yellow flag will fly alongside the Australian flag and New South Wales state flag at the top of the landmark bridge.

The Aboriginal flag, recognised as an official flag of Australia since 1995, is flown from government buildings and embraced by sporting clubs and athletes of Aboriginal heritage.

The government of Australia’s most populous state said it would spend $A25 million ($17 million) to permanently install a third flagpole on the bridge by the end of the year to fly the flag.

Perrottet said the move represented a continuation of “the healing process as part of the broader move towards reconciliation”, efforts that seek to promote better ties between the wider Australian community and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

“It’s an important decision that we’ve made, I think it brings unity to our country and it’s a small price to pay for that unification,” he told reporters in Sydney.

The federal government this year acquired copyright to the Aboriginal flag so it could be freely used, resolving a commercial dispute that had limited sporting teams and Aboriginal communities from reproducing the image.

The flag’s colours represent the Aboriginal people and their spiritual connection to the land. It was first raised in 1971 at a land rights rally in the state of Victoria.

($1 = 1.4430 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Samuel McKeith in Sydney; Editing by William Mallard)

About the Author

Reuterscontributor

Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the world’s largest international multimedia news provider reaching more than one billion people every day. Reuters provides trusted business, financial, national, and international news to professionals via Thomson Reuters desktops, the world's media organizations, and directly to consumers at Reuters.com and via Reuters TV. Learn more about Thomson Reuters products:

Did you find this article useful?

Advertisement