Aboriginal Land Dumped at Tax Office

At 1pm on Monday 2 July 1990, Robert Burrowes and Brendan Condon dumped a
trailer-load of Aboriginal land at the Australian Taxation Office in
Melbourne.  They refused to pay the 10% of their taxes used to finance
Australia's military spending and complicity in the nuclear arms race. 
Instead they paid $461.42 to Robert Thorpe and Darlene Mansell of the Koori
Information Centre, in order to 'pay the rent' for their use of Aboriginal
land.
 
The action began with the entrance to the Tax Office being 'decorated' with
three polystyrene nuclear missiles, large Aboriginal flags and 'Pay the Rent'
banners, as well as various posters proclaiming 'Your Tax Dollars Arm the
World'.
 
Brendan and Robert then shovelled earth from a trailer into two wheelbarrows
which they wheeled into the tax office foyer.  They dumped six loads of earth
altogether and made it into a four meter wide shape of Australia.  Other
activists passed yellow buckets full of earth, each complete with an
Aboriginal flag, along a human chain.  Finally, an Aboriginal flag was placed
squarely in the middle of the Australian 'continent'.  During this activity
musical activists sang the 'Earth Reggae' song 'Aboriginal Land'.  At earlier
meetings with Tax Office officials and the police, complete details of the
action were provided together with an assurance of our nonviolent discipline. 
Therefore, despite a solid police presence, no arrests were made.
 
Once the Aboriginal land was in place, members of Melbourne's Koori community
stood on the land while Brendan, Robert and Robbie Thorpe made brief speeches
to the assembled supporters and media.  Brendan and Robert highlighted their
conscientious objection to their taxes being spent on the nuclear arms race.
 
They also explained their support for the Aboriginal struggle for sovereignty,
land rights and self-determination; and explained the 'Pay the Rent' concept. 
They indicated that paying the rent for their use of Aboriginal land was one
practical way of supporting that struggle; and handed a large imitation rent
cheque to Robbie Thorpe.  'We urge all concerned people to pay one per cent of
their income as rent for their use of Aboriginal land.  If all non-Aboriginal
people undertook to do this, it would ensure the economic independence of the
Aboriginal people'.
 
Brendan and Robert have a conscientious objection to paying taxes for war and
military spending.  Their tax redirection was a protest against the Australian
Government's complicity in the nuclear arms race through its uranium mining
policies, the acceptance of foreign military bases on Aboriginal land and the
encouragement of visits by nuclear warships to Australian ports.
 
Every year 10% of the Australian government's budget is allocated to military
spending.  Since 1983, Robert has redirected part or all of his income tax in
order to protest against this expenditure.  In 1987 he attempted to pay his
taxes with 104 trees in order to highlight the environmental cost of military
spending; in 1986 he attempted to pay his taxes with ninety-four shovels in
order to highlight the development cost of such spending.

A nonviolent activist