Black GST Campaign launched on Invasion Day in Melbourne |
 BLACK GST Spokesman Targen (left) and a mystery supporter at Melbourne launch |
The Black GST campaign to boycott and protest at the 2006 Melbourne "Stolenwealth" Games was launched on 26th January 2005 in Melbourne. Representatives of the Black GST Collective had a stall selling t-shirts and distributing pamphlets at the "Invasion Day" concert in Treasury Gardens. Collective spokesperson, Targen, said that the t-shirts were all sold in a matter of an hour or so, and that people at the concert were interested and supportive of the aims of the Black GST. Targen said that the Collective would be contacting numerous groups interstate over the next few months inviting them to consider focussing on a campaign of a boycott and protest in Melbourne in 2006. He said, "In the same way people from all over Australia came together to focus a national protest at the Brisbane Commonwealth games in 1982, then Melbourne represents the same opportunity in 2006" The Black GST Collective would be expecting that with so many major issues emerging in the last year or so, that numerous groups around the country would see the Melbourne Games as an opportunity which will provide a chance to attract international attention. In Brisbane in 1982, the theme of the demonstrations was "The Whole World's Watching", and Black GST expects that Melbourne will reach an even bigger audience. In the words of Targen, "Come to Melbourne and help us expose the racist nature of Australian society that continues 20 years after Brisbane to deny us our basic human rights! Let's Stop the Genocide, Assert Aboriginal Sovereignty and negotiate a Treaty!" |
 Victorian Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Gavin Jennings accepts Black GST pamphlett 14th May 2005 BLACK GST activists ambush State Govt launch of Indigenous program for Stolenwealth Games |
 First Black GST Public Meeting Melbourne 18th May 2005 |
 Black GST presence at Melbourne NAIDOC July 8th 2005 |