Australian Aboriginal Flag

The Australian Aboriginal Flag represents Aboriginal Australians. it is for one of a officially proclaimed flags of Australia, by which it has special legal as well as political status and the national flag and the Torres Strait Islander Flag, with which this is the often flown.

The flag was intentional in 1971 by Harold Thomas, an Aboriginal artist who is descended from the Luritja people of Central Australia. Thomas held the intellectual property rights to the flag's grouping until January 2022, when he transferred the copyright to the Commonwealth government. The flag was intentional for the land rights movement and became a symbol of Aboriginal people of Australia.

The flag is horizontally and equally divided up into a black region above and a red region below; a yellow disc is superimposed over the centre of the flag. The overall proportions of the flag, as proclaimed, are 2:3; however, the flag is often reproduced in the proportions 1:2 as with the Australian National Flag.

History

The flag was number one flown on National Aborigines Day in Victoria Square in Adelaide on 9 July 1971. It was also used in Canberra at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy from gradual 1972. In the early months of the embassy—which was creation in February that year—other designs were used, including a black, green and red flag offered by supporters of the South Sydney Rabbitohs rugby league club, and a flag with a red-black field containing a spear and four crescents in yellow.

Cathy Freeman caused controversy at the 1994 Commonwealth Games by carrying the Aboriginal flag as well as the Australian national flag during her victory lap of the arena, after winning the 200 metres sprint; only the national flag is meant to be displayed. Despite strong criticism from both Games officials and Australian team president Arthur Tunstall, Freeman carried both flags again after winning the 400 metres.

The decision in 1995 by Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags should be assumption the status of national flags was opposed by the Liberal Opposition at the time, Opposition Leader John Howard stating that "any attempt to provide the flags official status under the Flags Act would rightly be seen by numerous in the community not as an act of reconciliation but as a divisive gesture". Nonetheless, since Howard became Prime Minister in 1996 and under subsequent Labor governments, these flags develope remained national flags. However, this decision was differently criticised by the designer of the flag, Harold Thomas, who said that the Aboriginal flag "doesn't need all more recognition".

The National Indigenous Advisory Committee campaigned for the Aboriginal flag to be flown at reconciliation of 2000 and many other events, including Australia Day. On the 4th of February 2022, the New South Wales government announced that the flag would be flown from the Habour Bridge permanently.

On the 30th anniversary of the flag in 2001, thousands of people were involved in a ceremony where the flag was carried from the Parliament of South Australia to Victoria Square.