We learned many things this week after the announcement of Uluru climb closure.
Firstly we learned that the percentage of tourists who climbed Uluru had dropped to around 16%. After the news of the closure traveled across Australia, two separate opinion polls on the N.T news and on Sunrise both showed that over 60% of Australians want the Uluru climb to stay open. This is a perfect example of why non-Indigenous Australians should not be included when it comes to any referendums that are specifically about our people. But that is a topic for another post. Or is it?
What I want to highlight in this article is who those 16% of tourists are. I have seen numerous comments by Australians who claim that most of the people who climb Uluru are overseas tourists. Their claim is that overseas tourists have no idea about the campaign to stop people from climbing Uluru. This claim was even perpetuated on the Today show earlier this week.
How can this be when there are signs written in multiple languages at the base of the climb? When it comes to overseas tourists, the Central Australian Tourism Chief Executive Stephen Schwer has even publicly stated that overseas tourists are the ones who are making the most complaints and asking why the climb hasn’t been closed already.
For the correct figures of those who choose to climb, we have found multiple sources that highlight that more than 60% are actually Australians. The next biggest population of climbers are Japanese tourists. The figures come from National park data.
So why is it that Australians are trying to cover up or hide from the truth? It seems that the people who are passing the blame on to overseas tourists are in support of closing the climb but at the same time, they don’t want to accept that they are still living in a country where the majority of people are incapable of making the slightest of sacrifices to respect Aboriginal people and our culture.
I’m not sure which group is causing more harm in this situation. Is it the people who choose to climb or the people who want to live in a fantasy land where Indigenous rights are progressing simply because they say so? Will these people create false realities about Australia’s failure to close the gap as well?
