A council has pulled down a promotional video within hours of uploading it to social media after receiving complaints accusing it of ‘whitewashing’.
Members of the indigenous community of Rockhampton, Queensland, were fuming when the short clip failed to show any representation of the town’s Aboriginal population.
‘The first reaction I had was just how it whitewashes the history of the Rockhampton region and not only our proud Darumbal history, but also the history of the South Sea Islander people,’ local Darumbal and South Sea Islander woman Amy McQuire told ABC News.
Members of Rockhampton’s Indigenous community were fuming after a promotional clip failed to show a representation of the town’s Aboriginal population (grab from video pictured)
‘It was the overpowering whiteness of everything — they’re talking about (Rockhampton) being unique and being in the sunshine, and they’re showing coffee and the gym.’
The video shows a variety of social scenes including Caucasian women enjoying a meal at a restaurant and a fair-skinned lady blowing a kiss in front of the town’s iconic bull statue.
There was also a white family shown enjoying a picnic, people shown working out in a gym, a woman on a kayak, and a man mountain biking through the forest.
After seeing the clip, Aboriginal man Paul Dutton tweeted the council: ‘apparently 60,000 years of existence means nothing’.
The video shows a variety of social scenes including Caucasian women enjoying a meal at a restaurant and a white-skinned lady blowing a kiss in front of the town’s iconic bull statue
There was also a white family shown enjoying a picnic, people shown working out in a gym, a woman on a kayak, and a man posing in front of the sprawling landscape
The council pulled the video an hour after receiving complaints, admitting it should have represented its Aboriginal community better
Within an hour, the video was removed and Mr Dutton received a personal reply from the council’s Twitter account conceding it had made a mistake.
‘Hello Paul, we have now taken this video down. You are right and we should not be promoting the Rockhampton Region without celebrating the Darumbal people, the area’s long history, and our diverse community. We apologise and we will do better,’ the statement read.
More than seven per cent of the town’s population is Indigenous, with a large Aboriginal Shire Council just 170 kilometres away at Woorabinda.
Local Darumbal and South Sea Islander woman Amy McQuire (pictured) thought the obvious oversight came about due to a lack of diversity within council discussion groups
The video was launched at an Advance Rockhampton media event Monday in what was supposed to showcase ‘Rockhampton to the rest of the country and indeed the world’.
‘The first video we’ve produced is all about the lifestyle our region has to offer and the Fitzroy River features heavily with the fishing, the rowing sports and the spectacular views,’ Mayor Margaret Strelow said at the launch.
Ms McQuire thought the obvious oversight could be a sign there was a lack of diversity within council discussion groups.
She believed someone should have intervened before the video went live, saying it ‘should never have happened’.