Racist uni rant a disgrace: NSWALC

April 19, 2013

The nation's largest Aboriginal organisation is calling on the University of Western Australia to take immediate action against its students who published overtly racist material in a student newsletter named 'Prosh.'

The New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council (NSWALC), which advocates for some 20,000 Aboriginal members was made aware of the highly inflammatory material by staff members via social networking site Twitter yesterday.

NSWALC is now calling for all monies raised from the so called 'Prosh Day,' (a charity day run by the University of Western Australia's Student's Guild), to be donated to Indigenous Communities, Education, Awareness (ICEA), a Perth-based reconciliation NGO.

NSWALC Chairman, Stephen Ryan, said he was disgusted to read the racist comments aimed at Aboriginal people.

"I'm speechless really. I thought we'd moved passed this sort of stuff to be honest, but perhaps I'm being naïve. You'd expected this bile from a faceless race-hate group, not students of a respected university," he said.

"These university students are supposed to be the leaders of tomorrow, and frankly that's a really scary thought.

"Perhaps by donating the fundraising dollars (an estimated $160K) to the very worthy ICEA, it might go some way to re-building relations that have been so completely trashed."

Prosh has a substantial sponsor base drawn from a number of national food brands such as Subway and Brumby's bakeries as well as banking heavyweights Westpac to name a few. Chairman Ryan said NSWALC would be writing personally to those sponsors to provide them with a copy of the material appearing in the 'spoof' publication.

"If NSWALC were supporting a so called charity that publishes this sort of racist vitriol, I'd want to be made aware of it straight away. If it were us, you can rest assured we'd be ending the relationship immediately."

Media contact, Chris Munro: 0438 760 242 (varied artwork available)