Jobs summit Aboriginal flag gaffe branded ‘ignorant’

Organisers of Labor’s jobs summit have been criticised after an embarrassing blunder where one of Australia’s flags was hung upside down.

Organisers of the Albanese government’s jobs and skills summit have been accused of “ignorance” after they hung the Aboriginal flag upside down at the forum.

In photos of the event, the Australian, Aboriginal, and Torres Strait Islander flag can all be seen hanging from flagpoles behind the head table.

However, the Aboriginal flag appears to be hung with its red section, which according to the Australian Museum website represents “the earth and peoples’ relationship to the land” as well as “ochre, which is used by Aboriginal people in ceremonies”, at the top.

The black part of the flag, which represents Aboriginal people and should be orientated at the top when the flag is flown or displayed, appears at the bottom.

Indigenous activist, author and businessman Warren Mundine said that he was shocked that the organisers managed to get it wrong.

The flag was seeing hung upside down during the summit. Picture: Martin Ollman

“How ignorant and pathetic is it that our national flag is treated this way … put it up properly!” he said.

According to the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, the flag was first flown in 1971.

The Aboriginal Flag flying in its correct orientation over the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Picture: Jeremy Piper

It was formally recognised as an official “Flag of Australia” in 1995.

In January the federal government announced that it had bought the flag’s copyright outright so that it could be flown freely.

“Now that the Commonwealth holds the copyright, it belongs to everyone, and no-one can take it away,” said then-Indigenous Affairs Minister Ken Wyatt.