Aboriginal man walking from Perth to Canberra to see the PM gets Kevin Rudd's backing
Kevin Rudd has thrown his support behind an Aboriginal man who is walking from Perth to Canberra to raise awareness of Aboriginal rights and to try and put a stop to racism.
Clinton Pryor is almost two weeks into his eight-month walk for justice, which is dedicated to 'Close the Gap' between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian.
The 26-year-old is currently walking to Alice Springs and on the way he has been documenting his travels and uploading them to his Facebook page.
The Noognar man is hoping to meet with prime minister Malcolm Turnbull in Canberra and wants to have the opportunity to address parliament.
“Kevin Rudd rang me up from the United States of America over the phone and he admires what I’m doing and supports the campaign to walk for justice for my people,” Pryor said in a video posted to his page.
“He said to keep going and not to give up because he’s going to be joining us when we get to Uluru to set camp up and have a yarn with him around the fire when he gets back from the united states.”
Pryor said Rudd told him that he wanted to do the right thing a few years back but claimed there was too much racism and hatred at the time.
“It’s too much suffering and pain in our culture right now and I want things to start improving… He said that when he did the apology (to the Stolen Generations) to the elders he was trying to plan to close the gap, but the gap has now gotten bigger,” Pryor said.
On Friday, Rudd commended the young man's efforts and has called for Turnbull to meet with the aboriginal man.
"Great to have a yarn with Clinton this morning, he told me he was somewhere around in the WA bush," Rudd said.
"I first met this man when he was a member of the first Indigenous youth parliament in Canberra. He is 26 years old and he wants to do something concrete for his people.
"He is on his way to Canberra to see Malcolm Turnbull," Rudd wrote. "Turnbull should see him.
"Closing the Gap will only happen with strong Federal government leadership. And we are no longer seeing that."
After Alice Springs, Pryor is set to walk down to Adelaide, on to Melbourne then Sydney and finally onto Canberra.
