Brisbane City Council says it won't consider changing City Hall's facade, despite decades of calls to remove controversial sculptures from the building's exterior.
The council is in the midst of reviewing its public artworks to acknowledge Brisbane's First Nations history as part of its Reconciliation Action Plan, which was released in early September.
In a statement, Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner said the Reconciliation Action Plan was "about acknowledgement, respect, acceptance and understanding".
He said the "extremely important" plan would "deliver important outcomes by acknowledging the past and building opportunities for the future".
But a statement from a council spokesperson said there were no plans to update the controversial set of sculptures above its doors, which depict Aboriginal warriors retreating from white colonialists.
Jackie Huggins, co-chair of Queensland's Treaty Advancement Committee and a Bidjara and Birri Gubba Juru woman, said the sculptures represented a worldview now decidedly out of date.
"There was a racial hierarchy that was incredibly strong," Dr Huggins said.
"White people had tried to suppress the absolute integrity of First Nations peoples. It's very outdated and antiquated."
First Nations leaders have long criticised the sculptures and called for their removal, including Sam Woripa Watson and his late grandfather, who was one of Queensland's most prominent First Nations leaders and activists.
"It's pretty upsetting that nothing has happened for more than a decade with the facade of the City Hall, but it's something that we're just going to keep fighting for," Mr Watson said.
The display has attracted concerns as early as in 1953 in a Courier Mail report where sculptor Daphne Mayo confirmed the sculptures were meant to portray white colonialists as superior.
"Of course the figures show the retreat of the Aborigine. Isn't it true? As a civilisation, they simply couldn't stand up to ours," she told the Courier Mail.
'Highly offensive' poem removed
Mr Watson, a Birri Gubba and Wanggeriburra man and an activist like his grandfather, said removing or updating the sculptures was part of a broader fight.
"Ultimately this is a small part of a fight for recognition and justice for what's happened through colonisation and is still impacting Aboriginal people today."
Until late last month, a poem which Dr Huggins described as "highly offensive and derogatory" was displayed publicly in City Hall.
Dr Huggins said it was "incomprehensible" that it had still been on display.
Mr Schrinner said the poem had been removed as part of the review into Brisbane's public artworks, outlined in the Reconciliation Action Plan.
"A decision was made to remove this framed poem which has been on display for many decades."
Mr Schrinner said he was unaware of any complaints about the poem.
More artworks are expected to be assessed over time.
While Mr Watson supported the removal of the poem inside City Hall, he said it should have come far earlier.
'More to do' on reconciliation, council says
In a statement, a council spokesperson said it was not possible to remove the sculptures from the heritage-listed City Hall building and that it was not considering change the face of it as part of its review.
But opposition councillor Kara Cook said it was a matter of priorities.
"I think that leadership comes from the top on these issues," she said.
"Reconciliation also needs to come and be displayed by our leaders, and particularly the leader of our city, which is the lord mayor."
Mr Schrinner said the council recognised there was more work to be done.
"We're pleased Reconciliation Australia has described our plan as a "a great plan". We also recognise there's more to do," he said.
"Our next steps are acting on the deliverables over the coming years to support our communities and ensure the Brisbane of tomorrow is even better than the Brisbane of today."
Mr Watson said institutions across Queensland needed to examine their representations of colonisation.
"I'm sure that the more we looked through these colonial institutions, the more things we would find that commemorate and celebrate the achievements of Europeans on this continent, at the expense of Aboriginal people," he said.
Dr Huggins said the path towards reconciliation with First Nations peoples required the state's cultural institutions to confront its history of colonisation.
"It is time now to review, take stock and have a look at those images from our point of view right now," she said.
"We should be able to match those symbols with reality in terms of trying to build a better nation together and to go forward."
