-Editors: Edward Johnson, Malcolm Scott with thanks to Bloomberg

Australian indigenous leaders condemned clashes between aboriginal protesters and riot police that forced officers to rescue Prime Minister Julia Gillard and opposition leader Tony Abbott in the nation's capital.

Dozens of indigenous protesters banged on the windows of a Canberra restaurant where Gillard and Abbott attended a function yesterday for Australia Day, a holiday marking the arrival of white settlers in the country. The prime minister and opposition leader were rushed out of the building by security officers and spirited away in government cars to cries of "racist" and "shame" from the protesters.

The demonstrators were responding to comments by Abbott earlier in the day when he was questioned whether it was time to move an aboriginal protest camp, known as the Tent Embassy, that has been running for 40 years in front of the nation's former parliament. Aborigines remain the poorest and most disadvantaged group in Australian society more than 200 years after Europeans settled in 1788.

"It was a disgraceful situation -- I was shocked when I saw the scenes," Warren Mundine, an Aboriginal leader and former president of the governing Labor Party, said today in an interview broadcast on Sky News. "They blew up a statement that Tony Abbott made that was very harmless."

Abbott told reporters yesterday that the nation's indigenous population could be "very proud of the respect in which they are held by every Australian."

"I think it probably is time to move on," Abbott added.

Riot Officers

Mundine said the opposition leader's comments didn't justify what happened later at the Canberra restaurant, where riot officers were forced to form a cordon to stop protesters from banging on the windows.

Television footage inside the venue showed Gillard's security detail warning that the glass could break at any time and recommending the prime minister leave the scene. Gillard then asked that Abbott also be escorted out.

Abbott told reporters today he was grateful to the prime minister and her protection detail for looking after them both in what was "a potentially ugly situation." He defended his comments, saying he is "proud" of the steps toward reconciliation that have been achieved and that "any suggestion that Australia is fixated in the same place that we were in 40 years ago on this issue is just dead wrong."

'On a Journey'

Gillard told reporters today that Australia is "on a journey to genuine reconciliation" and said she had no concerns about her security yesterday. "I was always incredibly confident the police would do everything they needed to do," she said.

The Australian Federal Police said it is investigating whether any offences were committed.

A group of aborigines from the Tent Embassy today marched to the front of parliament house, which was barred by police. They chanted slogans including "who owns this land? We do" and "always was, always will be aboriginal land."

Aboriginal people populated Australia at least 50,000 years before Europeans settled. There are about 400,000 indigenous Australians, who make up 2 percent of the population. Australia Day marks the date in 1788 when Captain Arthur Phillip, commander of the first fleet of convict ships from Britain, landed in Sydney Cove, the site of the modern-day city. Many Aborigines and their supporters refer to the date as Invasion Day.

First Apology

Gillard's predecessor, Kevin Rudd offered the nation's first apology to Aborigines taken from their families for assimilation with the white community, saying the policy was a "blemished chapter" in the nation's history.

From 1910 to 1970, up to one-third of indigenous children were removed from their families and communities and placed in institutions, church missions or the homes of white Australians, according to a government-commissioned report published in 1997. The inquiry found many children lost their cultures, languages, heritage and lands, and recommended reparation be made.

Indigenous leader Mick Gooda also condemned the behavior yesterday, saying the reaction to Abbott's remarks was "over the top and I don't think it paints us in a very good light across Australia."

"What we saw yesterday was images of violent confrontation that we don't need," Gooda, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice commissioner, told Sky News.

What every Australian must bear in mind is that respect must be given to the post of Prime Minister or we, as a nation, would be treated like lawless anarchists.