The tent embassy at Musgrave Park was at the centre of controversy in May when hundreds of police clashed with occupants who had received a council eviction notice ahead of the Greek Paniyiri Festival. Cr Quirk said Brisbane City Council was recently “approached by a couple of members of the indigenous community with the desire to close down what was the sovereign embassy site”. “There were some concerns there had been increased levels of violence within Musgrave Park and that the site had become very unsightly untidy with a lot of rubbish around it,” he told Fairfax Media. “The senior members were saying to me they felt that was reflecting badly upon them as a community. “So I wasn't going to just go ahead and unilaterally on the basis of people coming forward undertake that decision so I called a special meeting of elders and that meeting was held yesterday and they as elders unanimously supported the closing down of the site.

“Today there has been a mini skip delivered to the site and the indigenous community are involved in cleaning up the site.” However, activist Wayne Wharton has written to Cr Quirk expressing his "absolute disgust" that the Lord Mayor "would seek to move against the Brisbane Aboriginal Sovereign Embassy". Mr Wharton's letter says Cr Quirk could not claim any legitimacy or consent based on the people in attendance at the meeting on Wednesday. "We want an urgent community meeting next Wednesday here at the embassy [not behind closed doors] to discuss the management plan and the handing back of Jaggera," Mr Wharton writes. Asked whether he was worried about a community backlash, Cr Quirk said: “In any community you are always going to find there is a difference of view but I think overwhelmingly we have a situation where the elders of the community want it closed and that is the decision we've taken at this time.”

Cr Quirk said work on the future of the Jaggera Community Hall was taking time and the council would continue to offer assistance to the indigenous community “to come up with their model for self-governance”. “I've indicated very clearly to the indigenous community that I would like to see them be in a position of self-governance of the Jaggera Community Hall – we've offered assistance in terms of that," he said. “But any model that is adopted has to be the model of the indigenous community – I don't want to be making those decisions for them.” Comment is being sought from tent embassy figures.