Australian indigenous leaders promised more protests after a clash between demonstrators and police in which the prime minister was hustled to safety but lost a shoe.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and opposition Liberal Party leader Tony Abbott were in a Canberra restaurant attending an official function before they were pulled away and bundled into waiting cars.

Television cameras caught the dramatic events, including scenes of dozens of demonstrators banging on the glass doors and windows of the restaurant. They were protesting for Aboriginal rights and many were shouted "shame" and "racist" and pointed fingers at the leaders inside.

Security staff and body guards are seen grabbing Gillard and hauling her -- sometimes backward -- outside and into a car, but minus a shoe.

A report in The Age newspaper said an Aboriginal protester found the shoe and shouted, ''Gingerella, come get your shoe!''

There were scenes of police and protesters grabbing and pushing each other as the cars drove off.

In a spirit of conciliation, and a lot of humor, one of the Aboriginal leaders later, in an arranged scene for the media, invited Gillard to retrieve her shoe.

"We wish it be known that we are appalled at the brutal behavior that the Federal Police and the Australian Security Services handed out to the prime minister of Australia that forced her to lose her shoe," Paul Coe, a long-time Aboriginal rights activist and former barrister, said.

"We would like to extend an invitation to the prime minister to attend the new Aboriginal Parliament to receive her lost shoe," Coe said, surrounded by cheering and laughing protesters. "We are not a nation of thieves and we hope that in a gesture of goodwill the prime minister will respond in a like accord and start looking at issues that seriously affect aboriginal people."

No one was injured or arrested in the demonstration, part of an ongoing Aboriginal protest movement since the 1960s against racism, poor educational opportunities and lack of progress on land claims issues. They want recognition in the Australian Constitution as a first people of the continent as a way to setting land claims.

The restaurant protest took place on Australia Day, the anniversary of the first British settlement in Australia 224 years ago. But many Aboriginals view it as an invasion of their land. Aboriginals, numbering around 500,000 are 2.5 percent of Australia's population of 23 million.

The restaurant protest was spontaneous and, ironically, not initially aimed at Gillard but at Abbott.

The day before, Abbott made a comment broadcast on television that it might be time, after 40 years this month, the protesters closed their Tent Embassy, set up on the lawn of Parliament House. For many indigenous Australians the Tent Embassy has become a permanent symbol of their struggle for rights.

A report in The Age newspaper said Abbott was asked if the Tent Embassy was still relevant or should it move.

''I think the indigenous people of Australia can be very proud of the respect in which they are held by every Australian," Abbott said. "I think a lot has changed since then and I think it probably is time to move on from that.''

Protesters at the Tent Embassy, when they heard Abbott's comments and discovered he was at a nearby restaurant, went to show their displeasure.

"The opposition leader on national television made a comment to tear down something that we built over 40 years, which is sacred to us," chairman of the Northern Basin Aboriginal Nations, Fred Hooper, said.

"So what do you expect us to do when we are 200 yards away from the person that makes that comment? Do you expect us to say, 'Yeah, Tony, we're gonna rip it down.''

Land rights for Aboriginals may be closer than ever before, a report in the Economist newspaper said.

Earlier this month, a panel of 22 experts -- more than half of them Aboriginals -- handed a report to Gillard and her Labor government. It recommends possible questions for a referendum designed to have indigenous peoples mentioned in the country's founding document.

Gillard has promised a referendum before the next federal election, set for 2013.