Anti-Voice campaign director says white people will be ‘paying to live here’ if referendum succeeds

A board member of Nyunggai Warren Mundine’s anti-Voice outfit has declared that an Indigenous Voice to parliament would force white people to pay to live in Australia, while describing the stolen generations as a “mistruth”.

Kerry White, who is helping lead the Recognise a Better Way referendum group, is scheduled to speak about the Voice at Adelaide’s “world freedom rally” which, as this masthead reported on Tuesday, is linked to a prominent Australian pro-Kremlin and anti-vaccine activist.

Kerry White is on the board of Recognise a Better Way. Credit: Internet

White, a former One Nation candidate, this year denied the accepted history on the stolen generations, a systematic policy of child removal and forced assimilation for which the Australian government formally apologised in 2007.

“The stolen generation is a mistruth,” she said at a referendum event in Adelaide in June headlined by One Nation leader Pauline Hanson and fellow No campaign leader Gary Johns.

“Back in the early 1950s and 1960s, mixed race children were being removed and placed in institutions for their own safety.”

In a December podcast, White argued that the Voice, a proposed advisory body that would make representations to the government, was designed to “get rid of the parliament that’s there now and the Voice will end up taking over”.

“And you can call me a conspiracy theorist if you like, but I know the way that these people work and that’s what will end up happening.”

“Aboriginal people will be running this country, and all the white people here will be paying to live here.”

White’s claims were made without evidence.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in August ruled out paying Indigenous Australians reparations for their treatment by British colonists, and pointed out there is no mention of such payments in the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

The harms to the stolen generations have been acknowledged by Coalition and Labor state and federal governments, following the 1997 Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families.

On 13 February 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made a formal apology to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, particularly to the Stolen Generations.

Another member of Recognise a Better Way, Gary Johns, and a member of the main No outfit Advance, David Adler, have received heavy scrutiny lately for comments made about Indigenous people.

But White has attracted little attention despite being one of seven members of Mundine’s campaign body, which also includes former deputy prime minister John Anderson. White is a former nurse and diabetes educator who has Indigenous heritage as the granddaughter of a Narungga man.

Nyunggai Warren Mundine is one of the No side’s key leaders.Credit: Brook Mitchell

Mundine did not respond to requests for comment. White could not be contacted.

Asked whether he had kicked anyone off the No campaign because of racist remarks, Mundine told the ABC’s Insiders on Sunday: “Look, I’ve been very strong about these issues. People know that and you notice that people, some people, aren’t talking any more.”

Mundine confirmed that he was referring to former Labor MP Johns, who has been noticeably quiet after several controversial remarks including claiming that blood tests should be taken to prove Aboriginality.

The Adelaide protest at which White is speaking – which will focus on “stopping property acquisition by stealth”, vaccine mandates, 15-minute cities, and World Health Organisation “control” – is part of a national day of rallies partly organised by pro-Kremlin activist Simeon Boikov.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton stopped short of discouraging people from attending the event, which is not connected to anti-Voice campaign Fair Australia or Liberals for No, but said it was an abomination that anyone would be inspired by Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Dutton sought to link Anthony Albanese to left-wing protestors who labelled Liberal senator Alex Antic a “racist dog” on Monday, claiming the rancorous debate should be no surprise given the prime minister was knowingly dividing the country.

“He’s been warned for months and months and months that he was embarking on a path right up to October 14 and likely beyond, which is splitting our country in two,” Dutton said.

Coalition leader Peter Dutton.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Education Minister Jason Clare seized on the reports of Boikov’s role, claiming the “No campaign is being organised by a bloke who is holed up in the Russian consulate.”

“I think that tells you everything. On the Yes side you have a genuine Aussie hero in Cathy Freeman, and on the No side you’ve got rallies being organised from inside the Russian consulate,” he said.

Albanese said on Wednesday he had no regrets about stating his support for the Uluru Statement from the Heart – an influential Indigenous community document that called for a Voice – at the start of his election night speech.

“I wasn’t the only political leader to say that there would be a referendum in my term. That happened, that was the Coalition’s position as well, before the last election … John Howard committed to it within 18 months of his election,” Albanese said on radio station 2SM.

“The only difference is, one of the things I’ve been determined to do, is to do what we said we would do … I’ve been determined to restore faith in politics, by doing what we said we would do. And this is an opportunity to move the country forward and there’s nothing to fear from this proposal.”

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