Indigenous voice to parliament: Linda Burney calls out vicious attacks

Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney has been recorded sharing how she felt the voice referendum debate had become ‘unbelievably racist’ and she had been treated in an ‘appalling’ way.

Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney says she has been subjected to repeated racial abuse during the voice campaign. Picture: Annabel Bowles

Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney has been recorded in a candid exchange with NSW Premier Chris Minns sharing how she felt that the past fortnight of debate around the voice referendum had become “unbelievably racist” and she had been treated in an “appalling” way.

Ms Burney was recorded making the remarks to the NSW Premier on Friday morning at a Yes23 campaign event in the Sydney electorate of Kogarah. They appeared to be unaware they were being recorded.

In the recording, Ms Burney can be heard saying: “We’ve just finished two weeks of gruelling parliament. To me it’s just un­believably racist and bullying. The way they have treated me is appalling,”

It was initially unclear whether Ms Burney was referring to the federal opposition, which had been asking her questions about the voice in parliament. Ms Burney later issued a statement that referred more broadly to racism directed recently at her.

The Weekend Australian has seen a sample of hateful and racist messages on Ms Burney’s social media accounts. Some of the messages are about Ms Burney, including that she is “a mixed race person claiming to be an Aboriginal person”. Many contain racial slurs about her or all Indigenous people. Some do not denigrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait ­Islander people but are abusive.

“In recent months, my office, social media and email accounts have been inundated with racist abuse. Racism takes its toll,” she said.

“But I will never allow racism to weaken or diminish my resolve to see Australia embrace constitutional recognition through a voice.

“My message to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are experiencing racism is this: hold your head high, be proud of your identity and who you are.”

Ms Burney also took aim at ­opposition Indigenous affairs spokesperson and leading No campaigner Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price after Senator Price stated that Australia’s colonisation had a positive impact on Indigenous people in her address to the National Press Club on Thursday.

Speaking to reporters in Sydney on Friday, Ms Burney said “There are many people I’ve spoken to last night, this morning, that are very distressed and quite frankly, pretty disgusted. But I am going to focus on the goal here and that is a successful referendum.”

On Friday, Indigenous researcher Colleen Hayward and colleagues at the Telethon Kids institute disputed Senator Price’s remarks, saying: “It is mischievous and hurtful to deny the impacts of colonisation.”

They said one of the most powerful and damaging interventions resulting from colonisation was the forced removal of children and this continued to effect many thousands of Indigenous families generations later.

Indigenous children with a family history of removals were nearly twice as likely to be ­arrested or charged with an offence, 1.6 times more likely to abuse alcohol and have household problems from that, more than twice as likely to indulge in harmful gambling and reported far fewer social supports, their research showed.

Children whose own parents had been forcibly removed also were two and a half times more likely to be at high risk of clinically significant social and emotional behavioural difficulties.

“A more open-hearted acknowledgment of the extent of the suffering and disadvantage which past policies of separation inflicted on Aboriginal Australians, would in our view, significantly further the process through which these concerns are even­tually resolved,” the researchers said.