Peter Dutton accused of ‘hatred’ over Indigenous flag stance
Peter Dutton’s vow to stand only in front of the Australian flag at public appearances has been condemned by Uluru Dialogue co-chair Pat Anderson.
Peter Dutton’s vow to stand only in front of the Australian flag at public appearances – and not the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags – has been condemned by one of the nation’s top Indigenous leaders for invoking “hatred”.
The Opposition Leader said on Monday he would continue the practice of appearing with only Australian flags, as he has been doing, if he were to win the election and fill the nation’s top job.
Opposition Indigenous Australians spokeswoman Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has similarly vowed to cut back on Welcome to Country ceremonies in government, which she argued were being done mostly for the financial gain of organisations and individuals who were hired to conduct such events.
Uluru Dialogue co-chair Pat Anderson – one of the leading campaigners for the voice to parliament – accused Mr Dutton of invoking hatred.
“It’s deeply disappointing and disturbing that some people have extended the “No” to all things recognising, and more importantly celebrating, First Nations Peoples, histories and cultures,” Ms Anderson said.
“This is yet another remark from a man who’s made a career of using First Nations matters to not only invoke hatred but as a deliberate and inflammatory political move in his quest for the top job.”
Anthony Albanese started standing in front of all three national flags when he was elected as Prime Minister in 2022.
But the two Indigneous flags were recognised as national flags in 1995, and Scott Morrison’s government bought the copyright for the Aboriginal flag in 2022 for more than $20m.
“Make no mistake – the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags are official flags of the Australian nation. Dutton may choose to create his own false narrative, but these are the indisputable facts,” Ms Anderson said.
“The then minister for Indigenous Australians, Ken Wyatt of the LNP, said, ‘now that the commonwealth holds the copyright, it belongs to everyone, and no one can take it away’.
“Flying the flags and standing before them does not undermine Australian unity. It recognises it.”
Mr Dutton’s comments were also slammed on Tuesday by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Katie Kiss, who said a commitment to ditch Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags from prime ministerial appointments equated to “whitewashing”.
“This is petty, divisive (and) unsophisticated politics … Whether you stand in front of the flags or not has no impact on non-Indigenous Australians or their rights, nor does it cost anything to keep the flags in place,” she said in a statement on social media.
“This is whitewashing our nation’s history and promoting – through politics – the denial of 65,000 years of Australian … history. Indigenous peoples do have a right to have their identity recognised.”
Jim Chalmers said the role of political leadership was to “calm tensions, not make them worse”.
“My fear when it comes to Peter Dutton is that he has a political strategy that is a very divisive political strategy, and that’s not leadership,” the Treasurer said in Brisbane.
But opposition infrastructure spokeswoman Bridget McKenzie said “all Australians want to be united as one people”.
“That in no way denigrates the contribution of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, but that is the one thing that does unite us, our common future, despite our different pasts,” she told Channel 9. “And so I’m excited to be part of a future Dutton government – if we get that great privilege – and to restore the primacy of the Australian flag.”
Fellow Nationals senator Matt Canavan said while there were times to recognise Indigenous Australians, with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags up in the two chambers of parliament, the job of a prime minister was to “unite people”, which Mr Dutton was seeking to do.
NSW Premier Chris Minns rebuked Mr Dutton’s one-flag plea,
In 2022, when Dominic Perrottet was the Liberal premier of NSW, the Sydney Harbour Bridge protocol was changed to fly the Indigenous flag permanently alongside the Australian flag.
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