No campaign stands by Gary Johns amid controversy

The ex-Labor MP made a series of comments on Indigenous issues that have sparked growing calls for him to resign or be sacked.

Gary Johns was the head of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission and is president of Recognise a Better Way. Picture: Aaron Francis/The Australian

The No campaign against an Indigenous voice to parliament is standing by Gary Johns despite growing calls for him to resign or be sacked over a series of comments and proposals that include blood tests for Aboriginal welfare recipients and a public holiday celebrating intermarriage between black and white Australians.

Liberals for Yes co-convener Kate Carnell and NSW opposition health spokesman Matt Kean, also a Liberal, said Mr Johns should quit or be forced out of his role as president of leading No organisation Recognise a Better Way because of his “repugnant” views.

It comes as a video emerges of Mr Johns, a former Labor minister in the Keating government, speaking at the Mannkal Economic Education Foundation’s Christmas party last year, in which he said: “As I have said at some places in Sydney, looking out over Sydney Harbour, words to the effect of – if this was an invasion, it was a bloody good one.

“Because we have built a wonderful liberal society which would never have been built but for a civilisation arriving here, overtaking people who were our forebears. We all were hunter gatherers but we moved on.”

In his 2022 book, The Burden of Culture: How to Dismantle the Aboriginal Industry and Give Hope to its Victims, Mr Johns sets out “16 ways to save lives and overcome Aboriginal colonisation”.

They include abolishing all annual Indigenous celebrations, including NAIDOC week, in favour of a single day commemorating the 1967 election; starting an annual event celebrating intermarriage as it is “the most common form of relations between black and white Australia”; and making all benefits and programs that are specific to Indigenous people conditional on a blood test for Indigenous heritage.

Mr Johns defended the comments on Sky News on Monday night and said he had nothing to apologise for, adding he’d prefer not to have a race-based system but if one was in place then blood tests were needed.

Leading No campaigner Warren Mundine said Mr Johns was an important part of the No campaign and he was comfortable with him remaining on the No side, despite disagreeing with some of his views.

“Gary Johns is like any other Australian. He’s entitled to his viewpoints and I’m a great believer in free speech. Now me and him, we will have discussions about that and we disagree on different angles of it but there’s no way I’m going to be calling for him to step down,” Mr Mundine told Sky News.

“Just because people complain about him and that, at least he’s honest about his approach to these things and I’m very pleased to have him on our committee and to have him as an adviser to us.”

Ms Carnell said the voice referendum was not about these sorts of things.

“We do think that the leaders of the No campaign should really publicly say to Mr Johns that this is simply unacceptable and possibly he should resign as a board member of the No campaign,” she told Sky News.

In an earlier statement, Ms Carnell said: “The statements made by Mr Gary Johns last night calling for all recipients of Indigenous benefits to be blood tested, and for the introduction of a national public holiday celebrating intermarriage between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, are deeply disturbing comments that should have no place in Australian political debate.

“there should be no room in this important debate for statements that evoke deeply discredited and racially discriminatory policies and practices that have been left in the dustbin of history.”

Mr Kean and NSW opposition multiculturalism spokesman Matt Coure said Mr Johns’ remarks, including a 2007 comment that Aboriginal people would “find acceptable a period in jail as a respite from a distraught life”, had no place in the national conversation.

“His views are repugnant to everything this country stands for - fairness, decency, and respect for our fellow Australians. If Mr Johns refuses to resign from the board of the official No campaign today, the No campaign should do the decent and honourable thing and fire him,” they said.

Victorian Labor senator Jana Stewart, a Mutthi Mutthi and Wamba Wamba woman, has also called on the No campaign to explain whether it thinks Mr Johns’ views “are acceptable and, if not, why does he remain on their campaign committee.”

The Australian revealed last week that Mr Johns said in June that most Aboriginal people were “grateful for that gift” of modernisation and defended the work of churches and their involvement with the Stolen Generations, in comments made while campaigning against the voice.