WAR activists ramp up calls to ‘burn this colony’

The radical Aboriginal group behind Melbourne’s Invasion Day rally has doubled down on its calls to “abolish Australia”.

Dtarneen Onus-Williams. Picture: Channel 7

A radical Aboriginal group has doubled down on its calls to “abolish Australia” as one of its leaders came under further pressure for incendiary comments at an anti-Australia Day rally.

Dtarneen Onus-Williams faced growing demands yesterday that she be dumped from the government-funded Koorie Youth Council for calling for Australia to be “burned to the ground” at the 60,000-strong “Invasion Day” march in Melbourne’s CBD last week.

Victoria’s state opposition joined former premier Jeff Kennett and indigenous leader Warren Mundine in calling for Ms Onus-Williams to step down from the council.

Ms Onus-Williams’s group, the Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance, responded to the outcry over her comments yesterday on social media and doubled down on the “burn to the ground” rhetoric from Friday’s rally.

“WAR will not rest until we burn this entire rotten settler colony called Australia, illegally and violently imposed on stolen Aboriginal land at the expense of the blood of countless thousands, to the f..king ground,” the indigenous rights group wrote on its Facebook page. “F..k your flag, your anthem and your precious national day ... Abolish Australia, not just Australia Day.”

WAR does not recognise Australian citizenship or the national legal system and wants to return the continent to the rule of “Aboriginal law”.

Opposition spokesman on government scrutiny Tim Smith said WAR’s latest statements “disqualify” Ms Onus-Williams from sitting on the Koorie Youth Council any further and called for Premier Daniel Andrews to intervene.

“Denigrating Australia is no way to improve Aboriginal dis­advantage and further the cause of reconciliation,” he said. “Daniel Andrews should show some backbone and sack her.”

The Premier said on Sunday that membership was the Koorie Youth Council’s prerogative, but he slammed Ms Onus-Williams’s comments on Friday as “disgraceful”. A government spokesman yesterday said WAR’s comments were “not on” but did not clarify whether the Premier thought Ms Onus-Williams should still be on the council.

There have been calls for the Koorie Youth Council to be defunded because of Ms Onus-Williams’s comments but the council has said it does not support her sentiments.

Mr Smith, who was behind an opposition plan to sack local councils that don’t support Australia Day remaining on January 26, said it was understandable further funding for the Koorie Youth Council had come under scrutiny.

“These comments are very divisive and inflammatory and taxpayers are right to ask if this organisation is using their government funding appropriately,” he said. “The Premier needs to ... make it clear that this government funding should be used to improve indigenous standards and not for divisive politics.”

The Koorie Youth Council, of which Ms Onus-Williams is a volunteer member, has received ­almost $2 million from the Victorian government since 2012.

Ms Onus-Williams appeared to have turned her Twitter profile from public to private yesterday. She did not reply to a request for comment yesterday.