A prominent anti-Voice campaigner has described colonialism as a "gift" to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Gary Johns, a member of the No case committee, made the comments at a Recognise A Better Way (the campaign group headed by Warren Mundine) event partly organised by One Nation, and appeared alongside One Nation leader Pauline Hanson and the Liberal-turned-independent senator Cory Bernardi, at the Adelaide Convention Centre on 23 June.
"We were all once hunters and gatherers but we moved on. And we were gifted that… We've brought a gift to this country and most Aboriginal people are grateful for that gift," he told the audience in a speech first reported by The Australian.
Dr Johns, a former Labor minister, also said Aboriginal people were often no longer as identifiable as they once were and "just not that exotic".
"I say it's this: about 80 per cent of Aboriginal people are doing about as well as other Australians. It's the last 20 per cent who've not – to use an old term – come in … The job now is to bring the last 20 per cent in," he said.
Dr Johns claimed Aboriginal people had developed an "attitude …that says 'You owe us, you give us everything we want but we don't have to play your game'".
He also claimed that "not listening to them" was the appropriate response.
"It's the attitude, it's the culture if you like, that's killing Aboriginal people. We are not killing them because we're not listening to them. In fact, one of the worst things you can do is listen to the victim," he said.
"Because the victim will always say 'If you give me more, this wouldn't have happened'. But we know that giving more makes them less able."
Dr Johns also appeared to defend the work of the church in separating Aboriginal people from their traditional communities, and their families.
"The work church people did up until the late 1960s was very sensible because they were providing food and shelter … and bringing people in. Aboriginal people mostly came voluntarily because it was easier to get food there than do hard work in remote Australia," he said.
The No campaigner also claimed women were "protected by the church" from a society in which "old men took as many young women as they wanted".
Several investigations including the Royal Commission into institutional responses to child abuse and the 1997 Bringing Them Home report have found that over many decades Indigenous people suffered terrible abuse and conditions in church-run and other institutions after being separated from their families.
Research has also found that members of the Stolen Generations are more likely to be worse off than Indigenous people who were not removed from their families.
However, No campaign group Fair Australia told The Australian that Dr John's claims were "uncontroversial historical facts".
Victorian Labor senator Jana Stewart, a Mutthi Mutthi and Wamba Wamba woman, called on the No campaign to explain whether they thought "these far right fringe views" were acceptable.
"Comments that deny our nation's truth and deny First Nations people's experiences are really painful and don't reflect modern Australia's understanding of the Stolen Generations," she told The Australian.
