Warren Mundine has criticized ‘haters’ who want to undermine Australia Day, claiming the ‘change the date’ campaigners are just a ‘continuation of the losers of the (Voice) referendum that is dividing the nation’.
The prominent Voice No campaigner returned to the political fray on Friday with scathing comments to various media outlets about the push to abolish the January 26 holiday.
Earlier this year it was announced that more than 80 local governments across the country had pulled the plug on January 26 citizenship ceremonies.
Mr Mundine told Daily Mail Australia that political leaders in councils across Australia were steering the country in the wrong direction.
Leading Voice No vote campaigner Warren Mundine says he’s fed up with ‘Green Councils’ fueling the same ‘stupid debate’ about Australia Day every year
“We’re building this damn good country, but all we get are these leaders – especially in the Green Councils – all they do is turn the country upside down.
“(They say) ‘we’re a bunch of racists’ or ‘we’re a nation of uneducated idiots,’ so I’m just over it,” he said.
Mr Mundine called this the act of ‘a bunch of whiners who don’t like Australians’.
“Let’s just chase all these whiners away, stop wasting all this money and start celebrating this country and fixing things.
“I just want to get back to the real issues because we’re spending too much time on this.”
Mr Mundine said when he was a councilor in the central NSW town of Dubbo in the mid to late 1990s, he would hold citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day.
“At the end I would say, ‘As an Indigenous person, I am very proud that you chose Australia, welcome’.”
“They loved that because they had the official program that they were Australian citizens and now ‘even the Aboriginal man has welcomed us’.”
Mr Mundine said the debate over whether to change the date of Australia’s national day was pointless
Mr Mundine said the annual debate over whether the national day should be moved to another date because it commemorates the start of European colonization was pointless.
“It happens every year and it makes me sick,” he said.
“It will not make any improvements to the lives of Aboriginal people or bring this country closer together.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that no matter what date we choose, they’re going to whine: there’s going to be someone’s birthday or something.
‘Each group has its day, the Greeks and the Italians. Let’s just celebrate Australia Day.’
However, Mr Mundine did not support Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s call for Australians to boycott Woolworths after the supermarket giant said it would no longer stock specific items for Australia Day.
“I’m not a big fan of boycotts because that’s what the left does,” he said.
“Why should the employees of a job or company suffer because they are the ones suffering from people losing their jobs?
“While these idiots are on the board and executives, nothing happens to them.”
Following Woolworths’ decision not to stock Australia Day merchandise, Mr Mundine said senior leadership in corporate Australia was in a bubble, where the only interactions they had with Indigenous Australians were at “sensitive” events such as the Garma Festival (pictured) held every year in the north. Area
Mr Mundine said business leaders were isolated from the reality of Indigenous disadvantage.
“They go to the Garma festival and it’s really fun and they spend three days there doing sensitive things,” he said.
“And they have all these people from HR and the diversity culture section and they’re all happy, but they don’t see the misery.”
“They’re in their own little echo chamber.
“And if people didn’t believe in the Canberra bubble, we have evidence of that. Seventy percent of Canberrans voted for the Voice.”
“They say that all the artisans and skilled workers who voted no are just ignorant, that they are unskilled swill.”
Mr Mundine is trying to organize his own summit to tackle Indigenous disadvantage, having been frustrated by a lack of government action since the Voice referendum was lost.
“I’m just going to do my own thing,” he said.
“I’m going to get all these people from corporate and venture capital and we’re just going to do stuff.”
After the Voice was convincingly defeated on October 14, with almost 65 per cent of voters opposing it, Mr Mundine said many Australians felt more comfortable speaking out on issues around Indigenous recognition.
“We used to get calls every day from people saying I was too scared to say I don’t support the Voice because I might lose my job,” he said.
“We gave them a voice, we spoke for them.”
As an example, Mr Mundine said Welcome to Country was originally a good and unifying idea that had been ‘beaten to death’ by overuse, and the same is true of other Indigenous commemorations.
“It seems like every year we’re adding another whinge festival,” he said.
“When I was a kid, NAIDOC (National Aboriginal and Islanders Day Observance Committee) was one day and we had that day and we celebrated it.
“Now it’s a week and then we have Sorry Week and then we have Closing the Gap week and it just goes on and on, so I’m just getting over it.
“Go back to NAIDOC week and celebrate that this is our day, our week, but let’s also celebrate Australia Day.
He said Australians were constantly told to feel ashamed and guilty.
“How many times do you have to say sorry?” he said
“I come from a Catholic background, I’m not a very good Catholic, but anyway, we’re taught that reconciliation is about asking forgiveness and saying sorry.
“The second part of it is accepting regret and forgiveness.
“We only have one-way traffic at the moment.”