One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts says Voice is ‘like apartheid’ as Liberals make ‘no’ case

A One Nation senator has come under fire after comparing the Indigenous Voice to Parliament to South Africa’s Apartheid.

Queensland Senator Malcolm Roberts made the bizarre comment in a post on Twitter on Saturday.

He had been responding to a tweet made by ‘Australiana’ podcast host Will Kingston who had slammed the Voice to Parliament. 

‘Australia, a modern western democracy, is considering a proposal that would require racial tests to determine suitability for a representative body,’ he wrote.

Senator Roberts threw his support behind it comparing it to racial segregation that existed in South Africa from 1948 to the early 1990s.

‘Nailed it. The Voice is apartheid,’ he wrote.

His comment comes as debate continues to rage around the referendum with groups opposing the Voice revealing how their ‘No’ campaign will differ greatly to the ‘Yes’ campaign.

The tweet from Senator Roberts drew many furious rebuttals online, including from people who claimed to have lived under Apartheid

Senator Roberts drew plenty of criticism and outrage from social media users following his tweet. 

‘I’ve lived under apartheid,’ one person replied.

‘You have no understanding of the legal definition of apartheid. 

‘A system of domination, where one group rules supreme over another, often transferring them or removing them from their land. 

‘Yeah sure, 3.2% of the population are doing that to us.’ 

A second added: ‘Nailed nothing. Apartheid is all about discrimination & suppression while the Voice is about giving ATSI people the ability to elevate their communities to the standards the rest of us take for granted.’

Another wrote: ‘A comment such as this suggests you are not fit for public office Malcolm.’

Apartheid was the white-dictated system of legal separation of the races that prevailed in South Africa for almost 50 years after World War II.

His comment comes less than a year after One Nation leader Pauline Hanson claimed it would the Voice would be ‘Australia’s version of apartheid’ in an extraordinary speech to the Senate in August 2022.

‘The risk is very real that the sovereignty that all Australians have over their land and country will be handed to a racial minority,’ she said.

‘Why does this have to be in the constitution? What is the real ulterior motive? This can only be about power – creating a nation within a nation.

‘This can only be about taking power from whitefellas and giving it to blackfellas. This is Australia’s version of apartheid.’

Meanwhile groups opposing the Voice say they are countering the star and corporate power of the ‘yes’ campaign by mobilising ‘ordinary Australians’.

Last week Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he would be asking Indigenous sports stars to come in support of the Voice, with the country’s major sporting bodies such as the NRL and AFL already on board. 

Country Liberal Party Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, one of the most outspoken critics of the proposed Voice, says that unlike the ‘yes’ campaign the case against will be ‘driven by everyday Australians’

Country Liberal Party Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, one of the most outspoken critics of the proposed Voice, says that unlike the ‘yes’ campaign the case against will be ‘driven by everyday Australians’.

‘We represent the quiet Aboriginal Australians who don’t feel like they’re being heard in this debate,’ she said.

Warren Mundine, a former president of the Australian Labor Party turned Liberal candidate, told Sky News that Indigenous communities had not been consulted on the Voice and had little understanding of it. 

‘Everywhere we go the vast majority of people haven’t heard of this Voice and don’t know what it is, while some people have heard of it but say no one has come and spoken to them about it,’ Mr Mundine said.

‘With the people who don’t know what it is they’re not committed to yes or no.’

Slogans set to be wheeled out by Mr Mundine’s side of the argument include ‘Your boss can’t follow you into the polling booth’ and ‘It’s OK to vote No’. 

Mr Mundine has previously accused the Voice of being dreamed up by the ‘elites in academia.’

He said last December that Indigenous people are being deprived to fund the dream of the activists.

The tactic of appealing to ordinary Australians to frustrate the plans of the elite was successfully used in Australia’s last referendum, which was to decide if the nation ditched the UK monarch as head of state and become a republic in 1999.

In that case the ‘no’ case mobilised public opinion against the model where parliamentarians would pick the head of state.

Sometime between October and December this year Australians will be asked by referendum to approve the establishment of the Voice as a recognition of Indigenous peoples in the Constitution.

The Voice will establish a body that can ‘make representations to the parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’.

A referendum can only be carried when it is approved by an overall majority of Australians and also is voted for by a majority of states.