Voice campaigner Thomas Mayo has shared text message proof that ‘some Australians are horribly racist’ in his new book, a type of manual for how Aussies of all backgrounds can confront racial injustice.
In Always Was Always Will Be, the controversial advocate for the ‘Yes’ vote at last year’s failed referendum also gives frank responses to ‘lies about Indigenous people’ that he often confronts in society.
Last October every single Australian state voted No to the proposal to enshrine an Indigenous advisory committee in the constitution, despite the support of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
In the book, Mayo, a trade unionist, said he believed most No voters actually wanted Aboriginal children to have a better future. But he acknowledged that the No campaign’s ‘if you don’t know, vote no’ slogan was effective in swaying voters.
In response, Mayo said advocates needed to tackles myths about Indigenous people head-on.
In the book, the activist provides detailed rebuttals to such claims, including that Aboriginal people ‘will take your backyard’, ‘they don’t want to work’ and that the inaccurate suggestion that taxpayers ‘spend $30billion on Indigenous peoples’ each year.
Controversial ‘Yes’ campaigner for The Voice referendum Thomas Mayo has revealed a message he says proves ‘some Australians are really racist’ in his new book, which also busts Aboriginal myths
The racist text claimed while the late actor David Gulpilil (above) was a ‘real’ Aboriginal, Mayo was merely a ‘by-product’ of Indigenous and white people
But one of the aspects of the book that stands out the most is an anonymous, abusive message the campaigner received after last year’s vote, which, he said, removed ‘any doubt about how horribly racist some Australians are’.
The disturbing text took aim at the colour of Mayo’s skin – saying: ‘I know what an Australian Aboriginal’s appearance is, and it is not you. David Gulpilil yes, but not you.’
The late David Gulpilil was an Indigenous actor.
Mayo said he would not normally share a message such as that – which goes on in offensive terms about ‘fullblood Aboriginals’ and ‘wannabes’ – but said he had received worse and it was important to share as an example of racism.
Below are some of the myths presented by Mayo in his book, and some of his responses. Mayo said the list is ‘not definitive’ but ‘might be a useful starting point’.
1. ‘Would always have been invaded’
Mayo says it doesn’t matter who colonised Australia, Europeans were not more intelligent for outgunning Aboriginals. Above, sketch depicting Captain Cook landing in Botany Bay, 1770
Mayo wrote that it does not really matter if the French, Dutch or any other colonial power might have invaded if the British Empire didn’t.
He argued that the fact First Nations were less armed than the Europeans doesn’t justify what followed.
Indeed, he notes that Aboriginal people already had a capacity to live side by side one another in a peaceful way – and waged conflicts that were less bloody than those seen elsewhere in the world.
2. ‘They will take your backyard’
Warnings about Indigenous people taking white people’s homes and possessions is ‘scaremongering’ and ‘has never happend and never will’. Above, girls at Pukatja Roadhouse, 450km south of Alice Springs
Mayo wrote that whenever Indigenous people have been on the cusp of positive change, ‘the same old set of warnings’ come out.
Those are that Australians are at risk of losing ‘their possessions and privileges, in particular, that Aboriginal people will take their homes and land’.
The book recounted that the same taunts have been heard in political battles involving Indigenous people for decades – including during land rights, equal wages and native title cases.
He said that the warnings about lost backyards and separate governments has ‘never happened and never will’.
3. ‘$30billion is spent annually on half a million Indigenous people’
That $30 billion is spent annual on Indigenous programs Mayo is is ‘a lie’ and that it was repeated by Warren Mundine (above, right) and then Tony Abbott during The Voice ‘No’ vote campaign
Mayo said the real sum spent annually on Indigenous programs is about $6billion – but a false claim has spread that $30billion is spent annually on the 500,000 Indigenous Australians, including by former prime minister Tony Abbott.
Mayo said he regularly heard the number – which he called a damaging lie – touted by the Voice No campaign.
‘In fact, while the Productivity Commission estimated around $30billion was spent on Indigenous services in 2012-13, that total included mainstream services that all Australians have access to, such as funding for defence, foreign aid, schools and healthcare.’
Only a small amount of that $6billion reaches communities, he argued.
4. Who is a ‘real Aboriginal’
‘It is not for non-Indigenous to determine who is or is not Indigenous,’ Mayo wrote.
He noted there is a formal process of determining who is Indigenous in Australia, which involves three criteria.
Those are being of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent, identifying as that, and being accepted as such by the community you lived or live in.
5. ‘Indigenous people don’t want to work’
Mayo wrote that this is completely false and racist.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people work and pay tax like other Australians, while at the same time up against bias, and legacy health issues and poverty.
That there are greater numbers of Indigenous people who are unemployed and on welfare is a systemic problem, not a matter of race or culture.
Always Was Always Will Be, by Thomas Mayo is published by Hardie Grant
Thomas Mayo’s new book aims to be a guide for how ‘the campaign for peace and justice for Indigenous people continues after the referendum was lost’.
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