Exclusive: Johns, who is facing calls to resign, also described the National Indigenous Australians Agency as a ‘shadow government’
, published in June, Johns was highly critical of the idea of an Indigenous treaty, saying he “wouldn’t give any credence to the idea of an actual treaty”.
“We can dispense of the idea of a treaty, at a conceptual level, but it will be used as a device to extract money from the taxpayer. That’s all it’s about and we should fight it, we should deny it. We should say, ‘How can you have a deal, a treaty, between a husband and wife, where’s one Aboriginal and one’s non-Aboriginal? Why would you have a treaty with a neighbour, with a friend, with a workmate?’ This will drive us apart. That’s the evil in this whole idea of treaty.
In a speech at the National Press Club on Tuesday, Mundine noted processes around land rights were already in train under state governments, saying such agreements were benefiting Indigenous communities.
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