Videos Expose Communist Influence Behind Bid to Change Australia’s Constitution

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese surrounded by members of the First Nations Referendum Working Group (Thomas Mayo to his right) speaks to the media during a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia on March 23, 2023. AAP Image/Lukas Coch

The underlying communist influence behind a proposal to change Australia’s Constitution continues to come to light.

The campaign group against the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, Advance Australia, has uncovered videos of Teela Reid, a member of The Voice referendum working group, praising the Communist Party of Australia for fighting “with and beside” Aboriginals for land rights.

A lawyer by trade, Ms. Reid, has also called for Australia Day to be abolished and said changing the Constitution would only be the “first step” for activists.

The discovery comes as Australians prepare to vote in a national referendum that will decide whether to change the preamble of the Constitution to recognise Indigenous peoples and to embed a near-permanent advisory body in Parliament.

This body would have the power to make “representations” to the executive and legislative arms of government on all matters deemed relevant to Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders.

Advocates see The Voice as the latest advancement in reconciliation and dealing with chronic issues in Indigenous communities, such as unemployment, domestic violence, alcoholism, youth crime, and welfare dependency.

The grave of John Koowarta is seen in Aurukun, far North Queensland, Cape York, on July 19, 2022. AAP Image/Jono Searle

Calling for Australia Day to be Abolished

Yet despite its altruistic goals, several members of the referendum working group involved in writing the slated amendments to the Constitution have been revealed to have deep roots in Marxism, which in turn, has shaped their views on Australia’s relationship with Indigenous people.

In fact, Prof. Marcia Langton, who co-authored the Calma-Langton Report, which underpins The Voice proposal, was a former member of the National Committee of the Communist League and later the Socialist Workers Party in 1977.

Meanwhile, Ms. Reid told the Search Foundation on March 2021 that the idea Australia was peacefully settled by the British needed to be overturned.

“I think the crux of our struggle, in particular, from the First Nations perspective, has been to shift the narrative around that, and we have witnessed that narrative explode every Jan. 26 where there’s a discussion about: ‘Is it Invasion Day or is it Australia Day?’”

The online discussion was held to commemorate the 100-year founding of the Communist Party of Australia.

Ms. Reid has been vocal in her push for Australia’s national celebration to be abolished, criticising the Labor Indigenous Minister Linda Burney for downplaying the future impact of The Voice on the daily lives of people—a major concern around the proposal.

“It might be the Australian government ‘preference’ to keep things like Australia Day, but trying to limit the scope of what the people can advocate for to change is just stupid,” she wrote on Twitter.

A More ‘Difficult’ Journey Ahead for Australians

Ms. Reid also said The Voice would be part of a journey to “demolish the systems that continue to oppress us” in an address in Sydney on February 2020.

While on May 2023, she told The Ethics Centre that Australians should expect a more “difficult” journey ahead, beyond reconciliation, which she says was all “cupcakes and teas.”

“There does need to be reparations here, there does need to be compensation, there does need to be these tough, I think, decisions and reparations for what First Nations people have lost. That’s undeniable,” she said.

Children of the Yolngu people from north-eastern Arnhem Land prepare to perform the Bunggul traditional dance during the Garma Festival near Nhulunbuy, East Arnhem Land, in Australia, on Aug. 4, 2018. AAP Image/Mick Tsikas

Her comments were mirrored by a fellow member of the referendum working group, Thomas Mayo (or Mayor), the national Indigenous officer of the Maritime Union of Australia and author of the Voice to Parliament Handbook.

“[The Voice] doesn’t say ‘this is the answer,’ it says ‘this is how we can get there,'” he told the Address to the Search Foundation on February 2020.

“‘Pay the Rent’, for example, how do we do that in a way that is transparent and that actually sees reparations and compensation to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people beyond what we say and do at a rally?”

Communism’s Impact on Indigenous Activism

The videos also highlight the rarely discussed links between the Communist Party of Australia and Indigenous activism.

Former party member Geoff McDonald exposed how the Aboriginal “land rights” movement was a target of Marxists.

“I do not disagree with the concept of special areas of land being kept for Aboriginals. But the issue is not really about land rights, as I learned first during my training with the Communist Party,” he wrote in his book Red Over Black: Behind the Aboriginal Land Rights (1982).

Mr. McDonald, now deceased, said he heard communist leaders and politicians Jack Miles and Lance Sharkey talk about how this was the “first step towards making Australia a Communist country.”

“Communists describe the Aborigines as victims of ‘colonial imperialism’ and claim that they must be ‘liberated.’ But only to enable the eventual establishment of communist internationalism to triumph,” Mr. McDonald said, also revealing that communist regimes had a history of singling out Indigenous people “for specialised training.”

Statues of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in Berlin, Germany. In the 170 years since the publication of “The Communist Manifesto,” governments around the globe have been openly or covertly influenced by Marxist theories. Herbert Knosowski/AP Photo

Lobby Groups Drowning Out Real Communities

In Australia, Indigenous advocacy was steadily hijacked and became divorced from the needs of the community.

“Trained Marxists not only understand organisation but how to use the media,” Mr. McDonald wrote.

“Fictitious organisations with names but no members permit a spokesman to readily reach the press, radio, and television,” he added, saying this tactic would lead to the suppression of genuine Aboriginal voices.

One example in the 1970s was the omission of “Western-style” medical care from Aboriginal areas in favour of  “centuries-old Traditional Aboriginal Medicines” at the behest of lobbyists in Canberra.

Some of these supposed treatments included rubbing rabbit urine into cuts and sores or mixing raw fox liver onto a sick person’s body—both animals are actually invasive species introduced within the last 100 years.

“[There has been] an obvious increase of disease and illness, which is not discussed by those who know what is happening because of the fear of being labelled ‘racist,’” Mr. McDonald wrote.

His concerns about a disconnect between lobbyists and reality have been echoed by critics of The Voice.

“No national body can speak for the circa 300 traditional owner groups, Australia’s ‘First Nations,’ it would be a huge bureaucratic structure drowning out Aboriginal voices, not enabling them to be heard,” wrote Indigenous leader Warren Mundine in The Epoch Times.

While individuals from former communist countries have criticised The Voice as a tool of division to weaken Australian society.

“As soon as we heard from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese about The Voice, we got flashbacks to our lives under socialism in our country of origin Albania,” said Dr. Zekri Palushi in an interview with The Epoch Times.

“The class system was implemented in order to incite Albanian citizens to hate and fight against each other, and I must admit that the strategy worked very well for the Albanian Communist Party. Because in this way, they managed to keep the people divided while [the party] worked together further pushing their agenda,” he said.