Australia’s far-left Race Discrimination Commissioner has described his adopted country as “stolen land”, and says Australia Day is a “platform for racism” which should be on a different date.
Lawyer-turned-bureaucrat Giridharan Sivaraman, who takes home a taxpayer-funded salary package of $408,000 a year, told an SBS podcast about January 26 that he felt “very conflicted” as an immigrant born in India when he thought about the national day.
“I think, ‘what are celebrating?’ We’re all on stolen land, and we actually need truth telling about the history of this land,” he said.
“And if we’re going to come together, we should come together on a platform of truth and honesty, and I think migrants need to have that understanding, that sense of positionality, where they are, we’re all migrants at one point or another, apart from first peoples.
“We want systems and institutions to reflect us, to be safe for us. Why don’t they do that? Because they were built to really privilege colonialism and Whiteness.”
Australia’s far-left Race Discrimination Commissioner has called his adopted country “stolen land”, and said as an Indian immigrant he feels “very conflicted” about Australia Day.
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When asked about his comments he insisted the date of Australia Day should be changed, said a “less divisive” day should be chosen, and defended his comments about “stolen land”.
“It is a day when colonisation began which led to First Peoples being forced off their country and on to missions and reserves, genocidal acts, massacres, systematic child removal and more,” he told The Saturday Telegraph.
“If our goal is to have a harmonious society – it would be a mark of respect to accept this is not a day to celebrate and choose a day that is less divisive.
“It is appropriate for the Race Discrimination Commissioner to talk about the dispossession of aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders of their land … it is also appropriate to talk about nationalism, like White supremacists who have used Australia Day as a platform for racism and racist hate.”
Attorney-General Michelle Rowland said Australia Day was an opportunity for Australians to “celebrate everything that unites us as a nation”, but Opposition spokesperson Andrew Wallace called Mr Sivaraman “ill-informed”.
“To somehow suggest that [Australia’s] institutions are biased against people because of the colour of their skin is an outrageous slur,” he said.
“I would invite Mr Sivaraman to reflect on his commentary.”
Mr Sivaraman’s comments come after he told a parliamentary inquiry in October he didn’t believe White people could experience racism, but denied saying Australia Day shouldn’t be celebrated, insisting he meant it was a day not to be celebrated “for some first peoples”.
In a previous interview Mr Sivaraman declared that antiwhite racism was not a major problem in Australia, and that the real issue was too many White people in positions of power, he begins his speeches with the far-left ahistorical anti-Australian slogan “always was, always will be”, and regularly rails against “White privilege”.
Left, Mr Sivaraman during the podcast (SBS). Right, at the launch of his National Anti-Racism Framework (AHRC).
