National Convenor, Sarah Brasch, writes to The Canberra Times about awful remarks made by the Prime Minister at the opening of Queen Elizabeth Terrace:
“We were astonished to hear the PM refer to ‘the crimson thread of kinship’ in her embarrassing speech cosying up to the royals at the newly minted Queen Elizabeth Terrace last Saturday. The words have always been code for the White Australia Policy, confirmed by the Australian Government’s own National Archives on its website. They were frequently heard until the 1950s as successive Prime Ministers extolled our Britishness, our deep ties to ‘kith and kin’ and a place that intentionally excluded non-white races. Back then, we were even claimed to ‘speak British’. Whoever wrote the speech doesn’t know much about Australian history and, unfortunately, neither does the PM. Little wonder she does nothing about the Republic.”
