The Victorian Greens have called out the new Opposition Leader Brad Battin’s offensive and harmful comments towards First Nations Victorians and policy to ‘scrap the Treaty’, saying his Trump-style politics of division shows the party is lurching even further to the right.
Mr Battin recently chose to attend an interview with Andrew Bolt on right-wing media outlet Sky News, where he reiterated that he would scrap Victoria’s Treaty negotiations and called into question the legitimacy of Victoria’s elected First Peoples’ Assembly, and labelled those attending Jan 26 events and protests as ‘hateful’.
The Victorian Greens say that these are dog-whistling comments in the lead up to January 26 and show total disrespect towards First Nations people in Victoria.
The Victorian Greens say the Liberals are lurching even further to the right and taking a leaf out of Donald Trump’s playbook with this divisive and fear-mongering style of politics.
the Leader of the Victorian Greens, Ellen Sandell:
“It’s gross to see the new Liberal Leader Brad Battin taking another leaf out of Trump’s playbook – going on Andrew Bolt’s Sky News program to take a swipe at our First Nations leaders and re-iterate the Liberals would scrap Treaty negotiations in Victoria.
“For many people, Jan 26 is a sombre day where First Nations people ask us to listen and reflect on our country’s history, yet the Liberal leader can’t even show some basic respect and understanding on this day.
“Instead, the Liberal leader is using it as an opportunity to stoke fear and hate to serve his own political agenda.
“This kind of divisive political point scoring doesn’t benefit anyone, it’s actually just disrespectful and gross and it needs to be called out.”