One of Channel Nine’s new hosts on its Today show sparked a national furore by linking Australia Day to Aboriginal imprisonment rate and rape.
Brooke Boney, a mixed-race person, more white than black, weighed into the left-wing move to change the date of Australia Day by declaring:
“I can’t separate the 26th January from the fact my brothers are more likely to go to jail than they are to go to school or that my little sisters and my mum are more likely to be beaten and raped than anyone else’s sisters or mum”.
“And that started from that day, so for me it’s a difficult day and I don’t want to celebrate it,” she said.
“January 26”, she said, “marked the beginning of what some people would say is the end for indigenous people”.
Boney is the latest in a string of people of mainly European descent to claim Aboriginal status for the benefits it confers.