A controversial speaker from New Zealand whose views are being co-opted by far-right groups in Australia is spreading “dangerous falsehoods”, a Māori human rights advocate has claimed.
Julian Batchelor is currently running a tour of New Zealand called Stop Co-Governance aimed at halting what he claims is “the elite Māori takeover” of the country and a “coup by stealth”. The tour has attracted accusations of racism amid a flurry of local media attention. Batchelor has consistently denied he is racist or spreading misinformation and says he is a strong supporter of “equal rights for all”.
Now his views are being co-opted into the debate about the Indigenous voice to parliament by an Australian podcast and separate social media channels that share extremist content.
The evangelical author recently appeared in an interview with an Australian podcaster who has previously featured Proud Boys members as well as far-right extremists such as Blair Cottrell, where he was asked about Australia’s upcoming referendum.
“For [Indigenous Australians] to say … we want to have special treatment, we want to have special handouts, then that’s apartheid,” he said in response.
The Māori advocate, who asked to remain anonymous, told Guardian Australia that Batchelor’s New Zealand tour was catalysed by a long fight by Māori to have power to protect and access sacred sites.
“Even though he doesn’t represent the majority, when you gather people together under a particular theme like that, it can create a premise for some very dangerous and harmful results,” she said, referring to Batchelor’s comments at his forums, including that New Zealand is “at war” against “elitist Māori”.
Batchelor told Guardian Australia he was not aware that the Australian podcast had previously hosted the far-right figures. He said he stood by his comments on the podcast. “I am ‘for’ free speech and thus believe that all groups/people must be given a forum to express their views,” he wrote in an email response.
“I am linking arms with people all across the globe who are defending democracy, free speech, one person one vote, all votes of equal value. Who are fighting against apartheid and racism.”
Dr Sanjana Hattotuwa, the research director at the Disinformation Project in New Zealand, said he sees negative narratives about the Indigenous voice to parliament flowing from Australia into New Zealand in the online spaces he monitors.
In these spaces, co-governance is presented as a “hostile takeover of the country and the control of everything”, he said.
Batchelor’s rhetoric echoes many tropes also associated with the voice, including that co-governance is the project of “elite Māori”. The claim that the voice is the project of “elite” Aboriginal people has also been shared in Australia by supporters of the no campaign.
The voice is not co-governance
The term co-governance refers to shared management of affairs and resources between iwi (Māori tribes) and the New Zealand government. The former prime minister Jacinda Ardern was a supporter of the model, which has existed in a variety of forms during successive New Zealand governments and includes Māori representation in local government, environmental management and a Māori health authority, among other projects. But it has become a political football in the country, which faces a tightly fought election this year.
The treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand’s founding legal document, guarantees Māori ongoing rangatiratanga (sovereignty) over their lands and affairs.
New Zealand’s co-governance model has also been a common theme of voice opponents in Australia – despite the fact the voice proposal does not extend to co-governance. New Zealand’s parliament has reserved seats for Māori representatives. The voice proposal is for a separate body that would be consulted but could not alter legislative outcomes.
What has happened already?
The Albanese government has put forward the referendum question: "A Proposed Law: to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. Do you approve this proposed alteration?"
The PM also suggested three sentences be added to the constitution:
- There shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.
- The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;
- The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.
How would it work?
The voice would be able to make recommendations to the Australian parliament and government on matters relating to the social, spiritual and economic wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
The voice would be able to table formal advice in parliament and a parliamentary committee would consider that advice. But the voice co-design report said all elements would be non-justiciable, meaning there could not be a court challenge and no law could be invalidated based on this consultation.
How would it be structured?
The co-design report recommended the national voice have 24 members, encompassing two from each state, the Northern Territory, ACT and Torres Strait. A further five members would represent remote areas and an additional member would represent Torres Strait Islanders living on the mainland.
Members would serve four-year terms, with half the membership determined every two years.
In January, Australia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, rejected Tony Abbott’s claim that the voice would be “getting towards co-governance of the sort which is being moved towards in New Zealand with the Māori people”.
“The fact is this is not a co-governance model … at all. It’s subservient to the parliament,” Albanese said at the time.
Co-governance has also been brought up by leading no campaigners, Fair Australia, as well as broadcaster Alan Jones, who has raised it on social media and his new channel ADH TV. “We do not want New Zealand’s model of co-governance and to be separated by race,” Jones’s Facebook account posted in July. “Albanese’s ‘Voice to Parliament’ seeks to divide us based on race. It is regressive, not progressive.”
Jones has hosted the New Zealand First leader, Winston Peters, who in 2022 suggested the push for co-governance was a “separatist agenda”. Peters told Jones there was “a secret agenda” at work. “What you’ve got here is a sinister agenda to put into place a re-engineered world the way they see it,” he said. “Dare I say it’s worse than socialism.”
Peters was the deputy prime minister in Ardern’s first, coalition-based government. After being ousted from parliament in 2020, his party has surged in the polls in recent months.
Batchelor’s allusions to co-governance as a form of apartheid and elitism, as noted in New Zealand media, echo similar commentary in Australia. In April, for example, Sky News host and former Liberal senator Cory Bernardi said the voice referendum threatened to create an “apartheid-type state”.
Peters also spoke about co-governance on Sky News in September last year. To start the segment, host Andrew Bolt said the Albanese government was moving Australia towards a “kind of apartheid”.
Far-right reaction
Batchelor’s interview on the Australian podcast comes as concern grows about attempts by unrelated far-right groups in Australia to co-opt sentiment around the voice.
On Facebook and Twitter (now known as X) there is a deluge of extreme content tied to the voice, including racist cartoons and abuse of Indigenous leaders. Online calls for yes campaign volunteers in Victoria have been disrupted by people with offensive usernames and shouting racist abuse.
Such “trolling” attempts are not the only strategy: along with Zoom “bombing”, Telegram accounts have been set up that exclusively share content against the voice into other groups and into more mainstream spaces. Video clips and quotes from Batchelor have also appeared in these channels and used to erroneously suggest the voice will lead to land seizures.
Batchelor said he “can’t control what other people do with what I say”. “I have been very clear about what I stand for and what I stand against.”
Kaz Ross, a longtime researcher of Australia’s far right, said the groups she monitors pivoted quickly to content around the voice. The general strategy, she observed, is to pull together news clips and other shareable content around race and the voice that is not necessarily identifiable as far right, and to share it widely, in a different context from which it originally appeared.
“They share it in groups alongside material about Hitler, about the Jews, about global conspiracies,” she said. “They groom these online groups to be receptive to their message around race.”
These groups regularly try to use hot-button issues to hijack public debate or “piggyback” their message, according to Julian Droogan, an associate professor of terrorism studies at Macquarie University.
“They have done this with popular issues and public debates about immigration, terrorism, the building of mosques, Covid-19 in the past, and now they are doing the same with the voice,” he said.
“In the past, they have been unsuccessful. By and large, the Australian electorate has rejected their racist authoritarianism.”
Organisers of the Stop Co-Governance roadshow have been accused of barring Māori people at the door, according to New Zealand media, and known far-right activists have reportedly been included among the tour’s security staff and been present at events.
In his email, Batchelor said the events were “inclusive”, that Māori people were not prevented from entering and that attendees were “barred because of their behaviour, not the colour of their skin”. He said the events had attracted “every kind of person from every kind of political persuasion, age group and ethnicity”.
Catherine Murupaenga-Ikenn, a Māori activist who organised what she called a “peace rally” to counter Batchelor’s event in Whangārei, said his message was part of a “perfect storm” in New Zealand.
“We need to be very vigilant,” she said.
