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Katter slams ACT’s Reconciliation Day: “They’re dying at 49 while Canberra takes a day off”
June 11, 2025
FEDERAL Member for Kennedy Bob Katter has blasted the ACT Government for what he calls a "disgraceful display of back-slapping tokenism," as the nation's capital enjoyed a day off to mark Reconciliation Day – while First Australians in remote communities continue to die decades earlier than their non-Indigenous counterparts.
At a press conference in Townsville, Mr Katter announced his discovery of declining life expectancy figures in remote First Australian communities such as Doomadgee in North West Queensland.
"I have encountered sickening hypocrisy in my life, and I have kept these figures to myself because I don't want my country to be likened to South Africa, but I can't stay silent any longer.
"I am divulging now with great rage that the life expectancy for real fair dinkum blackfellas living on their community has slipped from 54 down to 49[1]. For the rest of us, it's about 82.
"Every person in Australia should be sickened by this. Sick and tired and fed up.
"There's not one single person in Canberra doing anything about it, and they have the absolute hypocrisy of giving themselves a holiday to commemorate our First Australians.
"The only place where they voted Yes was Canberra and the place responsible for this sickeningly low life expectancy is Canberra."
Mr Katter said the situation was made more outrageous by the fact that, since the 1967 referendum, the Commonwealth has held the power to override states on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs.
"The people, in the referendum in the 1960s, took the power off the state governments and gave it to Canberra. So they're running the show, and it's their responsibility to make this right.
"And what do they do? They give themselves a pat on the back and close the office instead of closing the gap. It's a feel-good holiday for the bureaucrats, but it's nothing but performative rubbish.
Katter said the ACT's Reconciliation Day – the only public holiday of its kind in the country – was "an insult dressed up as empathy".
"I am serving notice that I will find the decision makers and I will do my level best to destroy them."