The position of the Aboriginal people in Australia will be "in real danger" if Pauline Hanson's party holds the balance of power after today's general election, one of the country's leading Aboriginal rights activists has said in Dublin.
Dr Marcia Langton, professor of aboriginal studies at Northern Territory University in Darwin, was speaking after voting in the Australian embassy yesterday. She and a group of young Australians are in Ireland visiting schools, community and travellers groups to talk about the situation of Aboriginals.
She said that, if returned, Mr John Howard's Liberal Party would implement many of Ms Hanson's "racist policies" in order to protect its conservative, rural constituency. There would be "massive reductions" in services to Aboriginal people.
She forecast that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Commission, which distributes funding to tackle disadvantage in the remote areas where Aboriginals live, would be run down.
"It will be ethnic cleansing by the back door, making it much more difficult for Aboriginals to go to a doctor, to get an education, decent housing and even drinkable water," she said.
