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Indigenous TV host resigns over racist abuse after coronation coverage

Stan Grant speaks at a media conference in 2021. Jason McCawley / Getty Images

By Nick Squires, Stuff

A prominent Australian television broadcaster of Aboriginal descent has resigned from a flagship programme after saying he had been the target of racist abuse for remarks he made about King Charles’ coronation.

Stan Grant said he had received “relentless” racist vitriol after he commented on the brutal impact of British colonisation on Aboriginal people after the First Fleet of settlers and convicts arrived in 1788.

Grant, a former correspondent for CNN and one of the best-known faces on Australian television, is descended from the Wiradjuri people of New South Wales.

During coverage of the coronation by the ABC, Australia’s public broadcaster, Grant said the British Crown represented “invasion, the theft of our land, and in our case, the exterminating war”.

The latter comment was a reference to conflicts between white settlers and the Wiradjuri tribe, sometimes known as the Bathurst War, in New South Wales in the 1820s.

The comments prompted some viewers to make formal complaints about the tone and impartiality of the ABC’s coverage.

The Australian Monarchist League accused the public broadcaster of failing to provide a “fair, balanced and respectful commentary” of the coronation. On Twitter, one viewer wrote: “Started watching the ABC news coverage of the coronation. They’ve spent ages with ... Stan Grant rambling about colonialism and racism.”

Grant, who is the ABC's international affairs analyst, announced on Friday that he was stepping down as the host of an ABC panel discussion programme called Q+A.

He said not only had he been abused in the media for his comments about colonisation, he had received no support from ABC executives.

In a weekly column, he wrote: “Since the King’s coronation, I have seen people in the media lie and distort my words. They have tried to depict me as hate-filled. They have accused me of maligning Australia. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

He said he had been invited to take part in coverage of the coronation to discuss the legacy of the British colonisation of Australia.

“I pointed out that the Crown represents the invasion and theft of our land. In the name of the Crown, my people were segregated on missions and reserves. Police wearing the seal of the Crown took children from their families. Under the Crown, our people were massacred.”

He offered the criticism “with love” and recalled how his Aboriginal grandfather had fought in WWII for the British Empire and that he kept by his bed the works of Shakespeare.

He said he had respect for monarchists in Australia but that he also wanted to “confront the darkness of colonisation and empire”.

“I am sorry that some monarchists were offended at our coverage. That was never my intent,” he wrote.

The comments had provoked an outpouring of racist abuse, he said, with his family “regularly racially mocked or abused” on social media. He said he considered himself neither above criticism nor thin-skinned, but the abuse had become intolerable.

“Racism is a crime. Racism is violence. And I have had enough.”

He accused senior executives at the public broadcaster of failing to stand up for him.

“Not one ABC executive has publicly refuted the lies written or spoken about me. I don't hold any individual responsible; this is an institutional failure.”

Grant said he was taking time off from his journalistic commitments for an indefinite period. In a statement, Justin Stevens, the ABC’s director of news, said that for months Grant had been subject to “grotesque racist abuse, including threats to his safety”.

It had become “particularly virulent” since he took part in the coronation coverage. Grant had been invited “as a Wiradjuri man to discuss his own family’s experience and the role of the monarchy in Australia in the context of indigenous history”.

Stevens said that the ABC “stands by him and condemns the attacks directed towards him”.