CPAC Australia defends comedian who referred to traditional owners as ‘violent black men’

The anti-Indigenous voice campaign leader Warren Mundine’s organisation, CPAC Australia, has defended a comedian who referred to traditional owners as “violent black men” and called the Indigenous leader Bennelong a “woman-basher” at a conservative political conference.

It came hours after another no campaign spokesperson, Gary Johns, claimed some people in Indigenous communities lived in a “stupor” and recommended they “learn English”. Those claims were described as “nasty rubbish” by the Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young.

The CPAC conservative political conference – which ran on Saturday and Sunday – hosted a range of speakers against the voice referendum. One speaker on Sunday – billed on the agenda as “Dr Chaim Tsibos” – purported to be a United Nations diplomat and mocked the standard Indigenous acknowledgment of country. The speaker was later identified as the comedian Rodney Marks.

“I’d like to acknowledge the traditional rent-seekers, past, present and emerging,” Marks said, to applause from the crowd.

“But seriously, I’d like to acknowledge the traditional owners – violent black men. I hope there are some real feminists in the audience who appreciate the part-truth of that joke.”

Marks went on to say: “Interesting that woman-basher Bennelong is the name given to the land of the Sydney Opera House, whereas his victim and wife, Barangaroo, gets just a dubious casino, PwC offices and sandstone cutaways built over the land named after her.”

In response to a tweet which criticised the comedian’s language, CPAC Australia’s official account wrote: “C’mon.. it was a comedy skits guys [sic]”, linking to the man’s website which notes him as a comedian, and then posting a laughing emoji.

Responding to another tweet which criticised Marks’ comments, the account wrote: “Cheer up buttercup”, with a thumbs up emoji.

CPAC Australia and Mundine were contacted for further comment. In an email response, Marks defended his remarks.

“There were jokes critical of everyone and I was playing a character with maximum ambiguity of character and arrogance,” Marks wrote.

“Is it disputed that Bennelong bashed Barangaroo?” he added, sharing a link to the Wikipedia page for Barangaroo, which selectively quotes an account of a first fleet sailor.

Mundine, one of the leaders and public faces of the no campaign against the voice, is the chairman of CPAC Australia. He and fellow no campaign leader, the Coalition senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, spoke on the conference’s first day on Saturday but were not present on Sunday.

After Marks spoke, an announcement over the loudspeaker at CPAC explained the name “Chaim Tsibos” was meant as a play on “I’m the boss”. The announcement told attenders to check the website comedian.com.au for more information.

The website is owned by a Rodney Marks, who is credited as a corporate comedian promising “funny keynote speeches that are almost believable”.

“Rodney has a growing repertoire of over 350 characters, with numerous accents and dialects, from hundreds of professions,” the website states.

“He is a corporate impostor – a comic hoax speaker in a business suit.”

Marks’ 25-minute address to CPAC, which regularly drew large amounts of laughter and applause from the crowd, also joked that “Closing the Gap” should be the name of Sydney’s suicide prevention program. Closing the Gap is the federal Indigenous health and welfare program seeking to close gaps in life expectancy and other outcomes.

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Marks also mocked the Barbie movie, asking the audience: “Is Barbie even a woman? Her only hole is in her head.”

Mundine founded the Recognise A Better Way organisation, one of several groups opposing the referendum. Johns, the former Labor minister, is now president of that organisation.

In his speech to CPAC on Sunday morning, Johns called for greater “integration” of Indigenous communities.

“If you’re not trying to get those people either out of that remote community or out of the stupor in which they live, or give them the tools to allow them adapt to life in the modern world, the world we inherited, then you’re doing wrong,” he said.

“Being practical is not the answer. You have to do practical things in the name of integration.”

Johns then claimed to quote the father of Nampijinpa Price.

“As Dave Price, Jacinta’s dad, has said to me often enough: ‘If you want a voice, learn English. That’s your voice,’” he said.

Johns last month rejected calls to resign from his position in the no campaign after he was criticised for suggesting Indigenous people should undergo blood tests to access welfare benefits.

The arguments were made in his recent book titled The Burden of Culture. That book was on sale in the lobby of the CPAC conference on a table alongside other titles including ones authored by Mundine.

Hanson-Young, a yes supporter, tweeted that Johns’ speech was “nasty rubbish”.

“Will Mr Dutton condemn the latest racist rant from the no campaign? There can be no fence sitters in this vote. Either you think this nasty rubbish is OK or you don’t,” she said.

“Each of us has a choice. You’re with the nasties voting no, or you believe Australia can be better and vote yes.”