Controversial former AFL player Sam Newman has claimed Indigenous people have no history and were not the first people to arrive in Australia in a disgusting 10-minute rant on his latest podcast.
The former Geelong icon unleashed the comments on his weekly show with co-host and former Hawthorn hero Don Scott.
In the shocking segment, Newman unloaded on what he said was a plan to teach Indigenous history in schools and insisted: ‘Their history is irrelevant. What history?
‘They hunt and they kill things and they eat them? I’m being serious – what is the history to teach? That wouldn’t take a hell of a lot of time to teach.’
The outburst was triggered after he recited a primary school’s proposed daily acknowledgement of country he said would be read out to ‘kids of three and four’.
He said the plan was ‘brainwashing’ and branded it ‘abhorrent’ and ‘absolutely cringeworthy’ which was ‘grovelling self-gratification of people who are pandering.’
‘Welcome to country – what country?’ he said. ‘Our country? It just goes on and on.
‘You give them an inch and it just keeps going and going… If you vote for the Voice, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.’
AFL legend Sam Newman (left) has claimed Indigenous people have no history and were not the first people to arrive in Australia on his latest podcast with co-host Don Scott (right)
The former Footy Show host quit Channel Nine in 2020 over a row about his podcast comments after George Floyd was killed by US police.
AFL players past and present and Nine employees condemned him and a petition demanded he was sacked after he called Mr Floyd a ‘piece of s***’.
He has previously caused controversy by wearing blackface to mimic AFL star Nicky Winmar, making transphobic comments and defending Eddie McGuire’s comments about ‘drowning’ AFL journalist Caroline Wilson.
In the latest episode of his You Cannot Be Serious podcast, Newman, 77, added: ‘I hope they teach the history of Australia from 1770 when Cook or whoever came here.
‘What I’m saying to you is, if you’re going to be honest, give us the history about who came here and who developed the country, along with the Indigenous history.
‘I don’t think there’s a hell of a lot of Indigenous history to learn… They don’t have a history.’
The comments sparked a sharp reaction from Scott, 75, who snapped back at Newman: ‘They do. They’ve got a lot of things.
‘There’s a lot of history with regard to the Indigenous people. They’ve been here for 60,000 years. How they survived for 60,000 years is the history.
‘You can look at the fish traps and the middens at Mornington…how they survived in a very harsh country, where they travelled and what they did.
‘They survived for so many years, how did they do it?’
But Scott added that schools would not be teaching children the history.
‘They indoctrinating them,’ he said. ‘They’re very impressionable.
‘What it was at the Catholic Church used to say? “Give me the child for the first seven years and you’d have him for the rest of your life” or something along those lines?’
Newman agreed: ‘They’re placing the whole emphasis on brainwashing.
‘I’m not decrying the history of the Indigenous people at all.
‘What I’m saying to you is, if you’re going to be honest, give us the history about who came here and who developed the country, along with the Indigenous history.
‘I don’t think there’s a hell of a lot of Indigenous history to learn.’
Newman also claimed Filipinos and people from south-east Asia were the first to arrive in Australia, not the nation’s Indigenous people.
‘They were the first inhabitants,’ he said. ‘If you study it rather than just be brainwashed by people saying they’ve been here for 60,000 years…
‘They weren’t the first inhabitants.’
Scott hit back: ‘They might have derived or been derivatives of those people…that’s history.’
Newman added: ‘Of course, that’s fine, but is that ever taught? Did you know that? All they ever say is they’ve been here for 60,000 years.
‘Well, they weren’t the first inhabitants. At all.’
Sam Newman has previously caused race row controversy by wearing blackface to mimic AFL star Nicky Winmar on The Footy Show in 1999
Newman insisted Australia’s Indigenous people were not the first to arrive in the country and have no history (pictured, Australia’s oldest Indigenous art dating back 17,100-17,500 years in the Kimberley in Western Australia)
He slammed the school’s daily acknowledgement as ‘grovelling self gratification of people who are pandering to… there’s no need to pander to people,’ he said.
‘We don’t need to have all that interruption, being brainwashed, to kids. It’s abhorrent. It’s cringeworthy. It’s absolutely cringeworthy.’
He believed Victoria would vote for the Indigenous Voice to Parliament because people in the state had also been ‘brainwashed’ at every .
‘You go to every sporting event, the AFL, the most divisive sporting organisation in Australia, they keep dividing people on race,’ he said.
‘If you just stopped browbeating everyone, and just let them all enjoy each other’s space and company, and just be part of this country and live under one flag.
‘Honestly and truly…’
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Diversity Council Australia for comment.
