Legal and political experts have rejected a false claim that Australia's upcoming Indigenous rights referendum is part of a "secretive push" to create a totalitarian republic endorsed by the United Nations. Social media posts attribute the plan to a fabricated statement purportedly by former Labor Party leader Kim Beazley in parliament decades ago, but there is no record he ever made the remarks.

The claim was shared here on Facebook in a group with 6,500 members on August 31, 2023.

The post states the Australian Labor Party was not being transparent about the real aim of an October 14 referendum which will ask voters to decide whether Indigenous Australians should have an institutional "Voice" in national policymaking.

It goes on to claim former Labor Party leader Kim Beazley had revealed a plan in parliament in 1990 while answering a question from the late senator John Button about whether Australia should become a republic (archived links here and here).

According to the post, Beazley purportedly replied: "The United Nations has given the Federal Government a mandate of ownership for housing, farms, property and business to government control once the republic has been proclaimed."

The post taps into the debate whether Australia -- currently a constitutional monarchy that shares the British monarch as its head of state -- should become a republic headed by a president.

It claims a republic cannot be established in Australia at the moment as the Indigenous population...

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