A Sydney man who admitted to booing during a Welcome to Country ceremony on Anzac Day is suspected to be a member of “racist ideology groups”, court documents have revealed.
Eli Joseph Toby, 24, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to creating a nuisance at the Martin Place Cenotaph Dawn Service on April 25 as First Nations serviceman Uncle Ray Minniecon addressed the crowd.
Police believe Toby may be a member of “racist ideology groups”, a statement of agreed facts tendered to the court and seen by NewsWire states. “(Toby is) suspected to be a member of the Nationalist and Racist ideology groups,” the documents state.
Toby, who represented himself in the Downing Centre Local Court on Wednesday, said he wanted to express his freedom of speech and his dislike of the addresses, but he did not intend to offend Indigenous people. “I think (Welcome to Country speeches) are overdone, they shouldn’t be done and that is a feeling that is shared by many people,” Toby told the court on Wednesday. “My actions were not designed to offend Aboriginal (people) and the First Nations community.”
Toby was pressed by Local Court magistrate Greg Grogin over whether he was genuinely remorseful for his actions, but he told Mr Grogin he had “mixed feelings”. “I’m sorry it caused such an uproar, I apologise to my family for all the drama (this has caused),” he told the court.
Mr Grogin told the court that Toby’s actions “did not assist people in their reflections” on such a sombre occasion. “You broke a silence, you broke a tradition, you broke a deeply sensitive moment to express your thoughts when no one asked for it,” he said. “It is incumbent upon our community to live with each other and respect each other. Your actions show an ignorance as to what Anzac Day really means.”
After the Anzac Day Dawn Service, Uncle Ray, a Kabi-Kabi, Gurang-Gurang and South Sea islander man whose grandfather was in the Light Horse Brigade, told the ABC he wanted the hecklers to understand “this always was and always will be Aboriginal land”. “They should show respect to us as traditional owners,” he said. He said those who participated in the booing should “understand their place”.
Mr Toby was convicted and fined $880.
