ANTHONY Mundine further infuriated boxing rival Daniel Geale by refusing to apologise for questioning his Aboriginal heritage and had more explosive words for a country he says is one of the most racist in the world.

A press conference in Redfern today where Mundine was expected to apologise to Geale turned into a rally for the nation's politicians to scrap Australia's flag, national anthem and welfare system for multi-generational Aborigines.

Geale said his wife Sheena had been offended after Mundine said on Thursday that "he's got a white woman, white kids". Mundine conceded he had gone too far.

"I do regret that - it was heat of the moment, if she felt offended I would apologise to her," Mundine told The Daily Telegraph after the conference but had no qualms making stinging statements against his own nation.



"Australia is a very racist country," he said. "I live here and I know it.



"I've had friends come here and they feel it. We can't turn a blind eye anymore. You've got to say what you've got to say to make a change for the better. That's all I'm trying to do.



"That's why I want to change the flag. I want to change the anthem."



Yet Mundine's refusal to directly apologise to Geale - who he will fight in January - and instead canvass wider political issues was labelled as a cop-out by the unified middleweight champion.



"He made some statements that I don't think really helped, he just changed the topic," Geale said.



"This is ultimately about our fight coming up and he is trying to play a few games but it's not going to put me off. My wife took offence to the statements he made. It was disappointing."

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Mundine said he was not against Aboriginal men marrying white women but wanted to see more breeding between people of indigenous heritage.



"Our women are the backbone of our community, and the Aboriginal community is weak if our women are weak, we need to bring our women up with us and embrace that," said Mundine, whose mother was part of the Stolen Generation and is half-Aboriginal.

"We are a dying species, an endangered species, our mortality rate is far worse than our birth rate. We are probably one of the only races on Earth like that right now. So we need to populate and multiply."



He stood by his comments that Geale did nothing for the Aboriginal community - a claim refuted by Geale.



"Saying ain't doing - anyone can wear a flag in the ring," Mundine said. "The Aboriginal community is very small, people know people.



"I asked around, he is a dual world champion and no one sees him in the community. He can't go to Moree and rock the hall like I do when I walk down there because he is not out there doing what he can do."

At Thursday's presser at The Star, Mundine said in reference to Geale's background from Tasmania: "I thought they wiped all Aborigines from Tasmania out, that's all I know."



Mundine apologised to Tasmanian Aborigines today.



"I know there are a lot of Aboriginals in Tasmania that are proud of their heritage, just like me," he said.



"My comments weren't directed at anybody but the system that, in my opinion, do not reflect the sentiment of the first, second or third generation Aboriginals.



"There are people who get jobs and are claiming benefits who claim to be Aboriginal because they have a great, great, great, great-grandmother or grandfather and that's it.



"The system needs to accommodate those Aboriginals that need it most instead of trying to cater for everyone."



Mundine added that Australia's national anthem was the theme song for a regime that wanted to wipe out Aborigines and that the flag did not represent the first inhabitants of the land.

Originally published as Mundine versus the nation