Verran introduced the Aborigines Bill in 1910 which revealed the ignorance and racism of white attitudes towards Australia's indigenous people at the time, and was a member of the Royal Commission on Aborigines (1912-1916). As a backbencher during World War I, Verran was supported by the All-British League in leading a campaign against people of German descent. He sought to close all Lutheran schools, disenfranchise (remove the right to vote from) people of German origin or birth and demand that Lutheran children "be taught pure English, and taught by those who are British, and taught what it is to be British".