Senator Dodson delivers National Press Club address
West Australian Labor senator Pat Dodson is not convinced of the accuracy of the polling suggesting the referendum to enshrine an indigenous voice to parliament will be defeated. Senator Dodson has had to take a step back from the yes campaign while battling cancer. Three days out from polling day he has urged all Australians to support the referendum to fix injustices of the past.
Transcript
00:00 Senator Dodson has issued a plea to all Australians to back the upcoming referendum, repeatedly
00:08 stating that there is nothing to fear. These are his first public comments in many months.
00:14 He says that he still has confidence that the referendum, which would recognise First
00:19 Nations people in the Constitution and also enshrine a voice to Parliament, could succeed.
00:26 That's despite the fact that polling suggests that it is on track to be defeated. The Senator
00:32 from WA is affectionately known as the Father of Reconciliation. He holds the title of Special
00:39 Envoy for Reconciliation and the implementation of the Uluru Statement from the Heart. But
00:45 he's largely been absent from the campaign, and that's because he's been receiving treatment
00:49 for cancer. Speaking from his hometown of Broome and addressing the National Press Club
00:55 earlier today, he urged Australians to support this proposal. He said that for 200 years,
01:01 Indigenous Australians have been forced to pick up the crumbs, and he said that a voice
01:08 to Parliament would ensure that they had a seat at the table.
01:13 There's nothing to fear with this referendum. It's all about taking us forward. It has a
01:19 vision, it has hope, and it has promise. The downside is voting no is not a neutral matter.
01:29 Voting no is to say no to the recognition of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
01:34 peoples and to deny them a rightful place in our Constitution and to allow them an advisory
01:41 body that can talk to the Parliament and to the Executive on matters that their communities
01:47 are concerned with.
01:49 And Senator Dodson has also spoken about the division between Aboriginal leaders.
01:55 He says he's saddened by the division and acrimony that he says has crept into this
02:02 debate. He was also asked by the moderator specifically about some of the comments made
02:07 by the shadow minister for Indigenous Australians, Jacinta Nampagimpa-Price. When she addressed
02:13 the National Press Club several weeks ago, she argued that colonisation did not have
02:19 an ongoing negative impact on Indigenous Australians. Those were comments that drew strong criticism
02:25 from Indigenous advocates and other Indigenous leaders, and this was Senator Dodson's response.
02:32 If we're in the promised land that some people might want to suggest we're in, then why are
02:38 we having such high rates of suicides? Why are we having so many of our kids being taken
02:44 away and put into out-of-home care? Why is there so much domestic violence and internal
02:49 violence within our societies? Why are we living in poverty? Why are we still suffering
02:56 from mental health problems? And why are our kids the victims of drug and alcohol opportunities
03:05 that society offers? So, we're not in the Garden of Eden here. There are the consequences
03:12 of how we came to be colonised, and they have to be dealt with.
03:19 That is WA Labor Senator Pat Dodson speaking earlier today at the National Press Club.
03:24 He said while he was still hopeful that the referendum would succeed, he said that if
03:30 it indeed failed, he still believed that there would need to be an overhaul in the way that
03:35 government and First Nations people engage to develop policy and to implement services.
03:41 We've also heard today from the Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, who of course has been
03:45 one of the louder voices from the No campaign, leading the No campaign. He has reiterated
03:52 his view that the voice would be divisive and that it would not provide practical outcomes.
03:59 He's also urged those who are opposed to the voice to get out and vote, saying that the
04:05 outcome is yet to be decided.
04:08 If you're intending on voting no, please get out and vote pre-poll or go out on Saturday
04:14 because this is the most important vote that you will cast in your lifetime in our country.
04:20 And we can't afford for complacency to allow the yes vote to get up because it's not in
04:26 our country's best interests.
04:44 [BLANK_AUDIO]