Battling cancer, the 'Father of Reconciliation' makes last-ditch Voice plea

Pat Dodson says if the No vote is successful, it will "reopen a scar and sore that we thought we were trying to heal the with the Apology." His plea came as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese continued his campaign for the Yes vote at Uluru.

Labor senator and National Referendum Council co-chair Pat Dodson says the impact of a No vote is 'too awful to contemplate'. Source: AAP / Lukas Coch

KEY POINTS

• Aboriginal leader and Labor senator Pat Dodson says "our integrity as a nation is what is at stake" on Saturday.
• Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has urged Australians not to succumb to "fear" on Voice referendum polling day.
• Former Liberal MP Pat Farmer has completed a 14,000 km pro-Voice run.

An Aboriginal leader dubbed "the Father of Reconciliation" says "our integrity as a nation is what is at stake" in Saturday's Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum, assuring confused Australians there is nothing to fear in voting Yes.

Despite a battle with cancer which has limited his role in public debate, Labor senator Pat Dodson has made a last-ditch intervention in the Voice campaign just days from voting day, saying: "You can't live in a country that doesn't recognise you".

Speaking to the National Press Club from Broome on Wednesday, Dodson described the impact of a No vote as "too awful to contemplate", telling Australians considering opposing the Voice that position "takes you nowhere".

Dodson, still recovering from cancer, appeared via videolink from Broome. Source: AAP / Lukas Coch

"The truth of our integrity as a nation is what is at stake here ... We [would] need to look in the mirror [after a No vote] and say: 'Who the hell are we, what have we done, and what are we going to do about it?'" he said.

"We would have to seriously look at getting rid of these notions of consultation ... It'll reopen a scar and a sore that we thought we were trying to heal with the Apology, with the advancements in the High Court, and Mabo.

"The No campaign will take us backwards. That to me is the sorry part of the outcome for the No campaign. You still need to engage with the Aboriginal people. They're not going away, they're not disappearing."

Opposition Indigenous Australians spokesperson Jacinta Nampijinpa Price told the same venue last month that the impact of colonisation on Indigenous people in modern Australia was solely positive.

"We're not in the Garden of Eden here ... We already know that the Aboriginal youth of this country have high suicide rates. Now, why? They're not bad people. They're good people. Why do they don't see any future in the Promised Land that someone says we're living in? Why don't they see a future?" Dodson asked.

"If we say no, we'll be saying no to those young kids. And [we'll be] saying no to those young white kids, the non-Aboriginal kids, who want to see a better future for them and for their kids. They don't want to live with the legacy that the dinosaurs of the past have constructed for us."

Pat Dodson has been dubbed 'the Father of Reconciliation'. Source: AAP

Dodson said there were "legacy ... responsibility and accountability issues" lingering from colonisation still to be dealt with, despite what he said were undeniable benefits of modern Australia.

"The policies you have - assimilation, control, management, domination, determination of their futures, taking kids away [in the] Stolen Generations, all of those things have consequences," he said.

"[That's] from the first point of taking their lands and subjugating them to the policies of government to achieve the objective: the benefits that the society now enjoys."

I'll be relieved when this is over: Jacinta Price

Price said work would start after the referendum to ensure Traditional Owners had "access to the autonomy and more practical ways they can be job creators and utilise their own land".

"I think [I will feel] a sense of relief, probably, that it's finally over. Depending on what the result is, I guess there's still a lot of work to be done going forward," she told Nine's Today Show.

Warren Mundine has called for Australians to come together on 15 October, regardless of the outcome of the Voice referendum. Source: AAP / Mick Tsikas

"We want to fix the systems that are currently in place within our democracy, to ensure that they do work."

Leading No campaigner Nyunggai Warren Mundine flatly rejected suggestions a No vote would make reconciliation impossible.

Mundine told the ABC his referendum night speech would carry the same message, regardless of the outcome: "Putting the hand out and wanting us all to work together and move forward".

"So we've been working on a plan for if the No campaign gets up, and also if the Yes [campaign] gets up. We'll submit it to the government. And that is about accountability. We're spending a lot of money in this area, billions of dollars every year, for very little outcomes on this," he said.

Anthony Albanese sits with Indigenous women as they pose for a photo with a copy of the Uluru Statement from the Heart in the Uluru -Kata Tjuta National Park. Source: AAP / Bill Blair

Anthony Albanese urges Australians not to 'succumb to fear'

During a visit to Uluru, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said "no nation was ever advanced by succumbing to fear" and warned the constitution remained "incomplete" without recognising the First Peoples of Australia.

Albanese travelled to the Northern Territory to greet former Liberal MP Pat Farmer at the finish line of Farmer's six-month run in support of the Voice, which took him from Hobart to the centre of the NT.

The Voice was first called for in the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart, the result of a years-long consultation process with Indigenous leaders from across Australia.

Anthony Albanese, Pat Farmer and Tanya Plibersek running at the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney, when the Run for the Voice arrived in Sydney in August. Source: AAP / Bianca De Marchi

Returning to the site where it was first delivered, Albanese said its authors "are the voices we need to listen to" when government works to address disadvantage in Indigenous communities.

"Not the voices of division, not the voices which are consciously tried to sow confusion [over] what is a very clear and simple proposition," he said.

"No nation was ever advanced by succumbing to fear. What advances and enlarges a nation is hope and optimism for the future. That is what we're being asked to do between now and Saturday ... To make our constitution complete. It is incomplete while it pretends that this nation began in 1788."

Albanese described Farmer, who set off on his journey in October, as an "absolute inspiration".

"[He has asked] his fellow Australians to just walk a few metres, walk into a polling booth, and write Y-E-S on the ballot paper," he said.

"I ask with my fellow Australians nothing more, but nothing less either, than to read the clear proposition that's on the ballot paper and to come to their own position, which the government will certainly respect."

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