Aboriginal leader Patrick Dodson believes Australia will have no integrity to criticise China over its human rights abuses if the Voice to Parliament referendum fails.
The Labor senator, who is an elder of the Yawuru people, made the blunt assertion during his first interview since taking a leave of absence from parliament to undertake medical treatment for an illness back in April.
It comes as recent polls show dwindling support for the Voice to Parliament, with the Yes campaign hoping to boost numbers in the lead up to the referendum.
Australians will vote whether to recognise First Nations people in the constitution by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament sometime between October and December this year.
Senator Dodson says Australia ‘stands to lose’ and there would be a damning perception of the country on a global scale if the referendum did not succeed.
Aboriginal leader Pat Dodson (pictured) believes Australia will have no integrity to criticise China over its human rights abuses if the Voice referendum fails
‘It’s not just the first peoples: our nation, in the eyes of the international community, will lose,’ he told Nine’s newspapers
‘Our integrity with our neighbours will certainly be undermined – that’s the Pacific. We will give ammunition to our enemies in other places, or people that are opposed to us internationally.’
‘We will go through a process of wondering why a simple matter could not be achieved in such a sophisticated nation as ours.’
Senator Dodson said the country would be in no place to criticise China for its treatment of Uyghur Muslims or Tibetans if the referendum failed as Australia would ‘have no integrity, absolutely no integrity’.
This comment generated some controversy on social media, with Australians divided over whether it was an appropriate assertion to make.
A number of Aussies applauded the Aboriginal elder for his blunt honesty and frankness when it came to the importance of the Voice to Parliament.
‘Of course, Pat Dodson is spot-on. Voice defeat will undermine Australia’s standing on world stage,’ wrote one user.
‘Dodson is absolutely right. The entire nation will be diminished if he referendum fails,’ commented another.
A third said: ‘Pretty well sums things up…and from the Father of Reconciliation in this country. Over to you Australia. Let’s get this done. Vote YES.’
But others sharply criticised Senator Dodson for comparing it to Beijing’s human rights record.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has assured the public this is a ‘modest’ request which will not impact the lives of most Australians, but make a world of difference to the nation’s most vulnerable
His comments were sharply criticised by users on social media, with critics arguing that it was outlandish to compare Australia with China’s human rights record if the referendum failed (pictured, China’s president Xi Jinping)
‘It is unfortunate that Pat Dodson compares Australian human rights conditions to China. Try fact checking,’ wrote one user on Twitter.
Another said: ‘It’s a bit rich to determine that if the NO vote is decided by the Australian population that it is comparable to China’s human rights issues.’
‘More emotional blackmail and shame based ideas with absolutely nothing of any substance to support the Yes mob,’ added a third.
One commentator described the statement as ‘nonsense’.
Critics claimed a failed referendum didn’t come close to the human atrocities that had been committed in China.
A bombshell report from the United Nations last year found China’s ‘arbitrary and discriminatory detention’ of Uyghurs and other Muslims in the country’s Xinjiang region could constitute crimes against humanity.
China has been accused for years of detaining more than one million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in the far-western Xinjiang region.
Rights groups accuse Beijing of abuses against Uyghurs, a mainly Muslim ethnic minority that numbers around 10 million in the western region of Xinjiang, including the mass use of forced labour in internment camps.
Beijing has vehemently rejected the claims, insisting it is running vocational training centres in Xinjiang designed to counter extremism.
The report was drawn from interviews with former detainees and others in the know about conditions at eight separate detention centres in the region.
Its authors suggest China was not always forthcoming with information, saying requests for some specific sets of information ‘did not receive formal response’.
Human rights groups accuse Beijing of abuses against Uyghurs, a mainly Muslim ethnic minority that numbers around 10 million in the western region of Xinjiang (pictured, a facility near what is believed to be a re-education camp where mostly Muslim ethnic minorities are detained in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region)
The report also said that ‘there are credible indications of violations of reproductive rights through the coercive enforcement of family planning policies since 2017.’
It added that a lack of government data ‘makes it difficult to draw conclusions on the full extent of current enforcement of these policies and associated violations of reproductive rights.’
The report urged Beijing, the UN and the world at large to focus its gaze on the situation described in Xinjiang.
Beijing has closed many of the camps, but hundreds of thousands continue to languish in prison on vague, secret charges.
Senator Dodson said while he wouldn’t ‘despair’ if the Voice was not established, it would be a ‘great day of reckoning for Australians’.
However, the Father of Reconciliation remains hopeful that the Yes vote will gain support as the debate moves out of Canberra and into the community.
The Yes vote has been backed by many corporations and organisations such as the big banks, resources giants BHP and Rio Tinto, Wesfarmers, Woolworths and Coles.
The major sporting codes – the AFL and NRL – have publicly supported the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, as have prominent figures in the media.
Senator Dodson explained that advocacy from these groups, individuals and organisations was vital to the success of the referendum.
Senator Dodson slammed the No campaign, saying the leaders of the No vote were the ‘rump of the worst’ and described them as ‘very loud’ and ‘very intrusive’ (pictured, Aboriginal senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, who is the leader of Advance’s Fair Australia campaign)
Indigenous leader Noel Pearson (pictured) believes there should be more focus on constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, but Senator Dodson believes the Yes campaign should ‘link both matters’
He also took the time to slam the No campaign, which has been led by Aboriginal Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Indigenous leader Warren Mundine.
Senator Dodson said the leaders of the No vote were the ‘rump of the worst’ and described them as ‘very loud’ and ‘very intrusive’.
He expressed his view that ‘Australians are better’ than the heads the No campaign.
There has been some debate amongst the Yes campaign about whether to focus more on constitutional recognition than the advisory body.
Indigenous leader and Voice architect Noel Pearson believes the campaign should lean more on constitutional recognition.
But Senator Dodson disagrees, saying the Yes campaign had to ‘link both matters’ as he believes there is no point in ‘selling people half a chocolate’.
***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk