Cancer-stricken Yes campaigner and Labor senator Pat Dodson asks Australians if they want to look themselves in the mirror and feel ‘shame’ the day after voting down the Voice – and says polls ‘tell lies’

One of the nation’s most respected Aboriginal leaders has made a rare public appearance to issue a last-minute Yes vote plea and say he doesn’t believe the Voice referendum’s bad polling numbers.

Labor senator Pat Dodson has been undergoing cancer treatment and was largely absent during the debate in the lead-up to Saturday’s vote, but on Wednesday he said many would feel ‘shame’ if the vote fails.

‘I’m not going to be ruled by polls,’ he said at the National Press Club in Canberra, in response to a question on how polls indicate the No side will win. 

‘I’m confident that we are able to get sufficient votes and a sufficient number of the states to get us across the line. I don’t believe in the polls.’

Senator Dodson said there was nothing to fear from the proposed change to enshrine an Indigenous Voice to Parliament in the Constitution.

He claimed misinformation around the Indigenous voice referendum has been widespread.

‘We need to have change, we need to have an effective voice to the parliament, we need to have recognition as the first peoples,’ he said.

‘You can’t live in your own country and not be recognised.

‘Are the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people going to be at the table or pick up the crumbs as we have been for the last 200 years?’

The senator said Australians would have to deal with the consequences of the poll long after the campaign ends, arguing it would determine what the country stood for.

‘Do you want to look at yourself and have pride the next day, or have some doubts and uncertainties and even an increase in shame?’ he said.

Senator Dodson, who is the government’s special envoy for the Uluru Statement from the Heart, said reconciliation would look as it is now, if the Yes vote fails.

But he said there would be a ‘huge healing process’ to come, regardless of the referendum’s outcome.

‘It’s the challenge of the Australian people to find common ground with the Aboriginal people. It’s a two-way street. This is not a one-way street here,’ he said.

‘We’ve been trying to heal this nation for a fairly long time.’

While polls have shown the Yes campaign far behind, Senator Dodson said he would wait for the outcome.

‘There’s only good to come out of this, there’s a vision to come out of this and hope to come out of this. 

‘The truth of our integrity as a nation is what is at stake here,’ he said.

Aboriginal leader Pat Dodson (seen here before his cancer treatment) has made a rare public appearance to issue a last-minute plea for people to vote Yes in Saturday’s referendum

His appearance came on the same day marathon runner and ex-MP Pat Farmer reached Uluru after a trek of more than 14,000km over six months in support of the voice.

Mr Farmer has run more than a marathon a day since April in his campaign to support the voice.

The former Liberal MP choked back tears as he described the final stages in reaching the spiritual heart of the country.

‘When I first got my glimpse of Uluru, it looked an almost purplish colour from a distance,’ he said.

‘It brought a tear to my eye and a realisation that this journey was finally coming to an end.’

Mr Farmer was met at Uluru by members of the Central Land Council and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who was also present at the start of the run in Hobart.

Central Land Council chief executive Les Turner thanked Mr Farmer for his epic commitment and said a No vote would maintain a system that was not working for Indigenous people.

‘In terms of central Australia, we have 28 of our communities under water stress or no potable, palatable water,’ he said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (right) talks with former Liberal MP Pat Farmer (left) after he ran across Australia on a six-month long trip to Uluru in support of the Voice

‘We have a lack of schooling and education facilities in our communities. Sometimes we have no health services, no nurses, no doctors.’

Prominent No campaigner Warren Mundine rejected suggestions reconciliation with Indigenous Australians would not be possible should the referendum fail.

‘Australia has been moving along (for) reconciliation for 20, 30 years at least,’ he told ABC Radio.

‘This is one thing that has come out which is positive … Yes and No people want things to be reconciled.’