“I’ve held to that pledge. But let me tell you,with so much nonsense and mischief being peddled out there,there have been times where it’s been hard to hold my tongue,” he said.
Dodson said there were “some myths and misinformation which I must put to rest”,including that the Voice would act as a veto or a third chamber of parliament.
Dodson said the working group advising the government will give its final recommendations on the referendum question and the constitutional amendment “within the next couple of months”,with the enabling legislation to be introduced to parliament in March.
Dodson noted that he recently turned 75,which makes him a “very,very old man in Aboriginal society”.
“There won’t be another opportunity like this... in my lifetime,” he said. “I hope that Australians will respond generously to this very simple request as the first step in us fixing things.”
Loading
Dodson said he hoped Dutton would back the referendum,to be held around October this year,but questioned in the current social media age whether gaining the support of the opposition was as important as in the past.
“I’m not dismissing it,I think it’s very important. But there is[already] bipartisanship for the unity of the nation,” he said.
Dodson said there was something going on internally in the Liberal Party “that’s causing them to ... stay in oblivion – we’ve seen the results in some of those teal seats”.
Dodson said Dutton appeared to show goodwill in a meeting with the government’s working group on Thursday and he hoped that would be “carried forward”.
“This is not an Albanese magic trick. This is a request from the Aboriginal place in which the Albanese government is responding,” Dodson said.
Dodson also criticised the then-Labor opposition in 2007 for backing the Howard government’s Northern Territory Intervention that involved sending the army into the jurisdiction.
He said Dutton’s rhetoric overincreased crime rates in Alice Springs was also evidence of why the Voice is needed.
“If ever there needed to be a First Nations’ Voice to parliament,that was the time,” Dodson said referring to the NT intervention.
“And it’s currently the time because of the way the current leader of the Opposition carried on in relation to the Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory in seeking a royal commission into so-called sexual abuse of children. Obviously,there are very sensitive and very challenging causes,but we are in a different climate today.”
Cut through the noise of federal politics with news,views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weeklyInside Politics newsletter here.