Peter Dutton lobs criticism at ‘deceptive’ Voice ads

With Australians heading to the polls in a matter of months, Peter Dutton has claimed Voice referendum TV advertisements are “deceptive”.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton says the “Yes” campaign for the upcoming referendum is misleading Australians through advertisements, labelling them “deceptive”.

With anywhere between four and six months remaining before Australians head to the polls to vote in the first referendum since last century, both sides of the campaign are intensifying their stance.

Mr Dutton on Monday questioned how the advertisements, which premiered on television last month, can talk about recognition – which he supports, but “make no mention of the Voice”.

Mr Dutton said “that shows you that there’s either a problem with the brand or people are deliberately keeping the information from Australians”.

“I just don’t think Australians will cop that,” he said.

Anthony Albanese has hit back at Mr Dutton’s claims the Voice will ‘re-racialise’ the country. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Mr Dutton also doubled down on claims he made in a speech to parliament last week, in which he said the Voice risked “re-racialising” the country – despite a stark warning from the race discrimination commissioner.

Commissioner Chin Tan has told the Nine newspapers he was appealing to politicians to steer clear of making race the focus of the Voice debate, warning it would embolden racists and expose Indigenous Australians to abuse and vilification.

It follows Mr Dutton’s speech last week which invoked George Orwell in suggesting the Voice would divide the country.

He stood firm behind his argument on Monday, saying while there needed to be respectful debate on both sides of the argument with no place for racial abuse, Australians were demanding they “just be given the facts”.

“I think a lot of people … want to know whether (the Voice) is going to improve the lives of Indigenous Australians, whether it’s going to be a practical body, where those solutions can be found quickly, or whether it’s just going to be another layer of bureaucracy,” he said.

Speaking ahead of a major speech in which he will call for Australians to unite behind the Voice, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the referendum would “lead to a more united Australia”.

“We’ll be stronger and more united for it,” he told 2SM.

Warren Mundine says Peter Dutton is ‘spot on’ when he says the Voice risks ‘re-racialising’ the country. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Earlier, “No” campaigner Warren Mundine said Mr Dutton was “spot on”.

“I think Peter Dutton is on to something. This is turning into a very divisive, very hate-filled campaign,” he told ABC News.

“The campaign hasn’t even started yet. I just find it bizarre that these people who are supposed to be ‘yes’ supporters and ‘yes’ campaigners, who are looking at us to be the people who are dividing this country … this referendum is dividing Australia.

“You see it in the polling and you see it out in the community.”

Mr Mundine made repeated references during his television appearance about a Supreme Court judge who, in an email to a Nationals MP obtained by The Australian, called his views on the Voice “disgusting”.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton made the warning during a speech in Parliament House last week. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Mr Mundine said a justice had used “abusive language” and it was telling of a “constitutional crisis” afoot.

“I certainly think the tone in which we engage in this debate is going to be really important because no matter what the result is … afterwards, as Australians, we have to coexist peacefully and pluralistically as neighbours and friends and co-workers and colleagues,” he told ABC Radio.

The Opposition’s foreign affairs spokesman James Patterson also voiced his concern about the risk of racial abuse in the wake of the Voice.

Senator Patterson also stood behind Mr Dutton’s claims of a “re-racialising” Voice, saying the very premise of the Voice was to treat a group of Australians differently.

“Now, you could say that it’s on the basis of their race, or if you prefer we could say it’s based on their heritage or their ancestry … or their Indigeneity. But either way, what we’re doing is putting into our Constitution something which treats people differently because of a characteristic with which they have no control,” he said.

“I think that’s offensive to liberal principles.”

He said it was “unfair” to signal out Mr Dutton.

“Particularly given leaders of the ‘yes’ campaign have used it to viciously personally attack people that have a different view,” he said.

Earlier, Labor frontbencher Amanda Rishworth, in a heated exchange with Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce, urged the Coalition to “just listen”.