Dutton attacks Ray Martin over Voice as Jacinta Price weighs in against ABC

Coalition leader Peter Dutton has taken aim at prominent broadcaster Ray Martin for suggesting the No side’s Voice slogan is aimed at “dickheads”, as Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price railed against alleged bias at the ABC.

The No side has spent months pitching the Voice as an elite-backed idea and portraying the mainstream media as supporters of a radical Indigenous agenda backed by “woke” corporates.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with Ray Martin (second from right) at the Yes event in Sydney on September 28.Credit: James Brickwood

Dutton has seized on several examples of Yes campaigners making critical reflections about No voters’ motives.

Martin criticised the anti-Voice campaign’s “If you don’t know, vote No” slogan at a Yes event with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Albanese’s Marrickville electorate on September 28.

“What that excellent slogan is saying is if you’re a dinosaur or a dickhead who can’t be bothered reading, then vote No,” Martin said at the event. Albanese was not alongside the five-time Gold Logie winner when he made the remarks.

Dutton raised Martin’s comments in his first answer during an interview on Sydney radio station 2GB this Thursday and referred to the former presenter on five occasions.

Opposition Indigenous affairs spokeswoman Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton.Credit: AAP

“People aren’t stupid, they aren’t dinosaurs,” the federal opposition leader said. “The prime minister preaches inclusiveness and tolerance and all of the woke agenda that they’re pushing out.

“But the prime minister was actually at the speech that Ray Martin made, right? And he praised it on ABC Radio the next day to say that it was a great speech.”

In an interview on ABC Radio Adelaide on Thursday, Price, the federal opposition’s Indigenous Affairs spokeswoman, claimed the national broadcaster, a common target for conservatives, had treated her as a token conservative.

“If you’re a conservative Aboriginal woman, as far as the ABC is concerned, you are controversial or not part of the status quo,” she said. “You’re generally made to feel it’s unacceptable.”

ABC journalist Patricia Karvelas.Credit: Scott McNaughton

“My experiences with ABC interviews are often hostile, and I’m treated with contempt on many different platforms. Whether it’s ABC Breakfast, or whether it’s [Radio National], [Patricia] Karvelas and [Hamish] McDonald – they’re particularly hostile towards me.”

Referring to an election-night tweet in which Karvelas referred to Indigenous Affairs Minister Linda Burney as a legend, Price said it was clear Karvelas did not have the same regard for her.

“I think it should just be a level playing field across the board,” Price said.

An ABC spokesperson defended Karvelas, Macdonald, and the ABC’s overall coverage of the referendum, which has also been criticised by Yes leader Megan Davis for giving too much airtime to No figures.

“[Karvelas and Macdonald] can be challenging, rigorous and inquisitorial interviewers – and they should be, especially when they’re interviewing politicians. They are highly professional and they never treat anyone with contempt,” the spokesperson said.

“The ABC’s coverage of the referendum has been comprehensive and informative. It has at times been criticised by both the Yes and the No campaigns for ‘platforming’ the other. In reality we are hearing from, scrutinising and interrogating both.

“Given the Yes campaign is the one proposing to change the Constitution, its proposal and the reasoning behind it would naturally receive a greater amount of scrutiny. That doesn’t equate to positive platforming.”

Former prime minister Tony Abbott accused Karvelas of arguing with him rather than interviewing him on Radio National Breakfast on Thursday.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott (left) with No campaigner Nyunggai Warren Mundine.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

During the interview, Abbott was making the claim that Yes leaders Noel Pearson, Marcia Langton and Pat Anderson had been influencing policies for decades and were far from “voiceless”.

Karvelas picked him up, saying: “You were the PM that ripped quite a lot of money out of Indigenous affairs; they didn’t do it.”

Abbott then complained about the presenter’s interviewing style: “You didn’t interrupt [Labor minister] Clare O’Neil, you’re arguing over the top of me. This isn’t an interview; this is an argument.”

The dispute comes as former High Court chief justice Robert French is set to tell the National Press Club on Friday that key legal arguments about the Voice’s potential legal risk are misguided, claiming it is “improbable” the constitutional alteration would confer a requirement for government decision-makers to give regard to the Voice’s views.

French, a Voice supporter, rejected the notion the Voice was a race-based body and said the No camp’s “If you don’t know, vote No” slogan was “a poor shadow of the spirit which drew up our Constitution”. He also rejected Dutton’s “Canberra Voice bureaucracy” tag.

“If this is a Canberra bureaucracy, what then is parliament, which unlike the Voice has decision-making powers, but a species of Canberra bureaucracy on steroids?” he will say, according to draft speech notes.

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