Indigenous voice to parliament No camp’s query: Did Greens MP Dorinda Cox invoke the Ku Klux Klan?

No campaigner Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has questioned whether Greens senator Dorinda Cox made ‘an offensive and disgusting reference’ to the Ku Klux Klan in federal parliament.

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has asked the Senate President to request Dorinda Cox withdraw what she says was an unparliamentary comment. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

No campaigner Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has questioned whether Greens senator Dorinda Cox made “an offensive and disgusting reference” to the Ku Klux Klan in federal parliament, as both sides of the voice referendum debate lash abuse they’ve received.

Senator Nampijinpa Price, the opposition’s Indigenous Australians spokeswoman, wrote to Senate president Sue Lines on Thursday asking she request Senator Cox to withdraw the comment “the little hood slips off” at the earliest possible opportunity.

It comes a day after Indigenous leader Marcia Langton, who with Tom Calma designed national, local and regional voice models, said the level of abuse against Yes campaigners – including death threats and daily published insults – had taken a toll.

Peter Dutton on Thursday said many Aboriginal Australians other than Professor Langton wanted constitutional recognition without a voice, after she declared she wouldn’t work with a future Dutton-led government on a second “voiceless” referendum.

The Opposition Leader also accused some Indigenous leaders, including Professor Langton at the National Press Club, of “abuse” during the referendum debate.

The Australian has sought to clarify which comments in her press club address Mr Dutton considered as abuse.

Professor Langton did not respond to Mr Dutton’s remark.

Senator Cox made the hood comment on Wednesday night in the Senate as One Nation leader Pauline Hanson tried to establish an inquiry to scrutinise any dodgy activities at an Aboriginal charity delivering healthcare to Indigenous elders. “The little hood slips off and we get to see what it’s ­really about,” Senator Cox said in response to the motion.

“This is at-length talking about a voice to parliament and having a good old go about how that’s not going to solve the problem, but these individual inquiries do. What that does is relay, hopefully, to the rest of those following this debate and the conversations in relation to this motion is the absolute hypocrisy of people who are so out of touch with community that they want to bring on an inquiry to bring those witnesses in front of a public hearing to give evidence, which then compromises those people’s safety in those communities.

“The Greens will definitely not be supporting this motion. I think it’s another patched-up, dressed-up attempt at an inquiry to bring down First Nations people in this country. It is a detriment that we would even entertain and even have this conversation in this place in a year when we seek to provide self-determination and empowerment to our First Peoples in this country. I definitely won’t be supporting that.”

Senator Nampijinpa Price wrote to Senator Lines: “After reviewing Hansard, I am of the view that her comments in relation to ‘the little hood slips off’ are in breach of the standing orders. I ask you draw this to the attention of Senator Cox and request she withdraw this comment.”

The Country Liberal Party senator later told The Australian: “I think the real question … is; was she delivering an offensive and disgusting reference to the hoods worn by the Ku Klux Klan in the US? Was she implying those who disagree with her are white ­supremacists?”

Senator Cox declined to respond but Greens sources said Senator Nampijinpa Price had misinterpreted the remark, which was in reference to people having ulterior motives.