TV icon Ray Martin has branded No voters “dinosaurs and idiots” in a scathing speech to a crowd of Voice fans.
The veteran journalist and presenter lashed out at No voters during the Yes rally at the Factory Theater in Marrickville, in Sydney’s inner west, on September 28.
A video obtained by Daily Mail Australia shows Martin taking aim at the No side’s slogan “If you don’t know, vote No”, saying: “If you don’t know, find out what you don’t know.”
“What that slogan says is that if you’re a dinosaur or a moron who doesn’t bother to read, then vote No.”
Television icon Ray Martin launches an extraordinary attack on No voters, attacking them as “dinosaurs and idiots” in a scathing speech to a cheering Yes crowd in front of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Martin lashed out at No voters during a promotional event at the Factory Theater in Marrickville in Sydney’s inner west on September 28.
Martin then criticized the No campaign’s main argument that there is not enough information about how the Voice will work, arguing that such details “simply don’t matter”.
“They never mattered. Honestly, they’re irrelevant,” she stated.
‘Over the next 10, 20 or 30 years, no matter who is in government, the details will change, as will the members of the Voice delegation, depending on the needs, priorities and policies aimed at closing that bloody gap.
“You can’t write all that in the constitution.”
The speech was given to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and took place in his Grayndler electorate.
The next day, Albanese described Martin’s speech as “very powerful.”
Elsewhere in the speech, Martin made a heartfelt appeal to voters, drawing on his 60 years of experience as a journalist covering politics.
“All the prime ministers I can remember, when they write their memoirs, in the case of Julia Gillard, always seem to say that their greatest failure, their greatest regret, was on Aboriginal affairs, their inability to close the gap. They say it every time.
‘It’s no use talking about what you didn’t do after leaving office. Do something while you’re at the Lodge. Something that makes a difference. And that’s what Albo is trying to do now.
‘What we have done for 235 years, often with the best of intentions and spending billions of taxpayer dollars, is to leave indigenous Australians the poorest, sickest, most suicidal, most incarcerated and homeless. work of our rich society.
“With poverty and third world diseases like scabies, for God’s sake, that leaves their skin raw and trachoma that leaves them blind five times more than white Australians, and rheumatic heart disease that kills to so many Aboriginal children, it is estimated that two children a day a week, and an overall life expectancy that is 20 years less than that of the rest of Australians.
‘This referendum is clearly not intended to divide Australia. It’s about worrying.’
A video obtained by Daily Mail Australia shows Martin taking aim at the No side’s slogan “If you don’t know, vote No”, saying: “If you don’t know, find out what you don’t know.”
Albanese described Martin’s speech as “very powerful” the day after the event, which took place on September 28.
One of the two bodies that make up the official No campaign, Fair Australia, took offense to Martin’s comments about “dinosaurs and idiots”.
A spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia that Martin’s comments were another attack on decent Australians.
“Having been told we are ‘racist’ and ‘stupid’, Australians who voted No can now add ‘imbecile’ and ‘dinosaur’ to the list of insults hurled at us by supporters of the Yes campaign.
‘The sneering elites of the Yes campaign are determined to divide Australians.
“These elitists are addicted to insulting us and can’t stop mocking ordinary Australians.”
The campaign called on Martin to apologize and Albanese to condemn the comments.
Daily Mail Australia has asked the Prime Minister’s office for comment on their views on Martin’s specific comments.
The Prime Minister also addressed the crowd at the event and described Voice’s proposal as “a handshake, a donation of friendship.”
“Unfortunately politics has driven this campaign,” he said.
‘No MP really believes the Voice would advise the Reserve Bank on interest rates, but we have asked those questions in parliament as if they were legitimate: Australia deserves better.
‘This is a huge opportunity for Australia.
“It’s not what we have now, there is a lot to gain and nothing to lose by voting Yes.”
Martin’s comments divided Australians when video of the speech emerged. Some were inspired and vowed to support him and vote Yes on October 14.
Other nonaligned voters were enthusiastic. “The details DO matter, that’s why everyone votes No,” said one social media user.
“This video made me vote No,” said another.
Australians will go to the polls on October 14 for the first referendum in 24 years.
The Prime Minister also addressed the crowd at the event and described Voice’s proposal as “a handshake, a donation of friendship.”
Martin has a long history of involvement in Indigenous affairs. He was a member of the National Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation for 10 years in his role as president of the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation.
The former presenter of Channel Nine shows including Midday and The Ray Martin Show discovered in the 1990s that his great-great-grandmother was an indigenous Kamilaroi woman.
The latest criticism of No voters comes after prominent Indigenous activist and Yes vote advocate Professor Marcia Langton faced a backlash for accusing the No campaign of being based on “grassroots racism.” ” or “pure stupidity.”
Professor Langton made the remarks at a forum in Bunbury, Western Australia, and said Australians need to apply greater scrutiny to the No campaign’s claims.
“Every time the No cases make their arguments, if you start picking them apart, you either end up with basic racism (I’m sorry to tell you that’s where it lands) or sheer stupidity,” Professor Langton said.
Professor Langton later insisted that he was not calling No voters racist or stupid, but simply that the arguments used in the No campaign were.
And no event has become a lightning rod for attacks across the country. In South Australia, protesters called attendees “racist dogs” while others were called “scum” at a similar event in Queensland.
A retired university lecturer also allegedly spat at a No activist in Cooma recently.
Despite the incidents and the dire results of the Newspoll and YouGov polls, Yes campaigners have some reasons to be hopeful: an Essential poll shows a small swing of two percentage points towards Yes this week.
The poll found that 43 per cent of its 1,125 respondents will vote Yes, two more than in a previous poll a fortnight earlier. The swing was within the margin of error.
Martin discovered in the 1990s that his great-great-grandmother was an Indigenous Kamilaroi woman and he himself was a member of the National Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation for 10 years in his role as president of the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation.