Ray Martin has been told to apologise to ‘millions of Australians’ who plan to vote No after he described them as ‘d***heads and dinosaurs’ in a speech the PM described as ‘very powerful’.
The TV icon came under fire from Opposition Leader Peter Dutton on Thursday as it can be revealed Martin said in the same speech that Australia will be tainted in the eyes of the world should it vote No.
Martin told the same Yes rally at Marrickville’s Factory Theatre, in Sydney‘s inner west, ‘the way the world sees us really does matter – you can’t just say, “well, f*** them’.
Martin was personally invited by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese who praised the address as ‘very powerful’ the next day.
He told the crowd: ‘So, what am I doing here? The Prime Minister asked me. And you can’t say no to Albo, especially as he is the number one Souths man. He asked me to speak tonight for the first time in this Yes campaign.’
Pictures from the event show the PM sitting alongside the Channel Nine stalwart, shaking his hand and applauding throughout the evening.
TV icon Ray Martin launches an extraordinary attack on No voters – lashing them as ‘dinosaurs and d***heads’ in a scathing speech to a cheering Yes crowd in front of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese
In the fiery address, Martin said: ‘If you don’t know, find out what you don’t know.
‘What that slogan is saying is if you’re a dinosaur or d***head who can’t be bothered reading, then vote No.’
Hours after Mr Dutton urged him to apologise, Martin instead doubled down on his criticism, but drew a distinction between different types of No voters.
‘Condemn me for what I said, but not what I didn’t say,’ he told 6PR radio.
‘I was talking about the slogan that said ”if you don’t know, vote No”. That’s one of the stupidest slogans I’ve heard in my life. It’s also an endorsement of ignorance.
‘The people who vote on the basis of ”I don’t know so therefore say no”… are dinosaurs or d**kheads.’
Martin was asked if he held the same feelings about people who were educated about the details of the referendum, and still choose to vote No.
‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘I would never call them that.’
The veteran TV journalist revealed in the same interview that he supports a treaty between the government and First Nations Australians, but argued it has no bearing on the current referendum.
TV icon Ray Martin launches an extraordinary attack on No voters – lashing them as ‘dinosaurs and d***heads’ in a scathing speech to a cheering Yes crowd in front of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese
Video obtained by Daily Mail Australia shows Martin taking aim at the No side’s ‘If you don’t know, vote No’ slogan, saying: ‘If you don’t know, find out what you don’t know
Speaking to the crowd at the Yes event, Martin also questioned Australia’s standing in the global community if a No vote triumphs.
He said: ‘If we wake up on Sunday, October 15 and Australia has voted No, what will the New York Times and The Times of London and the best media in Europe and Asia and South America, what will the world say about us?
‘We were asked, in a vote, if we wish to one, recognise the First Australians and two, give them a Voice. No powers, just a Voice so that they can be listened to. And Australia voted No.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, as a proud Australian, that doesn’t bear thinking about it, does it? The way that the world sees us really does matter. You can’t say, ‘Well, f**k them’. It matters.’
The comments have sparked intense backlash from commentators and the general public, with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton demanding Martin apologise.
‘It’s disappointing,’ Mr Dutton said.
‘For someone who has relied on millions of Australians to support his work in media and television over a long period of time, to be treated like that… I think a lot of Australians would be pretty disappointed.
‘Ray owes millions of Australians an apology because I don’t think it reflects the reality of people’s views on the ground.’
Mr Dutton also questioned Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s decision not to disavow the comments.
‘The Prime Minister was at this gathering,’ Mr Dutton told Daily Mail Australia. ‘In fact, he endorsed his comments. I think it’s disappointing.’
The Opposition Leader accused both Mr Martin and the PM of being ‘elites’ who ‘have a lot of disdain for people living in the suburbs.’
And fellow broadcaster Ray Hadley also expressed disappointment on Thursday.
After playing a snippet of Martin’s speech, he said: ‘There’s one d**khead there, and it’s the person doing the talking.’
Mr Albanese described Martin’s speech as ‘very powerful’ the day after the event, which was held on September 28
The PM also addressed the crowd at the event, describing the Voice proposal as ‘a handshake, a handout of friendship’
Mr Dutton told Hadley the PM had the opportunity to condemn the comments Martin made in live time, and criticised his decision to instead praise the speech in an interview the next day.
‘I’m sure if he’s asked about it today, he’ll say everyone should be respectful or some rehearsed line like that… but he applauded Ray Martin and that reference to all Australians voting No. He didn’t hop up and say ”well look Ray…”.’
‘The hypocrisy, I don’t think, knows any limits.’
Hadley said: ‘As you would know as a former journalist, Ray, a politician’s word isn’t worth a pinch of you know what. We don’t trust politicians.’
Martin told the raucous crowd at the event that it was his work as a journalist that made him realise how important Indigenous affairs are.
‘Every Prime Minister I can remember when he or she, in Julia Gillard’s case, write their memoirs, they always seem to say that their greatest failing, their greatest regrets, greatest frustration was in Aboriginal Affairs, their failure to close the gap,’ he said.
‘They say it every time.
‘It’s no good talking about what you didn’t do after you leave office. Do something while you’re in the Lodge. Something that makes a difference. And that’s what Albo is trying to do now.’
Australians will head to the polls on October 14 for the first referendum in 24 years
After breaking the story, Daily Mail readers told us they’d ‘lost respect for the guy’ and that Martin had done little more than ‘make more people vote No’.
One reader said: ‘Name calling isn’t gonna change people’s minds.’
And another said: ‘You can yell and scream at me but I’ll still vote no.’
‘This is like being bullied. It goes on and on. The answer is still no.’
Martin urged those in the room to continue to promote the Yes vote in the lead up to the October 14 referendum, and said he truly believed it was an opportunity to close the gap.
He has a long history of involvement with Indigenous affairs. He was a member of the National Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation for 10 years in his role as chairman of the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation.
The one-time host of Channel Nine programs including Midday and The Ray Martin Show discovered in the 1990s his great, great grandmother was a Kamilaroi Indigenous woman.
‘What we’ve done for 235 years, often with the best of intentions and spending billions of your taxpayer dollars, is leave Indigenous Australians as the poorest, sickest, most suicidal, most imprisoned, jobless homeless people in our rich society,’ he said.
‘With poverty and third-world diseases like scabies, for God’s sake, that rubs their skin raw and trachoma that sends them blind five times the rate of white Australians, and rheumatic heart disease that kills so many Aboriginal children, guesstimate of two kids a week. And an overall life expectancy which is 20 years less than the rest of Australians.
‘This referendum is clearly not about dividing Australia. It’s about caring.’
But his taunts to No voters have overshadowed the uplifting message he attempted to send.
One of two bodies that makes up the official No campaign, Fair Australia, took offence at Martin’s comments about ‘dinosaurs and d**kheads’.
A spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia Martin’s comments were another attack on decent Australians.
‘Having been told we’re ”racist” and ”stupid”, Australians voting No can now add ”d**khead” and ”dinosaur” to the list of insults spat at us by the Yes campaign.
‘The sneering elites from the Yes campaign are dead set on dividing Australians.
‘These elitists are addicted to insulting us, and just can’t stop sneering down their noses at ordinary Australians.’