While Saturday’s referendum is primarily about Indigenous Australians and the nation’s founding document, there has been a debate going on in the background over whether a No vote will harm Australia’s reputation on the world stage.
Former foreign minister Julie Bishop, Labor senator and Indigenous elder Pat Dodson, human rights barrister Geoffrey Robertson and former senior diplomat John McCarthy have all argued that the nation’s standing will be tarnished if the referendum doesn’t succeed.
“I have no doubt that it will be sending a very negative message about the openness and the empathy and the respect and responsibility that the Australian people have for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders,” Bishop said in August.
Asked whether she agreed with Bishop’s assessment, Foreign Minister Penny Wong all but said she did.
