One of Australia's most prominent Indigenous leaders and an architect of the Uluru Statement has launched a broadside against a fellow campaigner, dismissing fears that the proposed Indigenous Voice to Parliament is losing popular support.
In an interview on the ABC, Noel Pearson turned his poetic invective against Voice supporter and former Indigenous social justice commissioner Mick Gooda, who on Thursday said the referendum campaign needed to make compromises to stop support slipping further.
Mr Pearson said the Voice campaign had not fully begun, and that Mr Gooda was "early bedwetting".
"What comes to mind is: We used to attend the pictures under the school at Hope Vale when I was a child, and on the nights when there was a scary movie — like the Exorcist or the Night of the Living Dead — we were prone to wetting the bed," Mr Pearson said.
"This is what little Micky Gooda has done here. He is wetting the bed, far too early in the day."
Mr Pearson also criticised Mr Gooda for opposing the Voice in previous years, saying he was late to the campaign.
"It's extremely foolish of Mick Gooda to come out after a group of Indigenous representatives of the relevant working group," Mr Pearson said.
"They all sat down with the prime minister and the attorney-general and the minister for Indigenous affairs and they negotiated the final words."
Mr Gooda has served as a commissioner on the Australian Human Rights Commission, co-led the Don Dale detention centre royal commission, was appointed in 2010 as a member of former prime minister Julia Gillard's expert panel on constitutional recognition, and was appointed as one of 20 members to help co-design the Indigenous voice to government set up by then-minister for Indigenous Australians Ken Wyatt.
He warned on Thursday that it would be "horrendous" if the Voice failed after a poll that showed a substantial tightening between prospective Yes and No voters.
Mr Gooda said it would be worth removing the term "executive government" from the Voice proposal if it won over more voters.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said people should be free to respectfully disagree on the Voice, and Mr Gooda did not deserve the attack.
"[Mick Gooda] is a person of big heart, enormous heart, a very decent man and I don't think he deserved the assessment that was given of him this morning," Mr Dutton said.
"Noel's a wonderful Australian, he is a colourful character, but by his own admission he's got a pretty sharp tongue and I thought this morning he went overboard in relation to Mick Gooda.
"We should have a respectful debate and that is what I'd ask of not just Noel Pearson, but everybody involved in this debate."
Professor Megan Davis, a co-author of the proposed Voice, said Indigenous advocates were being uniquely scrutinised on their language.
"Our mob are always expected to tolerate street fighting rules when it comes to us and politics. But when we push back, in a political contest, in comes the civility brigade," Professor Davis wrote on social media.
Pearson says Leeser confessed his amendments would not win over Liberals
Liberal MP Julian Leeser, who quit as the party's shadow attorney-general in order to advocate for the Voice, said he would move amendments to the bill in parliament to remove a clause that would allow the body to make direct representations to "executive government" — that is, government departments or authorities.
Mr Pearson said he had walked and talked with his friend, Mr Leeser, a fortnight ago, and that Mr Leeser confided in him that he did not expect his amendment would win over any more Coalition MPs, but that it might help cut down a line of attack.
"We've been under heavy weather. We've been out in the ocean and we're approaching the river and, when you're approaching the river, the bar is rough," Mr Pearson said.
"We're not yet on the journey. The campaign proper is yet to start, when this legislation passes the parliament, we will be ready to start the long paddle upriver."
Mr Leeser and Mr Gooda have been contacted for comment.
