Voice debate now over to the Australian people: Albanese
By Anthony Galloway and Amber Schultz
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says the debate over an Indigenous Voice to parliament is over to the Australian people now the laws setting up the referendum have passed the parliament.
Albanese’s attempt to shift the debate away from Canberra and into communities came as Liberal deputy leader Sussan Ley said public polling had now vindicated her party’s “principled” position to oppose the Voice.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says there is a different poll on the Voice every day.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
The laws setting up the referendum were passed this week in parliament after support for the Yes side has been falling in public polls over recent months.
Australians will vote on the referendum to enshrine in the Constitution a Voice to parliament, which will make representations to the parliament and the government on issues that impact Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Albanese is yet to announce the date for the referendum, but the bill’s passage triggers a requirement for it to be held within two to six months. A Saturday in October is firming as a strong likelihood.
Albanese said on Saturday morning the conversation about the referendum was over to Australians now the political debate over the wording of the referendum was settled.
“Now that that process is over, it’s now over to the Australian people,” Albanese said.
“This is a change that’s from the bottom up. It is a change that Indigenous Australians have advocated for when they met at Uluru in 2017.
“And if not now – when? We need to recognise First Nations people in our Constitution. We should be proud of sharing this continent with the oldest continuous culture on earth, and we know that when we listen to people who are directly affected, we’ll get better outcomes. And that is what this is about.”
Campaigners for the Yes side have this year tried to remind voters that the Voice came out of the bottom-up process of the Uluru Dialogues. But they were hamstrung by the political debate between the government and the opposition, as well as haggling over the wording of the constitutional amendment, amid falling support for the Yes side in recent polls.
Albanese said there was a “different poll every day” but they all showed the Yes side leading the No side – which was not the finding of the latest Resolve Strategic poll conducted for this masthead.
The Resolve poll this month showed support for the Voice had fallen below a majority on the Yes or No question for the first time, dropping from 53 to 49 per cent.
The poll showed voters had swung against the proposal for the third month in a row and are backing the No case in the three states of Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia – enough to sink the referendum.
For the referendum to be successful, it must gain a majority of support across Australia as well as a majority in four of the six states.
Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney says a Yes vote on the Voice will “make us a nation we can all be proud of”.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
NSW Premier Chris Minns threw his weight behind the Voice Yes campaign at an event in southern Sydney yesterday, arguing Sydney residents had a “special responsibility” to vote Yes.
Minns told Yes supporters at Rockdale Town Hall, hosted by Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney in her electorate, that as the most populous state with the largest First Nations population of any jurisdiction, NSW had a “historic opportunity” to move towards reconciliation.
“The NSW government and the Labor Party in NSW are fundamentally and comprehensively calling for a yes vote for the referendum,” he said. “A decisive yes vote is the wind in the sails that the reconciliation movement needs in this state and this country.”
Burney said she wasn’t concerned about polling results, and wouldn’t be reading about the Voice in newspapers but instead putting her faith in voters.
“This is our one shot in the locker,” Burney said. “It’s about listening, and it’s about recognising. Do not be fooled by naysayers ... it will make us a nation we can all be proud of.”
Meanwhile, in a speech to the NSW Liberal state council on Saturday morning, Ley said her party decided to oppose the Voice when it was clearly leading in the polls.
“This is bad policy. It is a bad proposal. It will not deliver better outcomes for Indigenous Australians but it will deliver worse outcomes for all Australians,” she said.
“We took a principled decision on this. We weren’t going to be influenced by all the polls – I note that support for ‘Yes’ was somewhere between the 60s and 70s before we declared our position.
“We were motivated by doing what was right for our country.”
But Ley said as the natural party of government, the Liberals in opposition needed to do more than “exposing the flaws of a Labor to get elected”.
“It’s not good enough to just smash this bad Labor government for being awful – we need to show people we are worth voting for,” she said.
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