The voice referendum debate is not going well for the yes campaign.
You can see it in the opinion polls, where support for the voice ranges from narrowly ahead to narrowly behind, but is on average 50-50 and trending down.
You can see it in the decision of the Albanese government to continue prosecuting the yes case – despite suggestions that after the relevant legislation passed parliament it was time to pass the baton to the public campaign.
Labor is trying to convince the undecided and soft no voters. The prime minister has been on regional FM and conservative radio stations while the minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, travelled to Tasmania and then Western Australia with the deputy prime minister, Richard Marles.
The aim of taking the debate out of Canberra and into the community has not quite come off, however, because it’s still being carried by federal politicians.
You can see that in the way Labor is muscling up to critics, whether it’s Burney taking on Peter Dutton and misinformation at the press club or an Anthony Albanese spray on 2GB radio insisting it was “dumb” to keep trying the same things to improve outcomes for Indigenous Australians.
Certainly, the PM is much sharper than his efforts earlier in the year.
Where previously he was bogged down in the endless requests for detail, this week he was crisp when dismissing the “red herrings” of whether the voice was a curtain-raiser to reparations, changing the date of Australia Day and Indigenous representations to the Reserve Bank.
The problem is, Albanese can say the voice is about just two things – constitutional recognition and improving outcomes by listening – until he’s blue in the face, but if the debate keeps being framed around ‘risks’, the no side will continue its dream run.
As Albanese has previously noted, the prominence of some Indigenous Australians in the no camp, including Jacinta Nampinjinpa Price and Warren Mundine, can confuse people about the extent of support for the voice among Indigenous Australians.
Meanwhile, Australians are continually told, by Dutton and conservative media outlets, that a risk-free option exists via symbolic constitutional recognition and a legislated voice.
But that’s not what Indigenous Australians asked for in the Uluru statement from the heart – the reason Albanese has consistently given for rejecting that idea.
While the yes vote is slowly pulled out to sea by a tide of bad faith, one Liberal supporter of the voice this week suggested a circuit breaker. Senator Andrew Bragg said it was time to recalibrate – to “save the concept” by running a referendum in mid-2024.
It’s hard to see how an extra 12 months could achieve Bragg’s stated aim of “building bipartisan support that can improve the product”.
The Nationals locked in against the voice in November – on the principle, not the design. The Liberals kept the door ajar slightly longer.
In that time, the government investigated models aimed at winning more conservative support, such as making it a voice to parliament but not the executive; or specifying that parliament would have the power to define the legal effect of its representations.
Many First Nations advocates and leaders said no – they wanted a voice that could make a difference.
The Coalition punished Labor for its efforts by demanding to see the solicitor general’s advice and arguing the mere investigation of alternatives proved the proposal was shoddy.
The advice was released and it said the voice would enhance Australia’s system of representative government.
Experts including former chief justice Robert French, former high court justice Kenneth Hayne, academic Anne Twomey and barrister Bret Walker had their say – dismissing fear campaigns.
But still, the refrain from the no campaign and most in the Coalition was: if you don’t know, vote no.
Another year of thrashing out a model that isn’t supported by Indigenous leaders or searching for good faith and bipartisanship from those advocating symbolic recognition will achieve nothing.
That leaves just three options: turn the campaign around and win; take a defeat and call it an honourable one; or call the referendum off.
On 2GB, Albanese described himself as a “pragmatic guy”. One wonders how poor polls would have to get before the more pragmatic thing to do would be to cancel the referendum.
Noel Pearson has warned that a no vote would mean reconciliation is “dead” and Pat Dodson has said it would harm our international reputation and leave us stuck in our colonial past. Perhaps calling it off could avoid some of that harm.
For the moment, that remains unthinkable, which is why Albanese and Labor are fighting the campaign as best they can and hoping their belief in the generosity of spirit of the Australian people will be vindicated.
But, during a cost-of-living crisis, the mood of many in the electorate seems set against politicians talking about anything except their problems.
The most potent forces arrayed against the yes vote are intangible: doubt, a lack of generosity, and the spectre of possible consequences that can’t easily be defeated by punchier denials.
Albanese famously loves to fight Tories but, at the moment, when it comes to the voice he may as well be wrestling smoke.
