With only a simple yes or no vote available in the referendum, scenes on Invasion Day expose the problem Labor faces

‘Indigenous people have been patient for a couple of centuries while white Australia refused to reflect, refused to listen, refused to atone, refused to engage.’ Photograph: Robert Wallace/AFP/Getty Images

For a prime minister presiding over his first Australia Day in the top job, for a Labor leader who has sunk political capital into securing the next chapter of reconciliation with First Nations peoples, the call to action needed to be clear.

Suited up on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra on a sparkling summer day, having handed out the annual gongs and welcomed new citizens to their adopted homeland, Anthony Albanese posed a simple question about the voice to parliament.