What will Anthony Albanese do if the Voice referendum fails?

When the UK voted to leave the European Union in the 2016 Brexit referendum, the PM who led the case to remain resigned. With the Voice looking likely to fail, what will Anthony Albanese do on October 15, asks James Campbell.

It should have been the week the starting gun fired on the sprint to victory at next month’s Voice referendum.

But with a month until polling day and polls showing the vote likely to fail, minds in the government are turning to how the divisions from the campaign can be healed.

The first official week of the campaign, which began on Monday with Governor-General David Hurley issuing the writs for the October 14 vote, quickly turned into a horror show for the Yes campaign after comments emerged of Professor Marcia Langton telling an audience in Western Australia that the No campaign’s arguments came down to “base racism” or “just sheer stupidity”.

Langton was later at pains to make clear she was talking only about the arguments and was not calling No voters racist or stupid.

But in private, senior government figures and Yes23 staff were not hiding the fact they thought the comments played into the hands of the No camp and were a disaster for the campaign.

Professor Marcia Langton addresses the National Press Club last week. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Privately some ministers expressed frustration at the reluctance to publicly rebuke her.

“We should have distanced ourselves from Langton,” one minister said.

The Yes23 campaign wasn’t sure how to respond either.

“In an election campaign you can disendorse candidates, but it’s a referendum. You can’t sack Marcia Langton because you don’t like what she’s said,” a senior Yes23 campaign strategist said on Thursday.

Bizarrely, with only four weeks to go until the vote — and with the polling all showing the referendum is likely to fail — a surprising number of senior Labor figures say minds have yet to turn to what the government plans to do on the morning after the night the vote goes down.

In the aftermath of the 2016 Brexit referendum, which saw the UK vote to leave the EU, then UK prime minister David Cameron, who had led the case to remain, resigned.

Could the same thing happen here?

“How does he stay if the Yes vote starts with a 3 when he’s put the country through this?” a senior Coalition frontbencher said.

Gumatj clan dancers perform bunggul (ceremonial dance) for Anthony Albanese, before presenting him with a Bathi at this year’s GARMA opening ceremony. Picture: Nina Franova

A former Morrison government minister said it was right that people considered what he called “the David Cameron option”.

“(Anthony Albanese) is the one who insisted on this in this form to the existence of other forms, he’s got to take responsibility for that,” he said.

“There are a lot of similarities. He chose to do it. He chose for it to be in that form to the exclusion of all others, and was adamant about it. It was all or nothing. That was his choice.

“Now when you make an all-or-nothing play, you’ve got to accept the all-or-nothing outcome.”

But Labor MPs who spoke to News Corp all rejected the prospect of the PM quitting in the wake of defeat, with one saying the caucus was “100 per cent behind him” and no Australian prime minister had ever quit who had lost a referendum.

But a minister conceded it was strange how little work had gone into preparing for this outcome.

The reason for that, he said, was simple: “Because it’s a thought crime.”

Another said the prospect preying foremost on his mind was how it would be received by Indigenous Australia.

“It is going to be a really bad day for Aboriginal people if the polls should be proved correct,” he said.

There would also be angry recriminations from the inner-city Left — “a pity party for the ages”, as one Labor activist described it — which the government would need to avoid indulging.

“I think there needs to be a balance of humility, reflection and optimism,” the minister said.

“There’s got to be a hope proposition, but turning that into something that can be operationalised is really f..king hard.”

Uluru Statement from the Heart advocate Thomas Mayo. Picture: Supplied

A Labor MP, who made no bones about the fact he thinks the referendum is going to fail, said “it will take some time” for the country to get over the vote.

“There will be a lot of bitterness and rancour about this,” he said.

He said Mr Albanese would need to “redouble his effort on closing the gap” after the campaign was over.

“Housing, health, education, homelessness — that’s what he’s got to do for the country,” the MP said.

Just how bleak the aftermath of defeat might be was summed up by Yes23 spokesman Thomas Mayo, a favourite target of the No campaign, who said the damage would take generations to heal.

“You won’t be able to undo the hurt or the damage it does, particularly, and most importantly, to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, because the truth is this is a modest proposal despite fear mongering, it’s just an advisory committee, that’s all it is, what most of the respected constitutional experts and former High Court justices say,” Mr Mayo said.

“It will take more than a lifetime to heal the damage of a No vote, it will take many lifetimes I think.”

Mr Mayo is in no doubt that the blame for the decline in the Yes vote’s fortunes can be attributed to the Federal Opposition’s decision in April to oppose the Voice.

“It’s only been since the No campaign has ramped up its misinformation and fear campaign that we have seen those numbers plummet,” Mr Mayo said.

“It should never have been something that a political party decided to make an issue that is about being re-elected. It’s just wrong.”

Another minister, who admitted he had “no idea” how the government planned to move on if No won out, drew attention to the Prime Minister’s rhetoric last week in parliament in which he said Australians are “fundamentally decent” and “regardless of what way they vote in a democratic referendum, I respect Australians — each and every one of them.”

“I think that’s the tone he’s going to be striking,” the minister said.

“The challenge,” his colleague said, will be “to find a message and a tone that cuts through what will be wild noise, that doesn’t look like it’s picking a fight with the vote — whilst not letting Dutton off the hook — and which provides as much comfort as possible to First Nations people who’ll be doing it tough and who know there isn’t an easy answer to that pain.”

But a senior Labor official, who is deeply involved in the campaign, was blunt about how little thought so far has gone into this.

“It’s a good question how we handle it and I’m not sure comrades have properly turned their minds to it,” the official said.

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