What’s it mean? Majority of voters baffled by the Voice: Poll

A new poll showing an overwhelming number of people think the government has done a bad job of explaining the Indigenous Voice to Parliament doesn’t bode well for the PM’s referendum.

Anthony Albanese speaking at a press conference in 2022 with Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Monique Harmer

An overwhelming majority of voters believe the Federal Government has done a bad job in explaining its proposal for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

The size of the challenge facing the Albanese government’s upcoming referendum has been laid bare in exclusive new polling showing more than two thirds of Australians don’t understand the proposal.

A YouGov poll commissioned by The Saturday Telegraph found 68 per cent of voters believed the government had done a poor job in explaining how the Voice would work.

And fewer than 50 per cent of voters say they would back the Voice in a planned referendum.

Asked whether they supported a Voice to Parliament, 30 per cent said no, while 46 per cent said they did and a further 24 per cent said they were unsure.

The YouGov poll for The Saturday Telegraph illustrates the size of the job Anthony Albanese had ahead of him in gaining popular support for the Voice.

Fewer than 50 per cent of voters in the poll said they would back the Voice in a planned referendum. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jeremy Piper

“A majority of voters really aren’t sure what the voice is about,” said Dr Shaun Ratcliff, director of data science at YouGov.

The online poll of 1069 NSW voters was undertaken last week and found that respondents who didn’t understand the Voice were more likely to vote against it.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with Yothu Yindi Foundation Chair Galarrwuy Yunupingu the Garma Festival in northeast Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Friday, July 29, 2022. Picture: AAP

“Very few people are overwhelmingly confident that they understand what the Voice is and how it will work,” Dr Ratcliff said.

“The voters that don’t feel it’s been explained are much more likely to say they

won’t support the Voice at a referendum, or that they’re unsure how they

would vote.”

SUPPORT ALONG PARTISAN LINES

Support for the Voice proposal was divided on partisan lines, with 61 per cent of Labor and 72 per cent of Green voters in favour, compared to 31 per cent of Coalition voters.

Far more Coalition voters (63 per cent) were critical of the explanation offered by the Albanese Government, compared to Labor and Greens voters at 34 and 35 per cent.

But there was bipartisan opinion on the lack of explanation with roughly half of

Labor and Greens voters saying it had not been explained or they are not sure about it and a larger majority of Coalition voters saying the same.

“And this is related to support for the Voice, with voters who don’t feel it’s been explained much more likely to vote no, or to say they are not sure how they would vote,” Dr Ratcliff said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been criticised for his failure to clearly outline the proposal ahead of a planned referendum which could be held as early as August.

A radio interview in which he failed for 21 minutes to explain the detail of how the Voice would work was ridiculed last week, and he did not rule out passing legislation to create a Voice even if the referendum were to fail.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, who has held back supporting the proposal as he calls for more detail, latched on to the opaque interview, describing it as a “trainwreck”.

“I hope that the Prime Minister can start being upfront with the Australian people instead of being tricky because if he continues this trickiness, he will own the failure of the referendum,” Mr Dutton said.

Mr Albanese has repeatedly said that Labor’s proposal for a constitutionally enshrined Voice was recommended by Indigenous leaders in the 2017 Statement from the Heart and that it would both recognise Indigenous people in the Constitution and give them a say over laws that impact them.