‘Botched’: Inside the Voice vote collapse

New polling on the Indigenous Voice to parliament shows an alarming fact for the Yes side that could spell doom for the referendum.

New polling on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament has revealed an alarming fact for the Yes side that could spell doom for the struggling referendum.

A poll by RedBridge Group released over the weekend found the Yes vote is in “freefall” and tracking at below 40 per cent in every state except Victoria.

The poll also found that Labor voters are deserting the party line, with a narrow majority of 57 per cent of its supporter base planning to vote Yes.

But the most concerning statistic, according to a leading pollster, is the fact that one in three people who are planning to vote Yes are supporting it for reasons “unknown to the Yes campaign”.

“It’s clear that the Yes campaign has botched its research, by developing a campaign narrative that is not convincing Australians to vote Yes,” Simon Welsh, director of research and reputation at RedBridge, told news.com.au.

We tested the main campaign messages utilised by both Yes and No camps.

What does these findings tell us? One team’s (No) research seems to have correctly identified the best persuasive messages for their proposition. The other team’s (Yes) research has completely botched it.… pic.twitter.com/73iU2cqBXQ

— Kos Samaras (@KosSamaras) September 9, 2023

“It’s the wrong message to the wrong audience. A third of Australians we surveyed, who plan to vote Yes, are not motivated by the Yes campaign’s main narratives.”

Mr Welsh said the Yes campaign had failed to articulate a “single, compelling argument” for ‘why this?’ and ‘why now?’”

“Put simply, the Yes campaign is not running on the issues that the people it needs to persuade actually find compelling,” he said.

“It is leaving people to find their own way to Yes.

“We pick up in our focus groups, in equal measure, that Voice is both going to be a transformation and also just a simple advisory body.

“The electorate is confused, and all of this is happening in an economic context where many people are struggling to survive, so cutting through with messaging about anything else is difficult anyway.”

He slammed the Yes campaign for failing to connect with outer suburban, regional and economically stressed voters.

“The critical mistake that the Yes campaign has made is, rather than trying to connect with these voters through a sense of disempowerment that they feel they can share with Indigenous communities, they connected with the very institutions that have driven the disempowerment these voters feel,” he claimed.

“These voters look at corporate Australia with a degree of resentment – they blame big business for profiteering during a cost-of-living crisis, for the loss of the secure jobs that once tied their communities together, for the skewing of our political system to protect corporate interests ahead of ordinary Australians.”

Aussies will vote on the historic Indigenous rights referendum on October 14. Picture: Steve Pohlner

But Anthony Albanese said he is “confident” Australians will deliver a Yes vote in the upcoming Voice referendum.

Speaking at the Garma Festival in August, the Prime Minister appeared unperturbed by the dwindling support for the Voice and maintained he was optimistic about the Yes case put forward.

The principles that have been put out say very clearly, it doesn’t seek to impose or remove existing institutions, it seeks to work with them as well. That’s one of the principles that’s there in the details,” he told reporters.

“If they are looking at whether they are going to vote Yes or No, look at the words which are there in the Yes case, they’re constructive, they’re positive, they’re forward-looking.

“And I’m confident, that when Australians look at what the actual question is that’s being asked, and look at the Yes case that is there, which includes an outline of what it looks like, then they will return a Yes vote.”

Aussies will vote on the historic Indigenous rights referendum on October 14.

The Yes campaign will need to win four states and the national result to carry the required “double majority” for constitutional change.

The question Australians will be asked to vote on to change the constitution to include an Indigenous Voice to Parliament is:

“A Proposed Law: to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.

“Do you approve this proposed alteration?”

It will be the first referendum in Australia since the country voted on becoming a republic in 1999, which was unsuccessful, with 45.13 per cent voting Yes and 54.87 per cent voting No.

The republic did not receive a majority in any state in Australia. Only the Australian Capital Territory recorded a majority Yes vote for it.

Public support for the Voice began to fall sharply in May at the same time more than 600,000 households hit the “mortgage cliff” as fixed-rate loans rolled over onto sharply rising variable rates.

-with Frank Chung