Jacinta Price says she will ‘feel relief’ when Voice campaign is over

The leading No campaigner says Australia will feel “relief” when the Voice campaign that she describes as a “divisive exercise” is over.

Jacinta Price says she will feel a “sense of relief” on Sunday morning when the Voice to Parliament referendum is “finally over”.

The Nationals senator, and leading No campaigner, says that once the vote has been counted, the work begins moving forward.

Support for the Voice has plummeted in the polls in recent months and is on track to fail; however, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has led the chorus of Yes campaigners remaining hopeful that Yes will prevail.

Senator Price said there would be a “lot of work” to pull the country back together again after the “divisive exercise”.

She said that moving ahead, there were better ways to go about “fixing the system” than the Voice.

“Myself and my wonderful colleague Kerrynne Liddle and Senator (Lidia) Thorpe have been pushing to launch senate inquiries into the land statutory organisations,” she told Channel 9.

“It’s been acknowledged it’s not working. We want to fix the systems that are currently in place within our democracy to ensure that they do work.”
Leading Yes campaigner and Cape York leader Noel Pearson has warned there is “no Plan B” if the referendum fails on Saturday and says there will be no other path for reconciliation.

Leading No campaigners Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Warren Mundine are confident ahead of Saturday’s referendum. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Philip Gostelow.

But he says he is still hopeful, saying he can “feel the love in the air” from quiet Voice supporters across the country.

“There is just too much evidence of Australians coming out in very quiet ways and giving us the thumbs up that they’re voting yes,” he told ABC Radio.

“We have every chance still to win this referendum and for the people to (say Yes), that will transform us and take us into the future.”

No campaigner Warren Mundine has rubbished Mr Pearson’s idea that reconciliation is “no longer viable” if the referendum fails.

“That’s not true. Australia has been moving along the reconciliation now for 20 or 30 years at least,” he told ABC Radio.

“We are always going to be moving, and this is one thing that has come out which is positive and it’s yes and no, they want things to be reconciled. They want to things to move forward, and they want all these issues that are happening in some of these Aboriginal communities to be fixed.”

He said whether it was Yes or No on Saturday, Australia needed to “come back together and start doing the hard work”.

“I’ve got a speech planned out for myself (for Saturday night), and whether it’s a Yes or No, it’s the same speech. It’s about us coming together,” Mr Mundine said.

Noel Pearson said he could feel the ‘love in the air’ from Australians across the country. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Mr Pearson said Australia could not risk a No vote because it would “take us nowhere”.

“With No, we’ll repeat the failures of the past. No is a situation where politicians continue to decide what is right rather than listening to communities,” he said.

He also claimed Senator Price was “not opposed to the Voice until she became a politician”.

“This whole No campaign has been led by politicians whose argument is the status quo is OK where the politicians are in charge, where the politicians need not listen to communities, and somehow we’re going to close the gap,” he said.

“I’m telling you, it never is gonna happen.”