Anthony Pratt donates $1 million to the Yes campaign for the Voice

Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt has donated $1 million to the campaign for an Indigenous Voice to parliament, as both sides seek to build war chests to pay for advertisements across television, print and online.

The executive chairman of Visy Industries recently committed the money to the Yes campaign’s chief financing vehicle, Australians for Indigenous Constitutional Recognition (AICR), which was granted tax deductibility status last month.

Visy boss Anthony Pratt has donated $1 million to the Yes side.Credit: Bloomberg

The group is also in talks with other individuals and businesses about donating similar amounts as it prepares to ramp up its campaign in the coming months, including the launch of television advertisements.

While representatives for Pratt and the AICR declined to confirm the donation, multiple sources with knowledge of the talks said the commitment was made in recent weeks.

The donation will be seen as a political shift for Pratt, who became one of Donald Trump’s biggest supporters and in 2019 helped bring the then-US president together with his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison at his recycled paper and packaging factory in Ohio.

It comes after the Paul Ramsay Foundation last month donated $5 million to the Yes campaign.

Leading No campaigner and Bundjalung man Warren Mundine, who is heading the Recognise a Better Way campaign, said he estimated that his side had received about one-fifth of the donations of the Yes campaign.

“We’re in the single-figure million, while they’re in the double-figure million,” he said.

“Most of our money is from people just donating – tradies, ordinary people – they’re just tossing in $50, $100, $200.

“We’ve had a couple of rich people, but they’re not near the top 100 richest individuals in Australia.”

Mundine said he always knew his side would be outspent by the Yes campaign, so they had to be “very targeted about how we take advantage of the media”.

He said his group started shooting television advertisements last week, which would run in the coming weeks.

“It’s an acknowledgement that the campaign is heating up and it’s also an acknowledgement that we have a bit of money,” he said.

“We’ve been surprised by the amount of Aboriginal people who have approached us to be in those ads, which previously before Christmas was not the case.

“We’ve got no celebrities.”

Northern Territory senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price recently quit the national committee she launched with Mundine, in favour of heading the Fair Australia campaign funded by right-wing activist group Advance Australia.

Mundine said there were now three different groups on the No side, and they all had different perspectives, with his outfit supporting constitutional recognition but opposing the Voice.

He said the three groups talked to each other on a weekly basis “to make sure we’re on the same page”.

Both sides have launched fundraising drives as they prepare to advertise, although sources involved with the campaigns said the bulk of the spend across all mediums would be made in the closing weeks of the campaign.

Warren Mundine says the No campaign needs to be “very targeted” in its media strategy.Credit: Brook Mitchell

The donation drive comes amid an ongoing debate in Canberra over whether the Albanese government should outline more detail on what the Voice would look like before Australians vote in a referendum this year.

Greens First Nations spokeswoman Dorinda Cox and former Coalition indigenous minister Ken Wyatt, who both back the Voice, last week said Labor must spell out more details as it was losing ground.

There has also been a growing fault line between supporters of the Voice over whether it should have the power to advise the executive – that is, ministers and cabinet - or only the parliament.

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here.