Sky News documentary on the voice referendum unveils what Australians really think

A new documentary reveals exactly what the public thinks about the proposed changes to the constitution.

After travelling all around Australia visiting cities, towns and remote Indigenous communities and speaking to “yes” and “no” campaigners, Sky News Australia’s northern Australian correspondent Matt Cunningham says many Australians remain confused about the voice to parliament proposal.

Cunningham, who has extensively covered Indigenous issues for more than a decade, interviewed dozens of people on both sides of the referendum debate plus members of the public as part of the upcoming documentary, The Voice: Australia Decides which airs on Tuesday night.

“We spoke to people who are involved in the idea of the voice and people from both the yes and no campaigns. We wanted to find out exactly what was being proposed and the pros and cons to the argument,” said the Darwin-based Cunningham.

“We also talked to regular people around the country to see what they knew and thought about the voice and the clear takeaway from that … is that a lot of people didn’t know much about it. Either they didn’t know about (it) or they knew about it but they didn’t know the details and exactly what is being proposed.”

Among those interviewed for the documentary were Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney, Opposition Indigenous Australians spokeswoman Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, Indigenous businessman Warren Mundine, barrister Louise Clegg, Yes23 campaign director Dean Parkin and his mother Evelyn. He also speaks with traditional owners of the land.

Cunningham said the biggest challenge the yes campaign faced was to get information about the proposal out there to fill the void.

He said journalists who spent a short time in the NT region from interstate didn’t have a thorough understanding of the complexity of issues facing Indigenous communities. “People fly in here from interstate and spend a couple of days and report on something to do with NT without really understanding the issues at play.”

Sky News will launch its new channel dedicated to the voice on Tuesday, where it can be viewed on Foxtel channel 603 or streamed live at skynews.com.au. Cunningham will also host a weekly program called The Voice Countdown each Friday on the new voice channel.

The Voice: Australia Decides will air on Sky News Australia’s main channel and voice channel at 8pm AEST on Tuesday July 25 and will also be streaming on SkyNews.com.au.