Indigenous voice to parliament supporters say Anthony Albanese shouldn’t delay referendum

Voice co-architect and senior Australian of the Year Tom Calma says the referendum must be held this year and a delay will not change the will of the people.

Tom Calma says he is ‘flabbergasted’ by what polls are showing. Picture: Gary Ramage

Voice co-architect and senior Australian of the Year Tom Calma says the referendum must be held this year and a delay will not change the will of the people, as Anthony Albanese is told to “go the course” by Yes advocates.

Liberal for Yes co-convener Sean Gordon also rejected the suggestion the referendum be pulled because of a fear of failure or that the country may look bad in the eyes of the rest of the world, warning Australia shouldn’t shy away from a proposal put forward by Indigenous people.

It comes after NSW Liberal senator Andrew Bragg urged the Prime Minister, who has repeatedly said the referendum will be held between October and December, to delay the poll until the middle of next year and find a middle ground so reconciliation was not defeated. “In the meantime, the inertia is no, the momentum is yes. And we’ve got our work cut out,” he said.

Professor Calma, who wrote the voice co-design process report with Indigenous leader ­Marcia Langton, said the vote should happen this year and his on-the-ground experience was not reflected in the falling support in the polls.

“Will the delay – if it was proposed – going to change the situation or not? I don’t believe it will. It’s either the will of the people, if we can trust the polls, seems to be declining so delaying – is that going to turn it around? I doubt it,” Professor Calma told The Australian.

“If people are shortsighted and that’s how they want to be, then that’s how they’ll vote. But I think I would be supportive of maintaining that it happens this year and we take what the people are going to do. I’m a bit flabbergasted actually as to why the polls are reflecting what they are.

“We’ve seen how accurate the polls have been in past elections. We’ll see what happens on the day and hopefully people will have given it a good, considered view and gone beyond the misinformation that’s floating around and make an informed position.”

Mr Gordon said he wasn’t fearful of what the referendum result would be at this stage and insisted the voice would help address the disadvantage Aboriginal people faced, pointing out a two-litre bottle of milk cost $8.40 in a remote community.

“To now suggest that we should pull that process (for constitutional recognition) up because there is fear of failure, I definitely don’t agree with that. My position is to go the course,” he said.

“If the referendum fails then we as a nation need to have a long, hard look at ourselves and really understand what is the relationship between non-Indigenous Australians and Indigenous people of the country? What is the way forward when it comes to addressing the disadvantage between non-Indigenous and Indigenous people?

“The success of Indigenous people over the many decades (has) come from incremental change. For us, this is a further step in that journey. We shouldn’t be shying away from a position that was put forward by Indigenous people for the fear that it may fail and the country may look bad in the eyes of the rest of the world.”

Sean Gordon. Picture: Sue Graham

Mr Albanese has conceded the Yes case needs to be made stronger and public support for the voice has been slipping, sparking debate over what supporters can do to win back lost ground.

Indigenous leader Noel Pearson, who like Professor Calma and Mr Gordon is a member of the Albanese government’s referendum working group, said Liberal pollster and Yes23 director Mark Textor had advised him up to 40 per cent of the population were not yet engaged in the referendum.

“We’ve got three months to engage them,” Mr Pearson told Sky News, backing Mr Albanese’s five-to-six-week referendum campaign.

Businesswoman Lucy Turnbull asked Yes supporters over the weekend how keen they were for the referendum to go ahead “if it is likely going to be lost, possibly by a big margin”.

“I am very troubled and torn about it,” she said.

Empowered Communities responded: “Indigenous people have made an offer and proposal for the way forward. It’s been a long time coming.

“The Australian people must now respond. We think the Australian people will take the hand of friendship and love outstretched.”

Both Professor Calma and Mr Gordon believed the referendum would succeed.

Leading No campaigner Warren Mundine said Mr Albanese should cancel the referendum and hand taxpayers’ money spent on the poll to Aboriginal communities that needed help.

“All these corporate sports bodies and everyone else should do the same thing with all the millions of dollars that they have put into this,” Mr Mundine said.

“It’s a total waste of money. They (the government) should be putting it into communities to help those people who are in need and stop wasting taxpayers’ money.”

An alliance of young Indigenous voice supporters on Sunday described the referendum as “a once-in-many-lifetimes opportunity”, and asked fellow Australians to “seize the opportunity with us”.

The 28 Indigenous campaigners spent the weekend in Brisbane planning the work they will do in every state and territory in the months before the referendum, issuing a declaration of their intent to work towards a successful poll.

Aged 18 to 35, the young Indigenous men and women from Western Australia, Queensland, Victoria and NSW are Uluru Youth Dialogue ambassadors, working under the leadership and guidance of the Uluru Dialogue campaign since 2019.

Additional reporting: Paige Taylor

Johannes Leak’s view.