Albanese to campaign Yes after historic Indigenous voice to parliament bill passes Senate

There are expectations within government the Prime Minister will announce the referendum date in early August.

Patricia Anderson and the Referendum Working Group members hold a press conference after the Constitution Alteration passed in the Senate.

Anthony Albanese will inject ­himself into the centre of the Yes ­campaign for an Indigenous voice to parliament after historic legislation setting up the referendum passed the Senate, but the government is refusing to provide more details on how theadvisory body will work.

The Australian understands the Yes campaign is preparing to better explain what the practical outcomes of having a voice could be, after the starter’s gun on the campaign was officially fired and the Prime Minister said he would seek advice from Indigenous ­leaders on the best timing for the referendum.

There are expectations within government the referendum date will be announced in early August, possibly at the Garma festival founded by the late Indigenous leader and co-architect of the voice Yunupingu.

Mr Albanese on Monday ­declared the government had got the balance on the voice model right and expected many Australians would not begin to focus on the referendum until a month ­before polling day, with the most likely date expected to be mid-­October.

“The truth is, that for most people watching this, it will have no direct impact on their lives. But it just might make lives better of the most disadvantaged group in Australia today,” Mr Albanese said.

“We have been doing things for 122 years for Indigenous people, often with the best of motives. It has not worked. If you do the same thing the same ways you should expect the same outcome.

“This is an opportunity to do things better. Instead of doing things for Indigenous Australians, make change with Indigenous Australians.

“I have faith in the Australian people. And I have faith that we will put our case … but I have ­always had faith in the Australian people.”

Mr Albanese added: “I intend to campaign. People in my caucus ­intend to campaign. People in the Liberal Party will campaign. ­People across the board will ­campaign.”

The Opposition Leader has been explicit in his vow to campaign for the No case, while Mr Albanese previously emphasised the campaign belonged to Indigenous Australians and the public more broadly, rather than politicians.

Mr Albanese is confident the voice will succeed at the upcoming referendum.

There was rapturous applause from some parts of the upper house as the Constitution Alteration Bill was pushed through with a 52-19 vote on Monday, despite a divisive debate and concerns within the Yes camp that it was on the wrong track.

Emotions rose in the chamber as One Nation leader Pauline Hanson used the referendum bill debate to apparently defend the removal of the Stolen Generation from their parents and independent senator Lidia Thorpe ­declared that the voice was a form of assimilation.

Government sources said it was unlikely the referendum date would be announced before the Fadden by-election on July 15 and it would not be held until after the AFL and NRL grand finals in early October.

While the Coalition will continue to push for more detail on the voice’s operations, Yes insiders said there were not any expectations that more design principles would be released.

In question time, Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney repeatedly refused to define which areas of government ­decision-making would be covered by the voice. She accused the Coalition of throwing red herrings after Peter Dutton questioned why Australians were being asked to make the biggest change to Australia’s ­Constitution in decades by creating a permanent new body without “any details as to how it would operate”.

Mr Albanese read out the referendum working group’s eight ­existing design principles for the voice, including that it would not have veto power over federal parliament, and called for the debate to be above politics as usual.

Ms Burney, who came under repeated questioning from deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley over the voice’s remit, said politicians would not like everything the advisory body had to say.

She said the voice was what ­Indigenous Australians wanted and it was a commonsense proposal. “This is not about symbolism or tokenism; it’s common sense,” Ms Burney said.

“For too long, Indigenous Australians have been consistently worse off than non-Indigenous Australians. The Closing the Gap data shows us that.

“It’s a broken system. And the voice is our best chance of fixing it because when we listen to people on the ground and consult with ­locals, they make better decisions and achieve better outcomes.”

Both the Yes and No campaigns are expected to ramp up messaging and spending now that the legislation to hold the referendum has passed parliament, but Mr Albanese said many Australians would not tune in to the ­debate until a month before ­polling day. The Australian Electoral Commissioner will write to members and senators within days to advise them of the process and guidelines for writing the 2000-word Yes/No pamphlets.

“This is something that has not arisen in Canberra,” Mr Albanese said. “This is a voice to Canberra, from every region, from remote communities, from every corner of this land under the southern sky, as the Uluru Statement says.”

Uluru dialogue co-chair and Alyawarre woman Pat Anderson said voice supporters had faced many hurdles but on Monday she could see that changing, with the referendum day in sight.

“The limitations of politicians, they have a lot of things to deal with, but the Australian public, the Australian people will decide what sort of a country we are,” Ms Anderson said.

“What do we stand for? What are our values? Who are we? That is what we will vote on soon in this referendum .It is big. It is important. This is a milestone in who we are as a nation today. And I believe, despite everything that has happened to me and my family and everybody and every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person in the country, there is a fundamental belief you will all do the right thing at the right time.”

Opposition legal affairs spokeswoman Michaelia Cash said the Constitution Alteration Bill would irrevocably change the country’s birth certificate “in a way that will destroy one of our most fundamental values: equality of citizenship”.

Speaking before the Senate vote on the legislation, which was the final parliamentary hurdle the bill needed to clear before the referendum, Senator Cash said the Coalition had attempted to establish basic information for Australians on how the Indigenous voice to parliament and executive government would work but Labor had obfuscated and deflected.

“The government did not have the answers … It’s risky, it’s unknown, it’s divisive and it’s permanent. If you don’t know how the voice is going to work, my humble opinion is vote No,” Senator Cash said. “We are opening up a legal can of worms. The proposed model as we know it is not just to the parliament but to all areas of executive government. It gives an unlimited scope.”