Indigenous voice to parliament campaigns prepare to launch across the country

Major events promoting the indigenous voice to parliament will be held in every capital city within weeks.

Indigenous campaigner Dean Parkin, Cleveland. Picture: Liam Kidston

Major events promoting the Indigenous voice to parliament will be held in every capital city within weeks of the bill needed to set up the referendum passing parliament, while the group known as the Liberals for Yes prepares to meet with high-powered conservatives who can lend their voices to the pro-voice campaign.

Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney will also visit WA – one of the key states of concern for the yes camp – next month as part of her push to convince Australians to support the referendum expected to be held in the middle of October.

The groundswell of campaign activities follow the Constitution Alteration Bill passing the Senate 52 votes to 19 on Monday after months of discussion on the matter in parliament.

Yes23 campaign director, Dean Parkin, said the passing of the legislation signalled the beginning of the grassroots campaign, which would take the debate on the voice out of parliament and into communities across the country.

“Up until now, the process has been dominated by politicians and lawyers,” he told Sky News.

“You can expect to see much more of the Yes campaign out in the streets starting from July 2. There will be a series of community-based events across the country again, creating those spaces and places for people to come into the debate to learn more about it.”

The national event, titled Come Together for Yes, will coincide with the beginning of Naidoc week and will be staffed by some of the 8000-strong volunteer base cultivated by the Yes camp so far.

Mr Parkin said thousands of people had already RSVP’d to the events, and confirmed a greater advertising blitz would follow after Come Together for Yes.

Greens First Nations senator Dorinda Cox said her party would “be in the hands of the Yes campaign across the country” as it lobbied for a yes vote at the referendum, but made clear it would also keep pursuing action on treaty making and truth telling from the government and seek to lock-in a time frame for the establishment of a Makarrata commission.

The Liberals for Yes campaign, which has the support of the conservative think tank Uphold and Recognise, would gear up its own campaign targeting Liberal voters across the country, with a focus on businesses and influential conservatives.

“The type of thing we will do is we will do a lot of those boardroom conversations and try to reach out to those influential people within the conservative ranks and continue to bring them into the conversation,” Liberals for Yes national convener Sean Gordon told The Australian.

“The big thing now is to give confidence to people who feel their voices have been drowned out in this process. There are lots of conservatives and Liberals and National Party members that feel that … our aim is to provide a platform for them to be able to come out and advocate their support.”

The Liberals for Yes recruited former SA Liberal Party director, Sasha Meldrum, in recent weeks to help design its campaign strategy, which will include targeted messaging for conservative voters and focus on debunking myths of the No campaign.