Tears and calls to action as Australians decide the fate of the voice referendum

Anthony Albanese has issued an emotional last pitch to voters as the voice referendum campaign enters its final hours.

Anthony Albanese visits Balmain Public School polling booth to make a final pitch to voters to support the voice. Picture NCA NewsWire/Seb Haggett

Anthony Albanese has issued a tearful last pitch to voters to support the voice in one of his final pit stops along the referendum campaign trail in his Sydney electorate of Grayndler.

In a longwinded and emotionally-wrought address that evoked the legacy of civil rights activist Martin Luther King, the Prime Minister called on Australians to “unite” behind the voice and be on the “right side of history”.

Mr Albanese stopped to take selfies with constituents and patted dogs outside voting booths at Balmain Public School before lashing sections of the media for “extraordinary ignorance” and criticised the No campaign for “stoking division”.

Dressed in his signature campaign battle armour of an akubra hat and Yes T-shirt, Mr Albanese fought back tears as he spoke about how some critics had called on Australians to boo the welcome to country at the AFL and NRL grand finals.

“We must do better. We can do better,” he said.

“This is not a radical proposition. This is a hand outstretched of friendship from the First Australians to every Australian, just asking for it to be grasped in that spirit of reconciliation and friendship.”

Anthony Albanese visits Balmain Public School polling booth on referendum day. Picture NCA NewsWire / Seb Haggett

With a record number of early voters already casting their ballots on Friday, Labor and Coalition MPs converged on polling booths on Saturday morning in an attempt to win over the eight million Australians still due to have their say on referendum day.

Jim Chalmers made a final plea to voters to support the voice outside a Logan polling station in Queensland, declaring that he remained hopeful while holding “no illusion about how hard it is to change our Constitution”. The Treasurer cast his vote for the Yes side before piggy backing his daughter out of the polling station.

“Millions of Australians wouldn‘t have voted yet,” Dr Chalmers told Sky News.

“And they‘ve got a chance here to vote for that better listing and those better outcomes through constitutional recognition.”

Meanwhile, Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney cast her vote in Carlton South Public School in Sydney’s south alongside NSW Premier Chris Minns.

“I have to admit I had some butterflies in my tummy and it made me feel proud, it made me feel hopeful for the future of this country,” she told reporters.

Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney votes at Carlton South Public School polling centre with NSW Premier Chris Minns. Picture: Jenny Evans/Getty Images.

The No side has also been vocal in its opposition to the voice outside polling booths across the country, including Opposition Indigenous Australians spokeswoman Jacinta Nampijinpa Price who said many Indigenous people did not trust “the government or the proposal”.

“I’m not going to be complacent and I wouldn’t like to call anything until we know definitely what the result is,” she told Sky News in Alice Springs.

Independent Senator and prominent “progressive No” campaigner Lidia Thorpe called out racism in Australia describing it as a “cancer”.

Speaking outside a polling booth in the electorate of Cooper in Melbourne’s north, Senator Thorpe declared that “racism is an illness; it makes people sick”.

“So this referendum has shown where the cancer is in this country and where we need to heal this country, and where we need to put our efforts as a nation to stamp out this ugly thing called racism,” she said.

Nationals Leader David Littleproud has also been on the hustings for the No side this morning in Brisbane where he implored Australians not to “feel guilted to vote either yes or no”.

“There should be no guilt about the result that comes out tonight,” he said.

Liberal MP Julian Leeser who resigned as opposition legal affairs spokesman earlier this year after Opposition Leader Peter Dutton – who has not been conspicuously absent from polling booths today – announced the Liberal Party would oppose the Indigenous voice to parliament.

“I’ve taken the stand that I’ve taken because I wanted to be here on this day; handing out how to vote cards in my electorate for something I believe in,” he told Sky News from outside a Berowra polling station.