Yes23 targets Liberal seats, backed by unions

The Yes23 campaign will direct its army of volunteers into 18 Liberal-held marginal seats and traditionally conservative electorates, under a national strategy.

Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and wife Lucy join the Yes23 campaign in Sydney on Wednesday. Picture: Gaye Gerard/NCA Newswire

The Yes23 campaign will direct its army of volunteers into 18 Liberal-held marginal seats and traditionally conservative electorates, under a national strategy to win support from millions of soft voters ahead of the October 14 referendum.

The Australian can reveal prominent moderate Liberal MPs and party luminaries will lead the push for undecided conservative voters in Western Australia, Tasmania, South Australia, NSW and Victoria to vote Yes for a constitutionally enshrined Indigenous voice advisory body.

With the Liberal Party state divisions and supporter bases at low ebbs, the No campaign concedes it cannot rely on party members to volunteer en masse at pre-polls and on referendum day.

Yes23 plans to take advantage of the weak state of Liberal campaigning infrastructure, harnessing its 28,000 volunteers and the combined resources of the ALP and union campaign machines to bombard marginal and swing seats over the next six-weeks.

Liberal seats on Yes23’s target list include Deakin, Menzies, Banks, Bradfield, Hughes, Lindsay, Sturt, Bass and Braddon. Former Liberal seats held by teal independents and Labor, including Aston, Goldstein, Hasluck, Tangney, Curtin, Kooyong, North Sydney, Warringah and Wentworth, are also on the list.

Senior Yes23 campaigners believe “there are lots of undecided voters in these seats that can be swayed into the Yes column”.

Yes23 campaign director Dean Parkin will join voice advocate and Liberal MP Julian Leeser in Sydney on Thursday, as the Liberals for Yes movement led by former ACT chief minister Kate Carnell and prominent Indigenous business leader Sean Gordon gathers momentum.

ACTU secretary Sally McManus said union members would join Yes23 campaigners to end discrimination against Indigenous Australians.

“The union movement was built on amplifying voices so they can be heard. For too long our parliaments have made laws about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples without proper consultation with First Nations peoples,” Ms McManus said.

“The union movement has listened to its membership who are keen to walk with their Indigenous colleagues and we will be supporting members to campaign on this issue.”

With the No campaign needing to win one or both of Tasmania and South Australia, Yes23 is confident that grassroots campaigning by Bass Liberal MP Bridget Archer in northern Tasmania will get them over the line.

“This is an historic opportunity for Australia. There are Liberals across the country – like me – who support this because we want to see better outcomes, less wastage and real results,” Ms Archer said.

A Yes23 campaigner said in addition to the push into Liberals territory, the Teals will rally supporters in NSW, Victoria and WA.

Malcolm Turnbull and former federal Liberal Party deputy leader Julie Bishop this week joined the Yes23 campaign in Perth and Sydney, and will continue supporting the push into Liberal Party heartland.

Mr Leeser, who quit his frontbench role as opposition Indigenous Australians spokesman in April after Peter Dutton announced the Coalition would oppose the voice, said “I believe Australians will vote for a better future”.

“At a referendum, there are no parties on the ballot paper, nor candidates, there is only an idea on the ballot paper. The idea is to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in the Constitution,” Mr Leeser said.

“I believe the risk at this referendum is not change, but the risk lies in more of the same.”

NSW Liberal MP and former NSW treasurer Matt Kean said he would be campaigning in his electorate of Hornsby, where voters were “already engaged”.

“Being out in the community you hear a variety of views, but I’m voting Yes because I believe we have an incredible opportunity before us to hear from Indigenous Australians on the issues that affect them,” Mr Kean said.

Ms Carnell said Liberals for Yes, which is co-ordinating volunteer activation, community forums and grassroots education programs, will promote genuine and practical change for Indigenous Australians to “like-minded Australians in a respectful way”.

Mr Gordon said a Yes vote “simply reaffirms the request made to Australia by an overwhelming number of Indigenous people in delivering the Uluru Statement from the Heart”.