Voice referendum: ‘Mobilise the Yes army for future campaigns’, says Michael Mansell

If the voice referendum fails, the 50,000 Yes23 volunteers should remain mobilised to campaign for treaty and Indigenous parliamentary seats, says a leading ‘progressive No’ Aboriginal leader.

Yes23 volunteers with politicians at Woden Plaza in Canberra. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

If the voice referendum fails, the 50,000 Yes23 volunteers should remain mobilised to campaign for treaty and Indigenous parliamentary seats, says a leading “progressive No” Aboriginal leader.

Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania chair Michael Mansell told The Weekend Australian the voice was “dead in the water”, requiring “the biggest comeback since Carlton beat Collingwood in 1970”.

However, he said the Yes23 army of volunteers was too significant a political force to be sent home.

“We’ve got to retain as an ­entity the group that the Yes campaign has put together – it’s the biggest political force that Aboriginal people have seen since the 1967 referendum,” Mr Mansell said. “Fifty thousand volunteers … is a lot of people, who are obviously committed. For them to walk away empty-handed on Saturday night and think ‘crikey, it was all for nothing’ could be soul-destroying.

“It’s important that group is kept together and given some ­direction.”

He said this could include a push for a national treaty convention to be held in March 2024, to identify points of negotiation, and designated Aboriginal seats in federal parliament.

Mr Mansell, a veteran ­Aboriginal activist and lawyer, said he was gathering national support among Indigenous people for his proposal for a senator from each state to be elected solely by that state’s Aboriginal population.

He believed it was constitutionally valid and could be done via legislative change.