Campbell: Who wins – Albanese or Dutton – if Indigenous Voice loses referendum?

If the Indigenous Voice to Parliament fails – and the margin isn’t a small one – what will this mean for Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton, asks James Campbell.

There comes a point talking to Labor MPs at the moment when the conversation slows for a few seconds while they take the time to tell you that, notwithstanding everything they have just said, they “still think the referendum can be won” because there are still a huge number of people who either don’t know the thing is happening or haven’t made up their mind yet.

Of course, they might be right. It might well be the case that the large percentage of the populace who don’t watch the news or read a paper is overwhelmingly made up of people who are going to turn up in a couple of months’ time and vote Yes.

Unfortunately there is absolutely no evidence this is the case. Instead, polls suggest that as the number of undecided/don’t knows shrink, most of them are heading to No.

Which isn’t to say either side thinks they’ve got it in the bag.

If there’s one thing both sides agree on, it’s that it’s not an absolute impossibility the referendum will pass. It’s just that at the moment you’d rather be running the No case.

At the moment you’d rather be running the No case. Picture: Kevin Farmer

For argument’s sake, let’s assume it fails and the margin isn’t a small one.

From there, things quickly move on to what this will mean for Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has put so much effort into passing the referendum, it stands to reason he will be diminished by a decisive rejection. Picture: Dan Peled/NCA NewsWire

In the PM’s case, the pessimistic view is that having put so much effort into passing the referendum, it stands to reason he will be diminished by a decisive rejection. It was, after all, no one’s decision but Albo’s to put implementing the Uluru Statement from the Heart at the centre of his government’s agenda in his speech on election night last May.

But if making an issue relatively few Australians care about the centrepiece of his first term was his original political sin, he compounded it in March this year by declining to use his authority to get the referendum question watered down.

By then it was clear that including the right of the Voice to make representations to the executive government, not just parliament, was a sticking point for many constitutional conservatives who might otherwise have supported it.

If Albo had been thinking how he could maximise the referendum’s chances of passing, he wouldn’t have left the job of persuading Indigenous leaders to accept the compromise to the Attorney-General. He’d have asked them himself.

It should not have been left to Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus to deal with the National Referendum Engagement Group in an attempt to compromise on making representations to parliament, rather than the executive government. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Morgan Sette

But he wasn’t prepared to do it. And with that died any chance of peeling off enough Liberals to give it a good chance of passing.

The pessimistic view of some Labor folk is these mistakes will be held against him if this fails.

Another view, which I have more often heard expressed by Liberals, is, pass or fail, by the time we vote at the next election the Voice referendum will be a distant memory.

According to this view, while the government might be suffering now with voters who think it ought to be more focused on cost of living, there will be plenty of time to remedy that problem after the Voice goes down.

My own view is that, in a perverse way, the distraction of the Voice works in Labor’s favour. In its absence it would be much clearer how little it is doing – indeed can do – about the erosion of people’s living standards.

Peter Dutton may not be quite the winner fans think he would be if the Voice fails. Picture: Jonathan Ng

As for Peter Dutton, his fans think he will get the credit for defeating the Voice, and that in politics a win is a win. The alternative view among some Liberals is it will hamper him strategically in the long-term bid to reclaim some of the teal seats.

These pessimists point out Labor’s primary vote is still much higher than it was last May and, if an election were held now, it would be returned in a landslide. According to this view, while the Voice defeat might give the opposition a brief sugar hit, the reality is they are still staring down the barrel of a massive defeat and time is running out to do something about it.

Originally published as Campbell: Who wins – Albanese or Dutton – if Indigenous Voice loses referendum?