Prime Minister Anthony Albanese met by colourful crowd for ‘yes’ campaign

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is in Tasmania, as he continues the campaign for the ‘yes’ vote. See the pictures.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has made a lightning visit to Hobart as part of a last-minute push to boost the Yes vote in Saturday’s Voice referendum.

Flanked by pro-Voice campaigners, local MPs, councillors and trade unionists and greeted by a colourful crowd of supporters, Mr Albanese made a 17-minute streetwalk during which he delivered an impassioned speech in favour of the Voice amid lunchtime crowds and a media scrum in Elizabeth Street Mall.

Anthony Albanese is in Hobart.

Wearing jeans, sneakers and a black Yes T-shirt, Mr Albanese strolled across Collins Street to an enthusiastic welcome at the entrance to the Mall where he mingled with Yes campaigners, posed for selfies and hugged a baby before being whisked off for the flight to his next stop in Sydney.

“What we are asking Australians to do is write ‘Yes’ for two things: for recognition and a non-binding advisory committee so we can listen to Indigenous Australians to matters that affect Indigenous Australians,” he said.

“This is a once-in-a-generation chance to get it right. This is a modest request – just to be listened to.”

“We have an eight-year life expectancy gap, where an Indigenous young male is more likely to go to jail than university, an Indigenous young woman is twice as likely to die in childbirth, an Indigenous person is twice as likely to take their own life – no is what we are living in now.”

“Two hundred and fifty delegates gathered at Uluru in 2017 to ask us to walk with them on the journey to a better future and that is what we have the opportunity to do tomorrow.”

“This week of all weeks, don’t you think Australia can show the world that this is the time for kindness.”

Anthony Albanese is in Hobart.

“For 97 per cent of Australians, for me and for most people, it will not impact your life but it might just make life just that much better for the 3 per cent of Australians who are Indigenous.”

A pair of forestry protesters arrived chanting slogans into a megaphone just at the PM’s car whisked him away.

Premier Jeremy Rockliff also backed the Yes vote in a press conference in Launceston on Friday.

“As a Liberal Premier, I am all about breaking down barriers and increasing opportunity and indeed encouraging aspiration. As premier of Tasmania, I’ve already voted and supported the Yes, so we can move this country and this nation forward in unity together,” he said,

“In 2016, we led the charge to change our constitution to recognise Tasmanian Aboriginal people in our Constitution. ”Since then, we’ve been working together on a pathway of truth-telling and treaty.”

Supporters of the 'yes' vote at the Elizabeth Street mall.

Liberal member for Bass Bridget Archer is also at odds with the party’s federal leader Peter Dutton, who had strongly backed a ‘No’ vote.

“Fundamentally, it’s about recognising Indigenous people as the first people of our country, but importantly, in providing those practical steps to improve the disadvantage that exists across our country to close those gaps that have proven impossible to close under governments of all colours,” she said.

‘We stand here together and we stood together in relation to these issues because we understand this is not a party political issue.

“This is not a partisan issue and we urge Tasmanians to vote tomorrow for a better country, to move forward with unity and with purpose, and to show that we are a mature country that we are a mature nation and embrace our First Nations brothers and sisters and step forward together.”