A 'no' win will make it harder for government to tackle Indigenous disadvantage: Albanese

Written by: Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

The government’s efforts to tackle Indigenous disadvantage will not be as effective if Saturday’s referendum fails, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said.

Albanese has also reconfirmed that if there is a “no” vote he will not seek to legislate a Voice.

The government would respect the outcome, he said on Sunday. “If Australians vote "no”, I don’t believe that it would be appropriate to then go and say, oh, well you’ve had your say, but we’re going to legislate anyway".

As the campaign enters its final days, the ABC’s “poll of the polls”^[1] had “yes” at an average of 41.2%, and “no” on 58.8%. To pass, the referendum needs a national majority and to win in a majority of states.

Albanese told a rally in Queanbeyan he would be visiting Broken Hill, Port Lincoln, Mutitjulu, Uluru and Melbourne, Hobart, Perth, Adelaide and Sydney in the final stretch.

Asked on the ABC whether he’d walk away from the Voice altogether if there was a no vote, he was unequivocal, saying “correct.”

“What you do when we’re talking about the Voice is listening. And Indigenous Australians have said they want a Voice that’s enshrined [in the Constitution].

"What they don’t want to do is what they’ve done time and time again, which is to be a part of establishing representative organisations only to see, for opportunistic reasons, a government to come in and just abolish it.”

The federal opposition is committed to legislating local and regional Voices.

Albanese said the government was already undertaking measures to combat Indigenous disadvantage but, in the event of a “no” vote, “it won’t be as effective as having a body, a Voice to be listened to”.

“But we’ll continue to do things like, we’re replacing the remote jobs program with a program for employment that actually creates real jobs with real wages. We’ll continue to invest in justice reinvestment, looking at programs like Bourke that work effectively. We’ll continue to invest in community health.

"But what a Voice will do is provide for an opportunity for us to replicate the success stories. There are success stories out there. Success stories where Indigenous kids are going to school, where health programs are being improved.”

Albanese said the referendum was being watched internationally. If it was carried, “it will be seen that Australia has come to terms with our history, that we’re a mature nation”.

The debate was about “whether we’re a country that looks for hope and optimism and for the future, or whether we shrink in on ourselves”.

But if the referendum went down, “we will go out there and explain the position”.

Deputy opposition leader Sussan Ley told Sky: “Whatever the result is on Saturday it will be bad, divisive and unhappy for Australians the next day. So we do need to bring the country together.”