Yes campaigners hope to mobilise 70,000 volunteers to sway undecided voters in Saturday’s Voice referendum, while the No side will use an advertising blitz to warn the proposal will divide the nation.
Advocates for the Indigenous Voice are launching a last-ditch appeal to voters to “wake up to a new nation” by voting Yes to practical recognition for First Australians, as millions prepare to cast their ballots and campaign insiders admit the No side appears set for victory.
“I hope it’s a No vote on the weekend because it hasn’t been properly explained, it’s divisive, it’s permanent once it goes into the Constitution, and I just don’t think in their millions Australians are going to support it,” Dutton told the Nine Network. The statement was signed by Gary Williams, Jim Spigelman, Ann Curthoys, Aidan Foy, Pat Healy, Brian Aarons, Beth Hansen, Alec Mills, Chris Page and Warwick Richards. They said they would vote Yes in honour of Perkins, who died in 2000.
Perkins urged voters to ignore No campaign claims that the national Voice was unnecessary because local and regional Voices could make practical change. “People deliberately characterise this as a Canberra voice. It’s not. It’s a regional voice going into Canberra.”With about 5.6 million early votes already cast and 2 million postal votes expected, the Australian Electoral Commission issued a reminder that voting was compulsory, although campaigners acknowledged the prospect of low voter turnout on Saturday.
The Yes campaign’s daily tracking poll, which ended on Thursday, has shown a small tightening in the vote in the final week, according to campaign sources speaking anonymously to detail confidential information, but this was not expected to lead to victory.
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