A prominent Voice to Parliament supporter has outlined the key mistakes that have undermined the referendum’s chances of success.
A majority of Australians expected to Vote No on Saturday, in the first constitutional referendum held in 24 years, with leaked polling showing the Yes vote ahead in just 22 of the 151 House of Representative seats around Australia.
“Think if we go back to Garma in July 2022, I think if the prime minister had made some deliberate efforts of bipartisanship at that stage, things could have gone better,” Father Brennan said on Sky News Australia. The Jesuit priest and legal academic also pointed to a 2021 speech by Voice architect Noel Pearson to show how the government’s failure to provide detail about the Voice ignored a key lesson from the same-sex marriage plebiscite.
This failure to understand the importance of bipartisanship was seen in at least two areas; the first being the government’s decision to create a referendum working group from 21 hand-picked individuals, excluding Indigenous Australians who took a different view. “If only there had been a grasping at the Olive Branch, I suppose we'd say we'd be in a better position than we are now,” he said.
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