Noel Pearson isn’t easily deterred.
“It’s a 15-year-old game and we’re in the last quarter here”, the veteran campaigner for Indigenous rights and co-architect of the Voice concept told the ABC, while sitting in the red dirt at the Garma Festival.
Despite the polls continuing to head in the wrong direction for the Yes case, Pearson says he’s feeling good. He’s been active over the past month or so. Very active. Knocking on doors, speaking at community events, pulling out all stops in the final push to the referendum line.
The confidence of Yes campaigners at Garma can be difficult to fathom when looking at the hard numbers and trend lines that usually dictate political campaigns.
Another poll yesterday, this time from Redbridge, was even uglier for the Yes case than most. It put the No case ahead 56 to 44 per cent.
And yet there’s no outward sign of despair. Yes strategists have a range of explanations as to why the numbers aren’t more favourable. The polls are flawed, they’re meaningless at this stage, most voters are yet to seriously tune in, the No campaign is running out of scares, the feedback is much better at the grassroots level.
The Yes campaign might be right. Referendum campaigns aren’t necessarily akin to election contests. Polls aren’t always predictors. There’s still time for a campaign blitz to push this over the line at the end.
Still, the numbers can’t be ignored. The Yes campaign is behind. And it’s trying new angles and avenues to appeal to anyone still on the fence.
For his part, that’s involved the prime minister issuing a warning. If this referendum fails, there won’t be another shot at it any time soon. Finding some other form of Indigenous recognition everyone can happily agree on, is folly. This moment of healing will be lost.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton has argued a simpler form of recognition, without enshrining a Voice in the Constitution, would garner bipartisan support and therefore much stronger backing amongst voters.
He would rather legislate the Voice and settle on a purely symbolic form of words to recognise Indigenous Australians in the Constitution.
Anthony Albanese has shot that idea down. “We know that this is a once in a generation opportunity”, the prime minister told the ABC’s Insiders at the Garma Festival. Pointedly, he’s reminded voters of the last referendum experience.
“Many people in the Republic referendum thought it would come around again.”
It didn’t.
“Don’t think that other issues can be advanced by a No vote,” says Albanese.
The Voice was the form of constitutional recognition specifically requested after the extensive Indigenous consultation process known as the Uluru Dialogues.
The idea of purely symbolic recognition was rejected.
“There is only one form of recognition and that is the Voice”, says Yes-23 campaign director Dean Parkin.
Noel Pearson, meanwhile, is appealing to more conservative-minded voters with the promise a constitutionally enshrined Voice would lead to Indigenous Australians taking greater responsibility.
With the power to advise on policy solutions, Pearson says Indigenous Australians would share responsibility for their own destiny.
“In the future when we have the Closing the Gap speech at the start of every year, accountability for those results will rest with us and the government as partners.”
It’s a basic message about the rights and obligations that come with empowerment. Yes strategists believe it could become one of the most influential arguments by the time voters head to the polls.
Loading
For now, Albanese has returned to Canberra, where he faces another week of parliament and no doubt another round of difficult questions from his opponents about the Voice.
It’s a long way from the warm embrace at Garma.
Albanese will be hoping the call from Yolŋu leaders to support the Voice, along with his own sharper lines about what’s at stake, will resonate beyond north-east Arnhem Land.
David Speers is National Political Lead and host of Insiders, which airs on ABC TV at 9am on Sunday or on iview.