Key PointsPrime Minister Anthony Albanese has made an eleventh-hour pitch for the Voice.Polls show the Yes camp facing defeat on Saturday.Albanese said in dark times “we always see the best of the Australian character”.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says, in a week of horror across the world, “thinking of others costs nothing” as Australians prepare to vote on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
But Opposition leader Peter Dutton says the prime minister has “written a cheque he couldn’t cash” and described calling Saturday’s referendum as a “catastrophic mistake”.
Albanese delivered an eleventh-hour pitch on Friday, the day before Australians head to the polls, for a Yes camp which polls say is facing defeat.
Referencing a horrific week across the globe – including , , and – Albanese attempted to marshal the “Australian character, where at the worst of times we always see the best of the Australian character”.
“This week of all weeks, where we see such trauma in the world, there is nothing, no cost, to Australians showing kindness, thinking with their heart as well as their head, when they enter the polling booth tomorrow,” he said.
Albanese made his remarks in South Australia, a key battleground given the referendum requires an overall majority and a majority in most states.
And with polling suggesting Queensland and Western Australia are all but lost for the Yes camp, it will need a clean sweep of the remaining states – NSW, Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania – to make the Voice a reality.
Albanese lamented what he called the No camp “playing politics” with a moment of unity, warning Australians were already “living in No”, which had produced an unacceptable status quo.
“We have an opportunity for Australians to do better. To do better to show respect for the first Australians,” he said.
“But [also] to do something for ourselves, as well, because we will feel better. We will feel better about ourselves on Sunday with a Yes vote, just as we felt better after the Apology to the Stolen Generations.”
Peter Dutton says calling the referendum was a ‘catastrophic mistake’. Source: AAP / Jono Searle
Dutton appeared to begin eulogising the proposal on Friday, declaring the prime minister had “written a cheque he couldn’t cash”.
“The PM made a catastrophic mistake not providing the detail to Australians. He’s instinctively won their hearts because Australians do want better outcomes for Indigenous Australia, but he hasn’t won their minds,” he told ABC Radio.
“I hope people will vote No … people roundly have rejected the proposal, and the PM wrote a cheque that he couldn’t cash.”
– With additional reporting from AAP.
