The Albanese government will “be punished” if the Voice to Parliament referendum fails, a senior Canberra Press Gallery journalist has argued.
Early voting in the referendum began in four states on Monday, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese calling on Australians to “seize the future” by voting in favour of the constitutional reform.
Speaking to journalists in Tasmania, Prime Minister Albanese said the Voice would offer “hope” and a “vision for the future” before accusing the No campaign of spreading “a whole lot of disinformation” about the proposal.
However according to The Australian’s National Editor, Dennis Shanahan, voters will blame the government if the referendum fails.
“I think there’ll be a debt later for Labor if the yes vote fails, and it will be punished for being seen to be distracted by the referendum away from cost of living,” he told Sky News Australia’s Peta Credlin.
Shanahan said that the Prime Minister would bear “the majority of the responsibility” if the referendum fails, as well as the “responsibility for division in the community during the debate on the referendum.
“There is no doubt about that. This is his idea,” Shanahan said.
The senior press gallery journalist said that while the prime minister was pushing a proposal that several Indigenous leaders had made it clear they wanted, he had ignored the need for bipartisan support.
“This was the model they wanted and yet one of those architects himself, Noel Pearson, said that it was necessary for a bipartisan model to actually get it through a constitutional amendment,” he said.
“This was recognized by one of the architects of the voice model. And yet Anthony Albanese has failed to do that, by ignoring all of the traditional methods to ensure that you actually persuade the people how to vote.”
The Australian’s National Editor said that far from being convinced by a disinformation campaign, voters were concerned with the referendum question and the government had failed to convince them of the strength of their argument.
“This is demonstrated by the fact that Labor voters are turning against it because they don’t like the arguments. They are not being told enough,” he said.
The senior journalist said the lack of support for the Voice in the polls indicated the government’s proposal was being rejected by a significant percentage of Labor voters.
“We’ve got to remember on these sorts of issues, people don’t vote on partisan lines,” he said.
“Look at the same-sex marriage plebiscite, there are a huge number of Labor electorates in Western Sydney, where the vote was against same sex marriage. They were Labor voters with set in safe Labor seats, and they voted against the same sex plebiscite.”
“Now. I think that this is what is happening here…when you look at the fact that Labor’s primary support at the election, only 18 months ago, was only just over 30 per cent, you have to have Labor voters voting against the referendum in large numbers to get the indicated level of support in the polls for the no vote.
“I think that people don’t like the idea, regardless of their political persuasion.”
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