Support slumps for Australian Indigenous rights referendum

SYDNEY: Australia’s historic Indigenous rights referendum is haemorrhaging support, with a barrage of damning new polls showing only a minority in favour of the October vote.

If the referendum passes, Indigenous Australians — whose ancestors have lived on the continent for around 60,000 years _ will be recognised in the constitution for the first time.

They would also gain a constitutionally enshrined right to be consulted on laws that impact their communities.

But less than two weeks after Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese launched the ‘Vote Yes’ campaign in a blaze of publicity, polling has shown the national mood is souring on the idea.

One poll Monday showed 57 percent of respondents were against the referendum, known as the Voice, versus 43 percent in favour. Another at the weekend showed an even wider split of 61 to 37.

Some surveys show support for the referendum has plummeted more than 20 percentage points in the past year.

RedBridge polling firm director Kosmos Samaras told AFP that the “overall picture is one of continuous decline”, and that it was ‘hard to see’ the ‘yes’ campaign prevailing.

Samaras compared it to the Brexit referendum, with progressive voters in city centres splitting from older constituents in Australia’s regions.

Conservative opposition leader Peter Dutton on Monday urged Albanese to drop the referendum, saying it would only damage fragile race relations.

“How can you in good conscience drive the country to a divisive referendum on October 14,” said Dutton, who opposes the Voice.

“Will the prime minister withdraw his Voice referendum so we can avoid an outcome that divides the nation.”

Albanese is committed to ploughing ahead despite the troubling polls, accusing Dutton on Monday of choosing “politics over substance”.

The polls also highlight a widening chasm between the Australian public — who view the Voice with scepticism — and the Indigenous Australian minority who are overwhelmingly in support.

Campaign group Yes23 said Monday that “more than 80 percent of Indigenous Australians” were behind the looming referendum.

The ‘Voice’ has been plagued by criticism that it will confer special privileges on Indigenous peoples, and that it is a plan cooked up by urban politicians with no experience in remote Aboriginal communities.

“The Voice isn’t new, it’s been decades in the making. The idea came directly from Indigenous communities, not politicians,” the Yes23 group countered on Monday.

Indigenous elder Noel Pearson, a high-profile backer of the Voice, has described the referendum as a rare opportunity to help the “most powerless people in the country”.

“We’re the underdog in this referendum but I still believe we can achieve victory,” he told national broadcaster ABC on Sunday.

“I cannot believe we still live in an Australia where that hand would just be slapped aside.”

Aboriginal Australians carry the flame for one of the world’s oldest continuous cultures.

But more than two centuries after the first British settlers dropped anchor in Sydney Harbour, they are still far more likely to die young, live in poverty and be imprisoned.