In a candid moment, popular TV host Natalie Barr has admitted her own concerns about the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, declaring there is little detail about the advisory body being proposed.
The Sunrise host was interviewing Labor frontbencher, Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil and shadow finance minister Jane Hume on Wednesday when she made the surprising admission.
Barr noted that while “some Australians” want to recognise Indigenous Australians in the constitution most people “really don’t understand” what the Voice to Parliament is.
She continued: “You can’t deny that a lot of people just don’t get it, a lot of people are saying how many people will it involve?, how is it going to be voted?, all the details … will it create another layer of bureaucracy?, will it slow down our government?, all that stuff.”
Barr then asked O’Neil whether the gap in knowledge could be explained in six short weeks.
“Absolutely, Nat,” O’Neil replied without missing a beat.
She said governments had tried “everything else” but there still was a significant gap between Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australians and the Voice could act as a circuit breaker and fix it.
“What I would just say to Australians is… Firstly, this has come from First Nations people, this is not politicians who have dreamed this up,” she said.
“Why is there a nine-year life expectancy gap between First Nations and non First Nations Australians?”
“Why is an Indigenous mum three times more likely to die in childbirth?”
“These are just some terrible gaps in the standard of living between First Nations, Australians and others. And we have tried everything else.”
This morning Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed the date of the Voice referendum, revealing voters will go to the polls on October 14.
Kicking off a six-week campaign, Mr Albanese said it was “a once in a generation chance to bring our country together and to change it for the better.”
“Our government, along with every single state and territory government, has committed to it. Legal experts have endorsed it,” he noted.
“People on all sides of the Parliament have backed it. Faith groups and sporting codes and local councils and businesses and unions have embraced it. An army of volunteers from every part of this great nation are throwing all of their energy behind it.”
“Now, my fellow Australians, you can vote for it.”
Mr Albanese said voters were being asked to say Yes, to an invitation that comes directly from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander themselves.
“A proposal that thousands of elders and leaders and communities all over our country have worked on for well over a decade,’’ he said.
Support for the Voice proposal has been plummeting over the last couple of months, dipping below 50 per cent in all states, according to the latest Newspoll published in The Australian.
According to the poll the Yes vote was only ahead in two states – South Australia and New South Wales – and is tied in Victoria.
The No camp is leading in Western Australia, Queensland and Tasmania.
South Australia has been identified as a key battleground state, seen as “strategically important” to the Yes campaign.
Public support for the Voice began to fall sharply in May at the same time more than 600,000 households hit the “mortgage cliff” as fixed-rate loans rolled over onto sharply rising variable rates, a leading pollster says.
Redbridge director, Kos Samaras, warned that voters in mortgage belt suburbs “starting to lose their homes” were growing “annoyed” at the Voice debate, and says he repeatedly tried to warn the Yes campaign earlier this year about the “looming problem”.
– with Samantha Maiden and Frank Chung