Focus begins to shift to the consequences of a No vote

In early 2010, after the Greens and the Coalition joined forces in the Senate to block Labor’s carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS), Rudd shelved the policy until after the next election, due later that year.

Albanese has not been able to carry the argument for a Yes case with any cut-through or consistency.

However, the spectre of him supposedly waving the white flag on such a sacred cause was used by his enemies, inside and out, to white-ant his leadership and he was gone by June.

Dutton is arguing that if the referendum fails, there should be another one that would focus just on constitutional recognition of Indigenous people. The Voice would be legislated separately. (Even though the Coalition argues right now that a Voice would be racially divisive. Go figure.)

Even on Dutton’s own side, there is little appetite for a second referendum but no one should be too concerned. Given the Coalition has next to no chance of winning government at the next election, due to the size of its seat deficit, it is a commitment upon which Dutton will never have to deliver.

It’s really only a ruse, just as the monarchists lured the dopey direct-elect republicans to vote No in 1999 with the promise of another referendum for a directly elected president.

Dutton’s comparison with Rudd and the CPRS is drawing a very long bow, given climate change was, and is, an existential threat that affects every party of humanity. For many voters, the Voice is not something they need to bother about. And Albanese can do no more than hold a referendum. Nonetheless, Dutton will hammer the principle.

Albanese won’t bite. He has invested a significant amount of political capital into delivering on his promise to hold the referendum, and he will lose paint if it goes down.

He will declare it a sad moment for the country, maintain that he fought for his values, but nonetheless accept that the nation has spoken and that the verdict be accepted.

Already under fire from voters weary of hearing about the Voice while consumed with the cost of living, Albanese will not carry the argument into next year, as the election draws nearer.

Outplayed by Price

On Tuesday, as Dutton was regaling the party room with his character test thesis, Australian Labor Party national secretary Paul Erickson was detailing to caucus internal polling showing there was still a narrow path to victory, especially with a multimillion-dollar campaign over the next four weeks, during which, importantly, parliament will not be sitting.

As was the case a month ago, Erickson said about 30 per cent of voters, or 5 million people, were still undecided or soft No voters.

Erickson aimed not to provide false hope or false comfort, but to give a realistic assessment of the situation. Generally, those aged over 50 were more likely to have made up their minds, and were sick and tired of hearing about the Voice. Those under 50 were where the narrow path lay.

Erickson urged MPs to campaign in their electorates over the next four weeks. This received mixed views. Speaking afterwards, one MP said the presentation was “patronising”. Another expressed dread at knocking on doors to press constituents about the Voice when petrol was back over $2.20 a litre.

Enthusiasm, in some instances at least, is giving way to self-preservation.

Albanese, who has been hamstrung by having to simultaneously govern and campaign for what many deem as a niche issue, has not been able to carry the argument for a Yes case with any consistency.

The rest of the Yes case has been outplayed not by Dutton but Aboriginal Liberal-Nationals senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, who was not factored in as a threat at the start of the process.

So much so that at the same party room meeting on Tuesday, Nationals leader David Littleproud urged colleagues to step back over the next five weeks and let Price and South Australian Indigenous senator Kerrynne Liddle, do the talking.

Liberal moderates who, several months ago, had misgivings about the decision to not only oppose the Voice, but campaign actively against it, say they have been surprised by the lack of blowback from Joe Public.

One MP, who has become accustomed to being abused or accosted by progressive voters at restaurants or in shopping centres, has not had a single such approach over the Voice.

At the same time, however, there is a concern among moderates about the internal forces a “victory” – as in defeating the referendum – will unleash. As one noted, it will “embolden the crazies”.

Several weeks ago, conservative senators Matt Canavan and Alex Antic made noises in the party room about using the momentum from defeating the Voice to reverse the Coalition’s support for net-zero emissions by 2050.

We saw the first iteration of this on the weekend, when Barnaby Joyce moved a motion at the Nationals’ annual conference to dump the policy. He was soundly defeated.

Even Price, buoyed by her success on the Voice and the profile it has given her, says she wants to turn her focus to transgender issues next.

At the end of the day, the Voice is one issue, but the Coalition still has to win back progressive voters on a multitude of others if it is ever going to form a government.

Internally, however, this will be an argument harder to make if Australia votes No on October 14. And all the while, Indigenous issues will once more recede in the national consciousness.