A leading pollster says the spread of messages through a ‘failed’ Yes campaign is a key reason why the country has failed to convince enough voters to back the indigenous Voice to Parliament in next month’s referendum.
Opinion polls conducted by the Redbridge Group show that the reasons given by likely Yes voters for supporting the Voice are very diffuse.
In addition to the eight most popular reasons for supporting the poll, 29 percent of Yes voters also have other reasons, reflecting the variety of different messages put forward by Voice advocates.
That contrasts with the likely no votes, whose reasons reflect opponents’ more sophisticated messaging
More than half probably No supporter plans to vote that way for one of three reasons: the proposed Vote is divisive, its operation is vague and ill-defined, and it will do nothing to alleviate the problems of Aboriginal communities.
All these messages have been heavily pushed by official No campaigners, such as Jacinta Nampijinpa Price.
Support for the Indigenous Voice to Parliament has fallen, along with support for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (pictured) in the latest poll
The most common reasons voters say yes or no to the vote have been laid out in new polls. The only Yes campaign message that reaches 20 percent of voters is ‘other reasons’
The most popular reason for voting ‘yes’ is that the ‘idea came directly from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’ – a point Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has repeatedly made.
The Labor government’s message of ‘constitutional recognition for concrete results’ encouraged 11 percent of ‘Yes’ voters, while the slogan ‘the time is now’ is favored by eight percent.
But the largest share of participants — 29 percent — said they voted yes for other, unidentified reasons.
RedBridge director Kos Samaras – who has publicly stated he will vote ‘Yes’ – said the ‘Yes camp’ had ‘completely botched’ its investigation.
“The Yes camp is trying to win this referendum by driving down a dark road without headlights,” he said.
‘Don’t forget that Yes was heading for a victory at the beginning of this year. But they have spent millions selling the wrong messages to the wrong audience.
‘The core of all successful campaigns is good research. If you don’t do that properly, a large part of all the good will, effort and money will be lost.’
He later told Daily Mail Australia that the fact that voters are saying ‘yes’ for reasons outside the campaign ‘should be a serious red flag’.
“They seem to have no idea who a key group of their supporters are and why they are voting ‘yes,'” he said.
“Worse, it means their narrative is ill-equipped to reverse declining support.”
The Yes campaign was plagued by concerns that it lacked message discipline and was too slow to get off the ground.
But insiders say campaign efforts will intensify from Thursday this week after parliament takes its final recess before the October 14 vote.
Meanwhile, the No campaign has narrowed its target audience and correctly identified its strongest message: ‘it divides us’
It is an attempt to shift the debate away from Canberra and into the community, where Yes strategists say the referendum will be won.
Despite support in the polls declining across the board, Yes campaigners are still confident in their pitch, saying the feedback they are getting on the ground is vastly different from the polls.
The Resolve Political Monitor’s latest survey, published in Nine newspapers on Monday, found that 43 percent of voters supported a plan to enshrine the Vote in the Constitution, a drop of 20 percentage points from a year ago.
The percentage of Australians in favor of the referendum has fallen for the fifth month in a row and since the last survey Victoria has moved to a majority ‘No’, leaving Tasmania as the only state left in the ‘Yes’ camp.
For The Voice to succeed, the Yes campaign needs more than 50 percent of the vote nationwide and in four of the six states.
The weakening support for The Voice has also had a knock-on effect on its biggest backer – the Labor government – with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese seeing his net performance rating fall to minus 7 percent.
Resolve director Jim Reed claimed that the results showed that support for the No campaign was ‘still growing’ and that the recent ad campaign featuring John Farnham’s iconic song ‘You’re the Voice’ did little for the Yes camp .
The percentage of Australians in favor of the referendum has fallen for the fifth month in a row and since the last survey Victoria has swung to a majority No, leaving Tasmania as the only state left in the Yes camp
“The more people participate in the debate, and the more they consider the proposal, the more they are put off,” he said.
‘The responses we collect from respondents become increasingly irritated and frustrated in tone as the campaign progresses. Many people seem impatient for this to be over, especially those who see it as a distraction or divisive.”
Voting in the referendum is mandatory, and failure to do so could result in fines.
Hundreds of early voting centers will be available from October 2, with centers in the ACT, New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia opening a day later for a public holiday.
Australians will be asked to vote on the constitutional recognition of Indigenous peoples and to establish a new advisory body called The Voice.