Indigenous Voice to Parliament support drops according to Resolve Political Monitor survey – in more bad news for Yes campaign

Support for the indigenous vote in parliament is waning and the government could be heading for an embarrassing defeat in the referendum, a new poll shows.

Two Resolve Political Monitor surveys recently conducted for The Sydney Morning Herald showed that only 48 per cent of voters across Australia would vote for The Voice, while 52 per cent said they would vote against.

A referendum held between October and December this year – the date has yet to be announced – will ask Australians to vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on whether to enshrine an Indigenous advisory body to parliament in the constitution.

On a state-by-state basis, the survey data shows that support in NSW has fallen from the 53 percent that supported the Voice to Parliament in May-June this year to 49 percent in June-July, moving it from the Yes to No camps.

Over the same period, Victoria, which had the most support for the advisory, also fell from 56 per cent saying they would vote yes to 52 per cent.

Most of the remaining states are also in the No camp, according to the survey, with Queensland backing the Voice at 42 percent and South Australia and Western Australia at 49 percent.

Currently, Tasmania appears to be leading the yes camp, with 54 percent of respondents saying they will vote in favor of amending the constitution.

For the referendum to succeed, it must be supported by a majority of the national vote and also by a majority of voters in a majority of states.

Resolve director Jim Reed said the investigation showed it was close, but the Yes campaign appears to be the underdog.

“The referendum requires the yes vote to win in a majority of states as well, and that goal seems more distant,” he said.

NSW is now the fourth state to vote no, and Victoria and Tasmania are moving in the same direction. The current position, combined with the unrelenting trend, certainly makes a no result the most likely outcome at this stage,” he said.

Mr Reed said simpler wording of the constitutional amendment together with a bill would have made it easier to gain support and harder for the No camp to criticize for a lack of detail.

The Yes and No camps in the Voice referendum have revealed their pitches to the people of Australia ahead of the divisive vote later this year, but key details remain unclear.

Both parties have unveiled their campaign pamphlets published by the Australian Electoral Commission on Tuesday, which will be posted to homes across the country.

Indigenous senator Lidia Thorpe is the face of the Blak Sovereign Movement, which argues that the concept of the Voice to Parliament is symbolic and instead wants a treaty with indigenous peoples.

Senator Thorpe said this week that the no-pamphlet vote was misleading and “encouraged racists.”

But she also denounced the Yes campaign, saying it was a “smokescreen to cover up the ongoing violent process of colonization.”

“They provide no historical evidence that an advisory body would have an impact, do not acknowledge that there have been many ineffective advisory bodies in the past, and present a model of the advisory body that has not been discussed or endorsed by First Nations people,” she said in a statement.