The arc of campaigning for and against the Indigenous voice to parliament is bending towards back rooms and the hard calculus of politics.
The provisional date, not yet announced, is 14 October.
That gives the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, and other leading political proponents a clear month without parliament sitting to blitz the country and rescue a proposal that polling indicates is in trouble.
The date is not set in stone. A source in the parliamentary yes campaign says if things look bad, the vote can be pushed back into late November, early December. But that would require a rescheduling of the parliamentary calendar and would signal desperation in the yes camp.
Leaving aside the merits of the voice and seeing it purely in campaign terms, both the yes and no teams hold distinct cards.
The yes campaign seems to be better funded and has more corporate support. Its advertisements will reach saturation in the final weeks. It needs to bring the high-toned possibilities of constitutional change to the forefront of minds currently focused on a slowing economy and rising strain on personal budgets.
Government advertising so far has been neutral in tone, tasteful and bland. It is not vote-shifting. The minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, conceded as much in a press conference on Wednesday when she urged citizens to “let the fingers do the walking” and do their own research. “There are some really good websites,” she suggested.
The emotive pitches will come later and the yes campaign has the financial power to push them.
But the no campaign has its own on-field advantages. A successful referendum needs the so called “double majority” – a majority in overall votes and a majority in a majority of states.
In the 1999 republic referendum, the no vote triumphed on both counts, despite opinion polls consistently showing majority support for an Australian head of state. The closest state to a majority was Victoria on 49.84%, while the yes vote managed just 37% in Queensland.
The latest Newspoll numbers on the voice are not that far off the failed vote for the republic. But the opponents of the voice do not have to emulate the 1999 referendum numbers to win.
There are six states. The yes vote needs a majority – four. The no campaign only needs three to carry the day, even if the national vote goes against them.
The yes campaign remains officially confident. But it must win in more places. It must first secure that overall majority. That requires hard – and expensive – campaigning in the states where most people live: New South Wales and Victoria.
The no campaign can cede that ground and save its money. It can run, effectively, as a political insurgency, focused entirely on three of the four remaining states.
Senior figures in the yes campaign already concede privately that Queensland will be a hard sell.
If yes is defeated there, the no campaign only needs two of the three remaining states: Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia.
Tasmania is intriguing. The historical destruction of its first people is felt acutely. In Bridget Archer, the yes campaign has a prominent, articulate Liberal on side. Even more importantly, premier Jeremy Rockliff, the only Liberal premier in the nation, publicly supports the change. The partisanship seen on the mainland is more muted south of the strait.
If Tasmania breaks yes, the pressure is on for South Australia and Western Australia. A yes campaigner notes conservative views have not gone down well recently in the west. Labor’s dominance under now departed premier, Mark McGowan, was absolute. That may drift now that he’s gone, but no one is taking the state for granted.
80% of the WA’s population lives in suburban Perth. Come spring, expect a frenzy of advertising targeting those suburbs because both sides need the state. If yes gets it, the game is all but won.
But if the no campaign gains the west, South Australia becomes critical. Again, the no campaign will be outspent but can limit the disadvantages of its lack of corporate backers with careful targeting of its message.
The yes campaign sells an inspiring and hopeful message: a nation stronger as one through recognition and more effective listening to our First Nations people.
The no campaign has many targets, claiming a nation that will be more divided, more bureaucratic, less equal.
As all old-time political campaigners will tell you: negative campaigning works. Doubt – or its energised cousin, fear – always starts from 10 metres ahead.
• Hugh Riminton is national affairs editor at 10 News First
