CANBERRA, Australia — Australians appear likely to reject the creation of an advocate for the Indigenous population in a referendum outcome that some see as a victory for racism.
Two opinion polls published in newspapers on Monday are the latest to show a majority of respondents oppose enshrining in Australia’s constitution an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. Creating the Voice would aim to give Australia’s most disadvantaged ethnic minority more say on government policies that effect their lives.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Monday would not concede defeat before voting on the referendum ends Saturday.
“We’ll wait and see when they cast their vote. I’m not getting ahead of the Australian people,” Albanese told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
“I know there’s some arrogance has crept into the no-side campaign, but it’s a campaign based upon fear,” Albanese added.
Albanese has said the world will judge Australians on how they vote at their first referendum since 1999.
Indigenous Australians account for 3.8% of Australia’s population. They have worse outcomes on average than other Australians in a range of measures including health, employment, education, incarceration and suicide rates. Statistically, Indigenous Australians die around eight years younger than the wider community.
The Yes campaign argues that a Voice, a representative body selected by Indigenous people, would lead to better outcomes.
Human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson has warned that the referendum’s failure would be “interpreted by outsiders” as the “vote of an ignorant and racist populace.”
“If Australians vote No, we will appear to outside observers as racist, in the sense of denying to an ethnic minority an opportunity for advancement to which they are entitled,” Robertson, a London-based Australian, wrote in The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper last month.
Noel Pearson, an Indigenous leader and architect of the Voice, said Australians face a “moral choice”…
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