Indigenous Voice poll pokes holes in Yes campaign’s claims about First Nation support for referendum

The No campaign has released shocking new data on how Indigenous people intend to vote throwing into doubt a major claim made by the Yes campaign.

The Yes23 campaign has repeatedly said 80 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people support the Voice, a figure which has also been used by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

But the No camp said its internal polling for First Nations people shows support for the referendum is far lower than the Yes side claims.

In a poll in February it found Indigenous support for the Voice was at 60 per cent – at a time when the overall support in the general community was almost the exact same, at 59 per cent.

By May, the number of Indigenous people backing the Voice had fallen to 57 per cent, and to 54 per cent among all Australians, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

The 80 per cent figure is based on polls from January and March taken by Ipsos and YouGov, which found support for the Voice among Indigenous Australians at 80 per cent and 83 per cent respectively.

A No camp spokesman said its figures, of support ranging from 57 to 60 per cent, rather than 80 to 83 per cent, ‘blow away the Yes campaign’s assertion that Indigenous Australians overwhelmingly support the Voice — it’s not true’.

‘It’s a lie that has propped up their campaign for months. The experience on the ground is clear — Indigenous Australians are just as divided over the Voice as everyone else.’

The No camp’s polling was done online, which ‘skews towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who have access to the internet’ and ‘does not include face-to-face in remote communities’.

But the Ipsos and YouGov polls were also conducted online.

Early polling stations opened in some states on Monday, and were all open across Australia by Tuesday due to some jurisdictions having a public holiday. 

Like around 2.2million Australians, Mr Albanese has already voted in the referendum, doing so on Saturday in his home electorate of Marrickville in Sydney’s inner west. 

‘Yes for recognition, Yes for listening, Yes for better outcomes,’ Mr Albanese wrote in a social media post, accompanied by a photo of him putting his vote into the ballot box alongside his son Nathan.

On Friday, he tweeted that ‘We have eight days to make the greatest country on earth even greater by voting Yes.’

If the Yes vote is successful, the Voice will provide an avenue for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to advise the government on policy and legislation issues that directly impact them.

The most recent Newspoll suggested the Yes vote would fail 36 to 56 per cent.

Meanwhile, Australia’s former chief justice Robert French KC says Australians are ‘better than’ abiding by the No campaigns slogan ‘if you don’t know, vote no,’ in an address to the National Press Club on Friday.

For months, the Yes23 campaign has repeatedly said 80 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people support the Voice, a figure which has also been used by the Prime Minister. An Aboriginal smoking ceremony is pictured

‘It invites us to a resentful, uninquiring passivity. Australians – whether they vote Yes or No – are better than that,’ he said.

‘We look forward. We can also look back to better understand where we have come from and where we are now.’

The overwhelming majority of legal experts in Australia say the proposed amendment Australians are voting on is constitutionally sound and would ‘enhance’ the system of government, Mr French said.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted the Yes23 campaign for comment.