Staunch No campaigner Jacinta Price offers Yes voters a stunning olive branch to get the referendum passed

Opposition Indigenous Australians spokeswoman Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has offered an olive branch to the Yes camp ahead of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum.

Senator Price, a vocal No campaigner, said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was losing support for the Voice among Australians because he wasn’t prepared to compromise.  

She said the only way the Yes campaign would succeed is to adjust the October 14 Constitutional referendum to ‘just make it about recognition and drop the voice’.

‘I think the Prime Minister has made it very, very clear he’s, he’s doing the whole hog,’ she said at The Australian’s second Great Voice debate.

‘He’s taking everybody with him. And I think he should take responsibility for the division that he’s caused within our nation.

‘This has been the most divisive referendum that we’ve been confronted with in our nation’s history.’

Mr Albanese has repeatedly said the voice will be an advisory body to Parliament that will allow First Nations people to be involved in a discussion about the laws which affect them and about what is needed in their communities.

But the wording that will be added to the Constitution, despite being very deliberate and precise, could be tested in the High Court whose ruling Parliament would be then required to follow. 

According to the Parliamentary Education Office: ‘The main job of the High Court of Australia is to interpret the Australian Constitution and to settle disputes about its meaning.’ 

Some No proponents argue the wording could have wide-reaching consequences that would be extremely hard to remove. 

Senator Price’s compromise of recognising Aboriginal people in the Constitution without a mention of the Voice is seen by some as more Constitutionally stable ground.

During a speech to the national press club this week, the Country Liberal Party senator argued that none of the words ‘advice’, ‘advise’ or ‘advisory’ appear in the proposed change to the constitution. Instead, the word used is ‘representations’.

‘Nowhere in the question that will be put to Australians or in the proposed chapter on which we are voting do the words ‘advice’, ‘advise’ or ‘advisory’ appear,’ Senator Nampijinpa Price said.

‘If the Prime Minister truly intended for this body to be a simple advisory body … then it would have been stipulated in the proposed chapter.

‘You see, words matter. Words proposed for amendment of our nation’s Constitution matter a lot.’

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says the Voice would be merely an advisory body

Senator Nampijinpa Price also lashed accusations the No campaign is ‘sowing fear’ about the Voice, arguing their concerns stem from comments made by the government’s own hand-picked advisors.

She singled out comments made by Yes campaigners Teela Reid and Thomas Mayo about how the Voice would work.

‘What we do know is that many of the most senior advocates of the Voice have very different views than that of the Government.

‘No matter what the Government, the advocates, and the activists say about what the Voice will or won’t do, the fact is they don’t know,’ Ms Price said.

‘They don’t know who will be on the Voice. They don’t know what it will choose to make representations on.

‘They talk about it as the first step toward establishing treaty, reparations, compensation, and a mechanism to punish politicians, presumably this means politicians like me who are not afraid to stand up to them.’

Ms Nampijinpa Price said it is ‘backwards, neocolonial, racial stereotyping’ to suggest all Indigenous Australians should think the same and support the same policies.

‘No matter what the outcome is on October 14, it is imperative that we examine the failures of our past in order to understand how to do better. Our nation’s rule book belongs to every Australian. And it is not a document to be taken for granted or to be jeopardised for the sake of a vibe. 

‘To undertake such a significant amendment, the Prime Minister owes the Australian people a clear, concise, realistic demonstration of how his Voice will deliver the outcomes that all good Australians want for our marginalised.’