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Foreign Minister Penny Wong enlisted the help of a former adversary as part of the Albanese government’s desperate effort to reverse the fortunes of the flailing Yes campaign in Western Australia.
Former Coalition foreign minister Julie Bishop handed out Yes vote flyers to commuters in Perth’s CBD in a campaign appearance on Monday.
Penny Wong and Julie Bishop campaigning in central Perth on Monday.Credit: AFR
Bishop’s appearance kicked off a flood of media events and radio appearances in WA by Albanese cabinet ministers, with the Indigenous Voice to Parliament at the top of their agendas ahead of an official cabinet meeting in Perth on Monday afternoon.
Wong said the presence of Bishop, who was deputy leader of the federal Liberals for 11 years, was a reminder that the Voice was an issue above politics.
Bishop has publicly backed the voice and said a No vote would send a negative message to the rest of the world.
“I would be most concerned at the message that this would send the rest of the world if we can’t find it in our hearts to say yes to giving constitutional recognition to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders,” she said.
“I have no doubt that it will be sending a very negative message about the openness and the empathy and the respect and responsibility that the Australian people have for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.”
Bishop’s position puts her at odds with many WA Liberals after state leader Libby Mettam recently backflipped on her initial support for the proposal.
A WA Liberals No campaign launch hosted by Senator Michaelia Cash in Perth earlier this month attracted about 1000 attendees, and their opposition alliance partner the WA Nationals also officially revoked their support at the party’s state conference at the weekend.
Bishop, who is chancellor of the Australian National University, said she couldn’t answer why so many of her former colleagues opposed the Voice.
“I have looked into it very carefully and from ANU’s point of view, we see it as the opportunity to get policies in place to address the educational disadvantage,” she said.
Support for the voice has been rapidly eroding in WA, particularly since June as the state grappled with new Aboriginal cultural heritage laws that were eventually scrapped.
Resolve’s combined July and August polling of West Australians put support for the Voice to parliament at just 44 per cent, the second-worst in the nation behind Queensland’s 41 per cent.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will announce the date of the referendum – expected to be Saturday, October 14 – in Adelaide on Wednesday, as Yes campaigners identified South Australia as a key swing state.
But on Monday, Albanese gave his strongest suggestion yet that he did not consider WA a lost cause as he and other high-profile ministers, including Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, all pushed the Yes campaign in Perth.
While announcing new fee-free places at a TAFE south of Perth, Albanese took aim at the No side’s “fear campaigning”, likening it to campaigns against the apology to Stolen Generations and the same-sex marriage plebiscite.
“People were told that heterosexual marriages would be under threat and that it would change a whole lot of the way that things worked. Guess what? We now have marriage equality. The fear campaigns have not been realised,” he said.
All Australian premiers, including WA Premier Roger Cook, support the Voice to parliament, but Cook has not yet joined the campaign trail in WA.
Albanese was unfazed by premiers not actively campaigning.
“I think state premiers, of course, will have other jobs to do, as well, and they’ll continue to do those tasks,” he said.
Speaking in Queensland, opposition leader Peter Dutton claimed Australians would be “bullied” into voting Yes because of the $100 million war chest available to that side of the campaign.
“People will be bombarded with ads. People will be bullied into to voting yes,” he said.
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