‘Hollow victory’: Defector’s Voice message

The independent Calare MP – who quit the Nationals Party late last year over its stance on the referendum – said the Coalition’s opposition was a “road to ruin, and in “weaponising” the Voice politically it risked alienating large swathes of their electorate.

Mr Gee, who accused the opposition of using the case against the Voice as a Coalition fundraiser during a panel discussion at the Garma festival in northeast Arnhem Land over the weekend, said while he believed the Voice would succeed when Australians head to the polls later this year, he warned what could happen if it didn’t.

“If the Voice does not succeed – and I think the Voice will succeed, I think we will get it over the line – but if it does not, there will be a real emptiness about what has happened,” he told ABC Radio.

“And there will be a sense of mourning across large sections of the community and the Liberal Party will … find that they have alienated a huge cross-section of people that traditionally would support them. I don’t get it … Politically, I don’t get it.”

Mr Gee said he was unsure what the Coalition’s plan was if the Voice did fail.

“And let’s just say that, that campaign to take down the voice which is what it is, at the moment, let’s just say it succeeds … As the election draws closer, the hotheads on that side of politics are going to say, well, how are we going to win back these seats? Where is the path to victory here?” he told ABC Radio.

“So if that campaign to take the voice down succeeds, it will be a hollow victory and to borrow from JFK, a victory like that will ultimately be ashes in their mouths because they’re not going to get those seats on the northern beaches back, so they’re not going to get Indi back, they’re not going to get Wentworth back, so what actually is the path to victory?”

His comments come as the latest Newspoll reveals support for the Voice has fallen below 50 per cent in every state.

The Yes case now leads only in NSW and South Australia, with a tie in support with the No vote in Victoria. The No vote leads in Western Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania.

The most likely to support the Voice remain higher-income earners, the university educated, renters, and the young.

The opposition’s Indigenous Australians spokeswoman Jacinta Nampijinpa Price said she was buoyed by the latest poll, and it showed that because the Voice proposal was “quite empty”, support was dropping off.

She also downplayed Mr Gee’s comments about the Coalition.

“His opinion matters very little to me given the opinions of many Indigenous Australians that I’ve spoken to across the country – they’re the ones that matter to me,” she told ABC News.

“I think Mr Gee should worry about his electorate and how his electorate is currently feeling.

“I’ve been to Calare, and the Indigenous people in his community do not favour the Voice – maybe that’s who he should be listening to.”

Meanwhile, Assistant Indigenous Australians Minister Malarndirri McCarthy said she – and the government and Yes campaign more broadly – were confident the Voice would get over the line.

“We knew from the very beginning that referendums are so hard to win in this country … We’re having everything thrown at us,” she told ABC News.

“But we have so much hope and belief and faith we’ll get through to other side.

“The goodness of Gulkula and the spirit of the people that flowed through that country to all of us is reaching out to right across Australia and I will not stop in believing that, right up until 6pm on the night of the referendum.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said there was a “long way to go” in the campaign, comparing the current poll results to those for Labor in the lead-up to last May’s election.

“I remember people telling me that there was no possibility Labor would win the last election and I’m speaking to you from the Lodge,” he told ABC Radio.

“There’s been a whole lot of noise about things that it’s not about, but it’s a simple proposition.”

Originally published as Ex-Nats MP Andrew Gee says Coalition’s campaign would be ‘hollow victory’