Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott has warned Voice to Parliament No voters not to take the referendum’s likely defeat for granted.
Ahead of the October 14 vote, polls have consistently shown the No vote ahead, with last week’s YouGov survey showing 53 per cent of Australians opposed the proposal while 38 planned to vote Yes.
Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott has warned opponents of the Voice to Parliament not to take the referendum's defeat for granted. Picture: Sky News Australia. "And the point I keep making is that constitutional change is for keeps – this matters. You can change a bad law you can change a bad government, but gee whiz, if you make a mistake with the constitution, you're stuck with it forever."
"People are entitled to their view… But in the end, the constitution has got to belong to everyone," he said. "What I had intended to be a process involving all Australians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, and including a constitutional convention involving a broad range of people, became very much a hand-picked process of people who could be counted upon to support the Uluru Statement ideals of voice treaty, truth," he said.
Tony Abbott said the reconciliation process had been"taken over" by a group of"senior Indigenous leaders" motivated by a desire to"punish" the rest of Australia for the"original sin" of 1788.Mr Abbott said that his plan for constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians was to change the preamble of the constitution.
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