The campaign for an Indigenous Voice to parliament is firing up with thousands of supporters marching in rallies across the country.
An estimated 200,000 Australians joined Yes campaign marches across the country on Sunday in major metropolitan cities and regional towns four weeks out from the vote on October 14.
“This is a great rally and it’s getting bigger all the time,” one man said.
“Dragged out a two-year-old and a five-year-old who are just as passionate as me and the oldies and mum and dad,” another rally attendee said.
Labor federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek, Greens Senator Sara Hanson-Young, NSW Liberal Jacqui Munro and City of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore all made speeches in Sydney to support the Walk for Yes.
“Australians are a fair people. We are an egalitarian people,” Plibersek said.
We love justice, and we love one another. Let’s show that love and decency to the world on October 14 and vote Yes.”
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As the Yes campaigners marched in their thousands, the No camp urged them to “move on”.
“We’ve got to face the reality that there are 26 million other people in this country who have come here and helped build this country,” Recognise a Better Way group founder and No campaigner Warren Mundine said.
In a split with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, Mundine on Sunday backed treaties between Indigenous Australians and governments, as well as changing the date of Australia Day.
Those are two possibilities No campaigners have used to urge voters to reject the Voice, leading the Yes camp to call out the apparent contradiction.
“On the 15th of October if there’s a No vote, that’s when the real work starts,” Mundine told the ABC’s Insiders.
Greens Leader Adam Bandt said “an unsuccessful result in the referendum will take us further away from justice for first nations people in this country”.
The Yes campaign will rely on scenes from the rally on the lawns of parliament to contrast the vitriol inside the halls of power.
