It is unlike the Liberal initiated referendum of 1967, which was designed to take race out of the Constitution, attracting over 90 per cent support of Australians. This proposal will, if carried, scrape through with the barest of margins leaving us divided.

Most telling is the powerfully persuasive opposition emanating from within the Indigenous community, which was thankfully absent in the 1967 referendum.

ARGUED

As Australia’s first Aboriginal senator, Neville Bonner (Liberal, Qld) argued, it was equality that fellow Australians sought and obtained, not special treatment unavailable to fellow citizens.

A strong unifying, and very Australian virtue overwhelmingly endorsed.

When Australian Aboriginal senators as diverse in their outlooks as Senator Jacinta Price (Country Liberal, NT) and Senator Lidia Thorpe (formerly Greens, now independent, Vic) are urging fellow Australians to reject the Voice along with the former national president of the ALP, Warren Mundine AO, and Anthony Dillon, we know this comprehensively upends the shallow promise of delivering unity.

Although support for the ill-conceived Voice is, thankfully, rapidly diminishing as people understand its implications, it is still foreseeable that well-meaning woke city folk might foist the Voice on an Aboriginal community that is opposed to it.

In anyone’s language, that must surely be a perverse and exceptionally debilitating outcome.

On top of that, the strongly divergent views from within the Indigenous community about the Voice is proof positive, if needed, that there is no such thing as the Voice.

Like all Australians, however, classified by some form of identity or other, there will be divergent views. This is healthy.

But it resoundingly puts the lie to the proposition that such a thing as the Voice exists.

To assert otherwise is both patronising and indicative of an unhealthy and unhelpful need to pigeonhole people of a particular grouping.

Canberra would do well to consider getting itself a set of ears rather than a Voice.

On another front, we are promised that the Voice is a minor change.

Yet the same leaders promising us inconsequential change are trying to promote it as a fundamental game changer on the way we do business in Australia.

Both can’t be correct.

In the absence of an honest assessment as to its impact, we are well advised to reject the Voice.

The Voice is more than just recognising our Indigenous Australians in the Constitution. The Voice threatens to impose a layer of extra bureaucracy with uncertain wording providing a gold mine for constitutional lawyers.

In 1967, the meaning and consequences of taking race out of the Constitution were clear and concise. Today’s proposal unbelievably seeks to return race to the Constitution, with every lawyer advancing their own unique interpretation of its impact.

Even our solicitor-general for the Commonwealth recommended a change to the wording, which the so-called working group did not accept. So now the same solicitor-general provides advice that everything is okay.

If so, why the initial request for changed wording?

In the absence of a full and coherent explanation, which is yet to be forthcoming, Australians would be well advised to reject this mish-mash of inconsistencies.

ADAMANT

While on inconsistencies, it is to be noted that some proponents of the Voice are adamant that it will have the right to be consulted by the executive arm of government as well as the parliament.

Yet others seeking to shore up the ever-declining support for the Voice assert the exact opposite.

Being on the same side seeking our support, they show how fraught, unclear, and messy this proposal will be in practice.

They can’t both be right. This means that however the High Court might finally interpret the change, a considerable proportion of the Yes campaign will be bitterly disappointed.