With YES voters now below 50%, - and still falling according to the latest Newspoll - I wonder if Albanese and his cronies have considered the idea that the race-based Voice might backfire on the people (very few) who might - or might not - benefit from this divisive nonsense.

Australians are an easygoing, tolerant lot (for now), who still believe in a 'fair go' and assistance for the needy - who do exist, but not enough to divide the country, as Albanese is doing, and not because they belong to a particular race. We already have an excellent, and very expensive, safety net in place.

Special treatment for one group or another has always been unpopular in egalitarian Australia.

I think that the voice fails the substitution test. If the Constitution makes no mention of race or creed then I would guess that it recognises all Australians equally. Isn't that what everyone wants?

The Voice is a misnomer anyway, it's Invoice what is really the underlying definition !

The debate needs to move from the political arena to within the community. At present opposition politicians like Dutton are muddying the waters with their political rhetoric of lies and exaggerations. Once it becomes a community debate, Australians who are a fair minded people will see the merit in this referendum, and the good the resultant constitutional change will bring.

"Section 51(xxvi) of the Constitution of Australia, commonly called "the race power", is the subsection of Section 51 of the Constitution of Australia granting the Australian Commonwealth the power to make special laws for people of any race."

"As initially written, section 51(xxvi) empowered the Parliament to make laws with respect to: "The people of any race, other than the aboriginal race in any State, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws". The Australian people voting at the 1967 referendum deleted the words relating to aboriginals"

"Edmund Barton had argued in 1898 that section 51(xxvi) was necessary to enable the Commonwealth to "regulate the affairs of the people of coloured or inferior races who are in the Commonwealth". The section was intended to enable the Commonwealth to pass laws restricting such migrant labourers as the Chinese and Kanakas. Quick and Garran observed in 1901 that "It enables the Parliament to deal with the people of any alien race.""

Putting quotation marks around three paragraphs of unacknowledged words is no contribution.

The skullduggery of the race-based Voice is evident in the lack of a convention. The polls are indicating that people are sick of the con; but, polls have lost their authority by being wrong a lot of the time.

The PM has done his bit to help it fail with his 'chicken littles' comment.

If Australians still have the traditional values that proponents of the Voice sneer at: a fair go, equality, etc., the Voice referendum will fail. Unfortunately, like polls, traditional values are no longer certain.