Indigenous Voice to Parliament: David Pocock wants all to engage in good faith

The key crossbencher has received "overwhelming demand", topping 1000 RSVPs, from the public to attend an information night in Canberra on Friday over this year's constitutional recognition referendum and proposed Voice. The event at the 1200-capacity Canberra Theatre features Referendum Working Group and co-chairs of the Uluru Statement from the Heart dialogues Aunty Pat Anderson and Professor Megan Davis as well as Ngunnawal elder Aunty Violet Sheridan.

Aunty Pat indicated the heightened nature of the debate on Thursday, saying: "There is nowhere else to go, we've got our bare arses on the barbed wire now."

It is being held a day after the Albanese government introduced the constitutional alteration legislation for the Voice proposal, which triggers the holding of the historic referendum later this year. There is intense interest, Senator Pocock says, and the biggest question has been how to be part of the "yes" campaign.

"I think it just shows how much support there is to move forward on this issue," he told ACM, publisher of this newspaper.

"We are seeing a lot of misinformation about this and I think, really disappointingly, we're seeing politics being played with this by the Leader of the Opposition.

"You know, simply not opposing it but just dragging out with calls for more detail and all the rest. We now have the detail of what will be asked of Australians at the referendum."

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At the same time on Friday in Tamworth, a town hall forum is being held to "understand why you should oppose the Voice" featuring Barnaby Joyce, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, conservative broadcaster Alan Jones and former Keating minister and committee member of the "no" campaign group Recognise a Better Way, Gary Jones.

They are among Voice opponents who have raised concerns giving it the ability to make representations to the "executive government", which includes ministers and the public service, would slow government decision-making and risk High Court challenges.

Mr Dutton, who was among a significant number of Coalition frontbenchers not present for the bill's introduction in Thursday, has continued raising doubts and has again called on the government to publish the usually confidential legal advice from the Solicitor-General.

"I think there are a lot of questions that are still out there that reasonable Australians have and that they want answered," he told 2GB.

"What will it mean if it goes to the High Court?

"It's obvious now that it applies to all areas of public policy, whereas the Prime Minister at one point was saying, 'Well, it's only about health and education and law and order'."

But Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is not putting the Opposition Leader among the group of reasonable Australians. He regards the Liberal argument an unfounded scare campaign over what he described as a "historic unifying moment". He insisted Parliament would always have primacy and accused Mr Dutton of undermining the proposal.

Despite some confusion, Mr Albanese is resisting the requests to release the Solicitor-General's advice. The Opposition Leader has been citing leaks of the advice that purportedly support his case, while there have been reports the top Commonwealth lawyer regarded the Voice as posing "limited legal risk" and he did not recommend removing the ability to lobby the executive branch of government.

Meantime, the Liberal Member for Bass Bridget Archer has backed the Voice as "simple" and "logical".

"It's a simple proposition. We shouldn't lose sight of that," she declared.

Senator Pocock said the majority of Australians understand Indigenous recognition is long overdue and the status quo hasn't been working.

He said the information night was about dispelling misinformation and insisted Federal Parliament, including the government, the opposition and the crossbench, would have their say on the Voice details later in the usual fashion.

"I'm sure we're going to start to see some principles and some more details around that," he said. "But I'd really hope that people would engage in good faith knowing that they will have a say in what that looks like."

"And, if it's not working, there'll be the ability to fine tune it as there should be with all legislation in this place.

"This is a request from First Nations people about recognition and about having a say on laws that affect them. It seems pretty simple to me and something that we should get behind rather than playing politics with this, because there's so much at stake."

Aunty Violet is heartened by the expected turn out on Friday and is encouraging all questions.

"I'm confident and I reckon that we can push this yes vote over the line but we need to learn more. If you don't know about the Voice or the constitution you need to learn more and everybody's welcome to come along on Friday night," she told ACM.

"I do it every time when I do my welcome to countries. At the end, I explain a little bit about what I feel what the Voice is. And I think the Voice is to empower our communities. This I see will close that gap."

The Canberra event is also being held virtually to accommodate interest.