Given the official release of the respective "yes" and "no" pamphlets for the Voice to Parliament and executive government referendum effectively marks the beginning of campaigning in earnest it is hard to understand why the Prime Minister still refuses to name a date.
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A major weakness of the push for the Voice, which neither Mr Albanese nor the responsible ministers have managed well, is that it is open to criticism over a lack of detail.
By not even telling people when they will go to the polls the government is actually making a rod for its own back.
That is also true of its dogged refusal to provide any detail on the necessary legislation one would assume is already in the process of being drafted to create a Voice.
Telling people that this will be decided by the Parliament after the vote, and that it is not relevant to the question of voting "yes" or "no", is just not working for the Albanese government.
It is a chink in the "yes" campaign's armour which has been seized upon by the Coalition, which politicised this issue as long ago as 2017. That was when Malcolm Turnbull, apparently still traumatised by the republic vote, told "yes" advocate Teela Reid if the Voice went to a referendum "it would go down in flames".
That was a failure Mr Turnbull, who had also expressed concerns about how a Voice could be implemented, didn't want to be associated with.
It is unfortunate he did not show the leadership needed to implement the Uluru Statement from the Heart at the time of its release.
Just as it is true that "only Nixon could have gone to China", a Voice referendum called and backed by an LNP government would at least have had noticeable bipartisan support.
The success of the same-sex marriage plebiscite is a case in point.
It is ironic, given Mr Albanese has shown the leadership Mr Turnbull was not able to deliver, that the former PM's - now a "yes" advocate - original prophecy seems likely to be fulfilled.
Support for the "yes" case continues to slump with recent polling showing a drop in support from 43 per cent to 41 per cent in the last month. The "no" vote is well ahead at 48 per cent - up from 47 per cent - and the undecideds have risen from 10 to 11 per cent.
This is consistent with the results of the recent ACM survey of 10,000 readers.
It seems unlikely, given the strongly entrenched positions of campaigners on both sides, that the release of the texts of their pamphlets will have much influence on the outcome.
While nobody was expecting antipodean equivalents of either the Sermon on the Mount or the Gettysburg Address neither of the documents could be described as inspirational. Both are long and often repetitive.
While the "yes" pamphlet is the more coherent and reasoned of the two, the "no" pamphlet's message that "if you don't know, vote no" is simple, direct and an easy sell.
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It is unfortunate, given the proliferation of disputed claims and untested assertions - especially in the "no" pamphlet - that many of those who do take the time to read them may assume they are endorsed by the AEC.
While it is true that under existing laws the AEC is "merely a post box" for the respective campaigns there appears to be a strong argument for "truth in advertising" in referenda and political campaigns and for the fact checking of the cases that are put.
Unless the Albanese government is willing to name the date on which the vote will occur, and to release some detail on how members of the Voice will be chosen and how it will operate, the referendum seems likely to continue its path towards failure.
That would be a tragedy for Australia.
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