The Yes Alliance announced the pledge from the Paul Ramsay Foundation at Thursday night’s launch at the Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute.

Hundreds of advocates and volunteers drawn from faith-based groups to business organisations gathered for workshops on how they could win the referendum, which will be held between between October and December.

Photo: Johnny von Einem/CityMag

Yes campaign director, Quandamooka man Dean Parkin, said the campaign will start taking the conversation to people to bring the country together for a successful yes vote.

“Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia’s constitution has been discussed in political circles very intensely in recent months,” he said.

“It’s time to bring that conversation to where it belongs, and back to where it started – with the people of Australia.”

Australians for Indigenous Constitutional Recognition co-chair Rachel Perkins said the “campaign now has tremendous momentum as we head towards a referendum later this year that offers a chance for a moment of national unity”.

Paul Ramsay Foundation director and Kuku Yalanji woman Natalie Walker said the foundation aimed to make a “lasting contribution” to positive social change, with the voice a “critical step” in doing that.

But on Friday, the deputy opposition leader labelled the proposal a “re-election vanity project” for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

In a speech to the Liberal Party’s Western Australia branch, Sussan Ley will say the voice is being used as a “political wedge”.

“Anthony Albanese would rather see the Liberal Party say no and this referendum fail, than the Liberal Party say yes and this referendum succeed,” she will say on Friday.

“(He) has tied constitutional recognition of our first Australians, which everyone across the parliament supports, to a concept called the voice which he cannot explain.”

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is yet to reveal what position the Liberal Party will take, and has repeatedly raised concerns about a lack of detail.

Albanese said Dutton was trying to create confusion and that the government wanted to secure maximum support for the voice and had agreed to demands by the Liberal Party to release a pamphlet outlining the “yes” and “no” cases.

Indigenous lawyer and academic Noel Pearson said the referendum was a “once in a nation’s lifetime” opportunity for reconciliation.

“We will be crying about this matter for another 200 years if we don’t do it this year,” he said.

“Constitutional recognition is about the words in the constitution … that enable Indigenous voices to be able to speak to the parliament, speak to the government, about the policies and laws that affect people.”

Indigenous independent Senator Lidia Thorpe, who quit the Greens over her concerns about the voice, is yet to decide if she supports the proposal.

The Nationals have announced they will formally oppose the voice, despite a split within the party over the decision.

NT Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price will head a no campaign funded by conservative lobby group Advance Australia.

-with AAP