Indigenous Voice to Parliament: Albanese appeals to 'better angels" while Dutton digs into Indigenous spending

Less than two weeks out from polling day and as early voting begins around the nation, Mr Albanese insists the Voice referendum is "certainly winnable" for the "yes" side and he's declared it as a "think about others" proposition that has "no downside."

But while the Prime Minister appeals to voters' "better angels" and despairs at the "no" camp's "full suite of disinformation," the Opposition's spokeswoman for Indigenous Australians Jacinta Nampijinpa Price is proposing an inquiry, after the next election if the Coalition wins, into "where the billions of dollars are being spent."

It comes as the Reserve Bank board kept the cash rate on hold at 4.1 per cent and amid disinformation about the amount of taxpayers' money spent on Indigenous affairs, but Mr Albanese can only see the advantage to including people in decisions being made about them.

"So instead of decisions being made in Canberra without proper reference to people on the ground in local communities, you'll get more efficient outcomes as well. You'll get better results," the Prime Minister told reporters in Hobart. "You'll actually save money. Not spend money."

"There hasn't been a lack of money spent on Indigenous affairs in recent years. There has been a lack of outcomes. "No" is what exists right now. A vote for "no" is saying that what exists right now is what will continue. That we can't look for a better way."

Cost of living pain, concern about taxpayer funds, and a scare campaign about bureaucracy-led Canberra Voice have coloured the referendum debate.

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Without details, Senator Nampijinpa Price has proposed an inquiry into the taxpayers' money spent on Indigenous affairs should the Coalition be elected at the next federal election due in 2025. The Northern Territory senator has described the "yes" campaign as "emotional blackmail" and she "can't wait to get past this referendum".

It is not known if such an inquiry would take in the previous nine years of Coalition government, but she is "absolutely strongly" backed by Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and she said, "On both sides we've got to do things better."

He said it was a "no-brainer when you're dealing with taxpayers' money."

"The huge amount of money that goes into the funnel out of Canberra becomes a trickle when it gets to many of the regional and remote areas," the Liberal leader told reporters in Perth.

"I can tell you this if the Coalition is successful the next election and I'm Prime Minister and Jacinta is our minister for Indigenous Affairs or Indigenous Australians, there will be improvements made for people living in Indigenous communities like Alice Springs."

It has been widely fact-checked that the figure used by the "no" side that the $30-to-33-to-40 billion is spent a year on Indigenous people is wrong. It is one of the biggest, most contagious fallacies of the entire Voice campaign.

RMIT FactLab found the National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA) had a total budget for 2022-23 of $4.5 billion. It has been found that the $33.4 billion in the oft-cited 2017 Productivity Commission report on federal, state and territory spending includes $27.4 billion as the Indigenous share of "mainstream expenditure".

The remaining $6 billion, according to CheckMate, was directly spent on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander services and programs.

The Prime Minister said he had seen "the full suite of disinformation" from the "no" campaign. He called the Voice proposal just a "gentle request for appealing to our better angels" that is consistent with the Australian principle of a fair go.

"You know what, if Australia votes "yes," that will show respect for the first Australians," Mr Albanese told reporters.

"But it will do something else as well. We'll feel better about ourselves as a nation. Because when we come to terms with your history, when you reach out and you think about others, you feel better about yourself. That's the way I was raised."

"Australians when they look at this will say 'Yeah, that's the fair thing to do. There's nothing to lose here. There's no downside in this and the upside.'"