Amanda Vanstone | Anthony Albanese must be careful Voice process doesn't stoke division

The riskiest option for the government is that irrespective of the outcome of the referendum Australia is divided.

It is a leader's job and a government's job to bring the nation together. That's not to say that we all have to think alike. It means we need to feel one, despite our differences. If after the referendum Australians feel we are less united, less cohesive, more divided, it will be the doing of this government.

It is a damning indictment of any leader and any government. That is especially so when the division can and probably will be intricately linked with the notion that Australians are racist.

My intuition tells me that if there was a simple question: "do you think first Australians should be recognised in the constitution?" The answer would be an overwhelming yes.

Constitutional recognition is not the issue over which there is uncertainty.

It is the form of that recognition that is not clearly endorsed. Are Australians who want constitutional recognition of first Australians, but not in the form of a Voice to be regarded as racists?

Is it fair to say that these people are by their vote rejecting Indigenous Australians? Clearly the answer is no.

Yet some advocates for the "yes" campaign come perilously close to arguing they are.

These are ugly and dangerous accusations to hurl about.

The government in my state of South Australia has implemented a Voice in legislation. That gives them the opportunity to correct any glitches, to improve it and to get it right.

I don't hear any federal Labor spokespeople bagging the South Australian Labor government for not putting a Voice in their constitution. And rightly so.

Why then is it OK to get stuck in to Peter Dutton and the federal opposition for having the same position as the South Australian Labor government? There is no credible justification for that.

One of the problems for the "yes" campaign is the angry activists. To me they are so different from the Indigenous Australians with whom I am fortunate enough to have spent time. Every portfolio I held in government, took me to Indigenous communities.

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Some big, some small, some close to big towns, some very remote. I never met a person who was anything other than extraordinarily gentle and welcoming. (It's another story, but I also do not recall experiencing one welcome to country, nor a smoking ceremony.)

The angry activists do Indigenous Australia a terrible disservice. First, they present an ugly image that is just at odds with the reality. Second, by their angry demeanour, they turn people of goodwill away.

Think about it. When you go to a friendly barbecue, do you choose to sit next to the local grump? Nobody likes to be with angry people.

Like so many grandmothers and great-grandmothers, mine did not get much in the way of a formal education.

But those old girls went to the university of life. Mine used to use the popular saying: "you catch more with honey than you do with vinegar". That's just how life works.

The government would do well to spell out some more detail as to how they think a Voice might operate.

Doubt is a very powerful weapon. Best to remove as much as possible. Is it unreasonable to give Australians an idea about the research and administrative arrangements that might apply? Would the members be full-time, what would their salary and super entitlements be?

The issue that really needs to be addressed is how a federal Voice can respond to issues that are the responsibility of state and local governments. Indigenous Australians have a close affinity with country that is often not easily understood by others.

One group cannot speak for another in terms of culture or country. Hence local and state governments are best placed to deal directly with communities.

A particular concern I have is what will happen when Parliament does not accept in full or in part the advice offered. This is an important point. Much is made of the Voice being merely an advisory body. It is in this way portrayed as being an innocuous body because it cannot override Parliament. That's all true.

However, it is also true that if advice is rejected it may well be portrayed as Australia turning a tin ear to Indigenous Australia.

It isn't hard to imagine headlines asserting that Australians through their Parliament are turning their backs on Indigenous Australia. A rejection of advice will undoubtedly be portrayed as a rejection of Indigenous Australia. Insofar as the Voice is intended to unite Australia, it may well have quite the opposite effect.

Remember, this scenario plays into a situation where Australians are generally sick and tired of being portrayed as the beneficiaries of greedy colonialists. I'm a republican. Have been for 50 years or so. But I don't think English explorers and otherwise set out to find Indigenous peoples and do what they could to exterminate them. They were explorers exploring the unknown world in the way that we now explore outer space.

Many English were sent here as convicts, not as conquerors. They knew only too well about being ripped away from their families. People who have come here subsequently have left their home and family behind. Maybe for better opportunities, to escape persecution or poverty.

They have not come here to in any way disadvantage Indigenous Australians. They are good people. I can understand the irritation of descendants of migrants who came here in the 1700s and 1800s and later whose families have worked so hard when they are welcomed to what they rightly see as their homeland.