Final arguments are being made before Australia’s vote Saturday to create Indigenous Voice

By ROD McGUIRK
Associated Press

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Opposing campaigners have made their final pitches over changing the Australia’s constitution to acknowledge a place for Indigenous Australians on the eve of the nation’s first referendum in a generation. Saturday’s referendum has the potential to amend Australia’s founding legal document for the first time since 1977. But opinion polls suggest that the amendment will be rejected as more than four-in-five referendums have been in the past.Australians are being asked to alter the constitution to recognize the “First Peoples of Australia” by establishing an Indigenous “Voice.”The Voice would be a committee comprised of and chosen by Indigenous Australians that would advise the Parliament and government on issues that effective the nation’s most disadvantaged ethnic minority.