SYDNEY, Oct 14, 2023 (BSS/AFP) - Polls opened Saturday in Australia's historic referendum on rights and recognition for Indigenous citizens, capping a bitter campaign that has exposed deep fissures between the country's white majority and the descendants of its first inhabitants.

Almost 18 million Australians will cast ballots for or against constitutional changes to acknowledge Indigenous peoples for the first time and create an advisory body -- a so-called "Voice" -- to weigh laws that affect those communities.

Australia's Indigenous people have lived on the continent for more than 60,000 years.

European colonialists arrived a little over two centuries ago -- imposing systems of violent subjugation and forced assimilation.

Today, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people make up less than four percent of the population, but are much more likely to be sick, imprisoned or to die young than their wealthier white compatriots.

"Yes" vote supporters argue the reforms would help fix those persistent inequalities.

But opinion polls give the referendum little hope of passing, with recent surveys indicating the "yes" camp is polling at just over 40 percent and the "no" side at nearly 60 percent.

- 'A shameful day' -

Polls have consistently shown that Indigenous issues rank low on any list of public priorities for most Australians, far behind concerns like the rising cost of living.

In the days before the vote, media attention has focused as much on events in the Middle East as the political debate at home.

"Yes" campaigner Karen Wyatt said she was "trying to stay positive" in the face of a seemingly inevitable defeat.

But hard questions are already being asked about what a "no" vote would say about Australia, and Australians.

A rejection of the "Voice" would be "a shameful day for Australia", 59-year-old Wyatt told AFP in Sydney.

"I think it does say something for the path of this country, to say 'no' to something that was a simple request and a generous proposition," she added.

"I hope if it is a 'no', we can recover from it and move forward."

The opposition campaign has been successful in channelling fears about the role and effectiveness of the "Voice" assembly, encouraging voters to vote "no" if they are uncertain.

Dee Duchesne, 60, a volunteer for the "no" campaign, said she was "fighting to keep an extra layer of bureaucracy out of our constitution".

She said she had been called racist while handing out leaflets near a Sydney polling station during early voting. "I'm not," she said.

- Fallout -

Sixty-six-year-old "no" voter Gary Dreyer lamented the "divisive" tenor of the debate.

"We're not racist for voting 'no'," he said. "We're saying it's not the right way, it's not the right mechanism to help them."

Centre-left Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has spent a year and much precious political capital advocating for the "yes" campaign.

On the day of the referendum he made an emotional plea to voters, asking them to right a historical wrong.

"This week of all weeks, with so much hatred displayed in the world, this is an opportunity for Australians to show kindness," he said.

"This is about respect for Indigenous Australians. It's about how we see ourselves as a nation, but it's also about the way that the world sees us."

A "yes" victory, he said, would mean a "burden lifted from all of us".

"In my lifetime Indigenous Australians were not counted. Now they're asking to be heard. It's not too much to ask."

- Compulsory vote -

Voting is compulsory for Australia's 17.5 million voters.

The referendum can only pass with support from a majority of voters nationally and a majority of voters in at least four of the country's six states.

Referendum expert Matt Qvortrup told AFP he expected the "Voice" to get between 46 and 48 percent of the vote.

People are more likely to vote for something if they do not need to learn about the issue, he told AFP, using the 2017 vote on same-sex marriage as an example.

That vote saw 62 percent support for allowing same-sex couples to marry.

"People would know gay people, they had formed an opinion about this, they didn't have to learn new things about it," Qvortrup said.

"When people have already formed an opinion, then you can actually get an increase in the vote because people have a fairly good idea of what it's about."