If a vote for the Voice to Parliament fails, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has to accept a big chunk of the blame.

Sure, the Coalition under Peter Dutton has been mischievous and ignorant to what it might deliver, and referendums sail more smoothly into law when both major parties agree – but this was Labor’s signature policy.

It was, as Albanese painted it, crucial to our nation’s future; a way of acknowledging the undisputed importance of our First Nations people and ensuring our laws and the ways we make them take into consideration their perspective, ideas and beliefs.

Without details of who or what or how it all works, we were promised on the same night Labor was elected that we could trust his plan to close the gap and ensure we stuck together and grew as a united nation that valued both our history and our future.

But fewer and fewer voters now accept the blind faith argument. They want to know details.

Principally – and understandably – they want to know how any big national policy will unfold, and how it might impact on them and their families.

But they want to know more: how Voice to Parliament might really work? Who comprises this Voice and how binding will their ideas or resolutions be? How does it fit into a treaty? Can you have a Voice and not a treaty or is one a step towards the other? Why do people keep talking about the High Court being called into umpire decisions? Who is in charge – the Voice or the MPs we elect to represent us?

They are all good questions, and the fact that political parties and universities, businesses and school staff rooms are split over these issues shows the difficulty Anthony Albanese has in getting a Voice to Parliament over the line, and into law.

His plan has been made harder, too, by the Coalition’s determination to win the ‘no’ vote. And it hasn’t been helped by a cost of living crisis which has pushed other issues down the priority list.

But isn’t it his job to sell it? To explain how we can address a cost of living crisis as well as supporting the ‘yes’ campaign?

Isn’t it his job to lock up the Lodge and get out to rural and regional Australia, as well as its big cities, and explain how lives will be saved if we support the ‘yes’ campaign?

An attempt to have celebrities endorse it was destined to fail, because this is about us – not celebrities. It’s about how our country works outside Canberra and outside those big cities that hug our coastline.

It’s about how we might mute the the disadvantage in communities across the nation and help our First Nations people to secure better health and educational outcomes and longer, happier lives.

Anthony Albanese’s job is to visit those communities and tell us how Voice to Parliament might flip that disadvantage, and how we might all play a small role in that.

And he’s been missing in action. Why?

Perhaps he was wary of the referendum around the Republic; that too much information can give too many voters reason to reject the proposal.

Or perhaps he believed, at least until recently, that blind faith would carry his planned Voice to Parliament.

But that’s not reason to let it fail.

As time goes on, it seems from the polls that dot the news, fewer and fewer people support it.

None of that is around not wanting advancement in the lives of others.

It’s around tricky words and understanding how it works, the impact on individual communities and the focus on cost of living and other priorities.

Or a lack of faith that Anthony Albanese will deliver what he promises the Voice will do.

Even Labor MPs are bewildered why the prime minister is not working harder, travelling the nation, to win the vote of as many Australians as possible.

It is politically naive to believe that any policy can win us over without its proponent willing to answer the questions that confuse us. Failure will weaken the prime minister and his government.

If a Voice to Parliament is to be written into our history books, Anthony Albanese has to start trusting voters, and explain why so many of their questions remain unanswered.

The answer to who is in charge is simple, though. This is a referendum question. The Voice may advocate but the parliament shall legislate. That’s not hard to understand – and he needs to learn that phrase, and deliver it over and over and over.

If the prime minister doesn’t get on the front foot now, voters have already warned how his signature plan, unveiled in the fanfare of election night, will end up.

And what will be the consequences of that in communities dotting our nation, a long, long drive away from Canberra?