Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has hit back at Opposition Leader Peter Dutton over the referendum on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, accusing him of playing political games.

Mr Albanese said there was more than enough detail on the Indigenous voice to parliament for the public to make up their mind on the proposal – despite claims from the opposition that key advice was being withheld.

“Peter Dutton needs to get real about this,” he said in Melbourne on Friday.

“This isn’t about him and it’s not about me.

“This is about whether we are a better country going forward. It’s whether we can recognise Indigenous Australians in our nation’s birth certificate.”

Mr Albanese challenged Mr Dutton to put forward a stance on the Voice, warning the request for detail was a well-worn tactic.

“We know from the republic playbook that occurred last century that it is nothing more than a tactic, and it lacks genuineness to just continue to say, ‘We don’t have the detail’,” he said.

“No matter how detail is put out, Peter Dutton will say,’What about more detail’. That’s the game that’s being played here, and he should make a decision of where he stands on the issue.”

Mr Albanese said he had met Mr Dutton seven times to discuss the Voice, and the opposition leader had not aired his concerns at those meetings.

Mr Dutton wants the government to release legal advice from the solicitor-general on the implications of the Voice.

“It’s not just millions of Australians who are not Indigenous who want the detail, but many, many Australians of Indigenous heritage also want the detail and I don’t think it’s too much to ask for,” he said on Thursday.

“If you’re proposing a very significant change to our founding document, how will it deliver practical outcomes for Indigenous Australians?

“If you can’t provide that detail, then he needs to explain why.”

A key concern has been that decisions might be delayed or taken to court because representations by the Voice must be considered by government decision-makers before they can validly make a decision.

But Mr Albanese was confident the wording of the constitutional changes was water tight.

“This hasn’t arisen in a vacuum. There’s been all of this work done by the advisory group to the referendum working group. It’s very clear that this is a straightforward proposition,” he said.

“We will give the Australian people the opportunity to enlarge our country later this year. We can be enlarged or we can shrink, shrink into playing old politics. And that’s what people need to consider who are in positions of political leadership.”

A new section would be placed in the constitution, recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as the “First Peoples of Australia”.

Laws setting out the referendum will be introduced to parliament next week, with the vote to take place between October and December.

Deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley said the announcement of the referendum question was an “emotional day” but more detail on the proposal was needed.

“The Prime Minister said this would be a modest change, but then later he said it would change the country, so we’ll keep asking for that detail and ask him questions on behalf of all Australians,” she told Seven’s Sunrise program.

“We’ll do it in a respectful way because it is an incredibly important issue – you don’t get a blank cheque to change the constitution.”

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus has warned of significant consequences for the future of reconciliation should the referendum fail.

“It would be a very long time before we returned to any question of recognition. I think it would be a tremendous setback for relations with our First Peoples,” he told ABC Radio on Friday.

Nationals MP Keith Pitt, who says he will vote no at the referendum, said all members of parliament and senators were there to make representations on behalf of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, noting 11 parliamentarians were Indigenous Australians.

Mr Pitt said changing the constitution to mean Australians “won’t be treated equally” is not something he could support.

The Nationals have already decided as a party that they will oppose the voice.

– with AAP