Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has urged Australians to “come together” as voting begins on the proposed Indigenous Voice.

Albanese said he was confident voters would focus on the question at hand as the October 14 referendum date approached.

“A lot of people have not made up their mind, and what I know [from] the feedback is when people talk through these issues they arrive at a Yes vote pretty comfortably,” he said in Melbourne on Monday.

“The key to the next fortnight is those one-on-one conversations with people to accept this request of the overwhelming majority of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.”

Early voting opened in Victoria, Western Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory on Monday, ahead of the October 14 referendum that will determine whether an Indigenous Voice, which would advise parliament and executive government, will be enshrined in the constitution.

It begins in NSW, the ACT, Queensland and South Australia on Tuesday (Monday is a public holiday in those jurisdictions).

Albanese said he planned to continue approaching the campaign positively, despite “a great big fear campaign about things that have nothing to do with this referendum”.

“No one loses from this proposition,” he said, while a No vote “takes us nowhere” on improving life for Indigenous Australians.

“That’s all the Voice is. An opportunity to listen to Indigenous communities about matters that affect them. Why? Because if you talk with people who are directly affected, you will get better outcomes,” he said.

Asked if some Australians might be opposed to the Voice because they felt the government should instead focus on cost-of-living issues, Albanese took a swipe at the opposition. He listed a range of measures delivered by his government, before saying the opposition was saying no to everything, including the Voice.

“They just have a commitment to destruction … they just have the Tony Abbott playbook. If you just say no to everything, you don’t have an alternative going forward,” he said.

Albanese said if the referendum passed, there would be “just two changes” – the first to recognised First Nation Australians in the country’s constitution.

“Something that should have happened 122 years ago,” he said.

“If not now, when are we going to do this necessary change?”

“We remain the only colony that has not done that in our nation’s founding document, and it is time that it was done.”

The other change would be the creation of a committee to advise on issues affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Albanese described that as “a gracious request” made by the majority of Indigenous Australians.

“That’s what this referendum is. An opportunity to seize the future; to recognise the great privilege we have of sharing this continent with the oldest continuous culture on Earth,” he said.

With voting underway, Australian electoral commissioner Tom Rogers said Australians should plan ahead for where they were going to cast their vote.

Early voting is available for those unable to cast a ballot on October 14.

“Federal referendums are in-person events, just like elections. This is the first time the country is coming together in nearly a quarter of a century to have their say on potential constitutional change,” he said.

“If you can vote on October 14, then that’s what you should do.

“However, if your circumstances might prevent you from doing that, then you need to think about the early voting options available and vote according to your circumstances.”

Polling is also well underway in remote locations across the country.

Tweet from @AusElectoralCom

The Indigenous voice referendum will have the largest number of eligible Australians on the electoral roll.

The AEC said 97.7 per cent of eligible Australians were enrolled to vote, an increase of more than 447,000 from last year’s federal election.

Indigenous enrolment is also at a record high 94.1 per cent, while 91.4 per cent of Australians aged 18 to 24 are also enrolled.

With less than two weeks until the referendum, the Yes campaign remains behind in the polls.

However, Education Minister Jason Clare said he was still confident of the constitutional change getting over the line.

“This is not a Labor idea, this is not a Liberal idea. This is the idea of Indigenous Australians asking us to work with them, asking us to listen, holding out their hand,” he told Sky News on Sunday.

“Australians have got a choice in the few weeks: to shake that hand or slap it away.”

Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie said it would be “unprecedented” for the Voice to succeed, due to the lack of bipartisanship on it.

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– AAP