A cooling-off period is not such a bad idea sometimes, especially with something controversial. In New Zealand, they did have a cooling-off period. They decided they wanted to keep MMP, and I think that's reasonable.
Part of the problem with a referendum is that it's a snapshot in time. It reflects the way that people are feeling in the moment. Imagine you'd run the Quebec referendum in 1995. If you'd run it again in 1996, I bet you would have had a different outcome, and then which one counts, today's or tomorrow's? This is part of the problem with a referendum. It gives you a moment in time. You have to decide which one counts.
Look at Brexit. Folks woke up the next day and said, “I voted yes, but I didn't really mean to vote yes. I just wanted to send a message. I don't like David Cameron, and I don't like EU bureaucrats, but I didn't think my vote would count.” They got trapped by their own vote actually mattering.
I do think that if we're going to have a referendum, we need a citizens' assembly no matter what, but if we have perhaps two, a referendum asking “Do you want this?” and then another asking “Are you sure?”, that wouldn't be such a bad idea. It gives people a little bit of time, a cooling-off time. They can decide what they want. I believe that proposal's been floated. I think it's not such a bad thing, but again, only if the votes are held extremely responsibly, and the money is spent and the time is taken, because if you do a referendum poorly, I would argue, it's worse than not doing one at all.