Heard the latest about the No campaign’s tactics? It’s using fear and doubt, rather than facts. But the Yes campaign wants to reignite its campaign after this week. Polling shows what a struggle the Yes campaign faces. The Yes campaign has to build on the Farnsy buzz, says one newspaper. But polling experts say the Yes campaign is already lost.
How are the leaders performing? Yes advocate Marcia Langton has hit back after being verballed by News Corp, which tried to claim she had called No voters “racist and stupid”, when her remarks were (correctly) directed at the arguments put forward by the No campaign. Previously, No campaign leaders such as Warren Mundine have had their own problems, with demands that they distance themselves from the more overtly racist members of their own side.
Sound familiar? It’s exactly like an election campaign. For the media, the Voice to Parliament resembles an extra federal election, held halfway between the normal three yearly ones, with all the polling, election advertising (extra money for the media!), campaign trail stories, fake equivalences, News Corp lies and hot takes of the real thing.
Except, the media is making a category error. A general election involves an array of parties, individual local candidates in geographically based seats, party leaders, preferential voting and competing policy offerings covering every issue that politicians believe is of importance. And voters must make an assessment of the past performance of the incumbent as well as a prediction of future performance.
A referendum has none of these. It is a single question about a specific issue, with no personalities, candidates, policy platforms, preference distributions or past performance. An election campaign requires voters to assemble a composite position based on all those factors. A referendum is the stripping away of everything else, the removal of every compounding factor. It’s pure democracy: Yes or No (or, if you’re Peter Dutton, Yes or No/Yes-No).
The emerging narrative of this referendum is that it will fail because the Yes campaign — and particularly the Albanese government — did not campaign effectively, allowing the No campaign to sow doubt in voters’ minds. Allied to this is the complaint from Yes supporters that the media is skewing things through its willingness to provide false equivalence and spread disinformation.
But this removes all agency from voters. If the referendum outcome is purely the result of how one group of advocates, and their media supporters, outperformed another, the electorate is let off the hook. Such an argument makes more sense in the context of an election campaign, when all of the factors listed above become crucial aspects of overall campaigns and the sales pitches of major parties. It makes little sense in a referendum.
Ah, but the media object, the Voice is complicated, involving the recognition of First Peoples, improving policy aimed at Indigenous welfare, and parliamentary process. Except, it’s not complex, not to anyone who has made an effort to comprehend the case for genuine recognition in a form on which First Peoples have been consulted, and the need for a fundamental incorporation of the voices of First Peoples in policymaking in order to close the gap.
Many voters haven’t made that effort, the media would counter, which is why the No campaign is succeeding.
But disengagement by voters at this point reflects a deliberate choice. There can be no accidental or natural state of ignorance on the part of voters on October 14 — to insist otherwise is, again, to remove all agency from voters in a democracy. Remaining ignorant, disengaged, electing to be confused, fearful of the unknown, represents a deliberate choice.
In dismissing the agency of voters, the media are, in their own way, rejecting the democratic outcome on October 14. But the electorate will have spoken — not from a position of accidental disengagement from which the Yes campaign failed to shift it, but from a clear choice. To state the seemingly obvious, if the referendum fails, it will be because voters rejected it.
The implications of this are uncomfortable for the media. Voters rejecting a Voice to Parliament will say something explicit about Australians — that they care neither about being the only colonial settler society in the world that doesn’t recognise the Indigenous peoples dispossessed in the creation of their society, nor about making a substantive effort to close the gap in health, educational and economic outcomes for First Peoples.
To suggest that this reflects an innate racism on the part of voters — as Langton did not, but which she is accused of doing — is more a word game than analysis. It speaks for itself. The rest of the world can judge Australians by these two clear signals a No vote will send.
And this is the context for what appears to be a point of agreement between the Yes and No camps: that division (of which they accuse each other) and polarisation are evils to be avoided. After all, however much the right in Australia mimics the Trump Republicans, everyone agrees the kind of polarisation on display in the United States is undesirable. Whatever the outcome of the referendum, we should avoid division.
Except, division and polarisation are contextual states. What if a substantial proportion of the population holds a genuinely malicious view? Is being polarised from them, wanting nothing to do with them, judging them for holding that view, automatically wrong? Should one instead embrace them in spite of their abhorrent views, dismissing those views as just banal political disagreement?
The latter is a kind of lie: it papers over real malice with avuncular “we’re all in this together” tissue, because division is so awful. But a No vote, signalling as it would that Australians like their colonial settler society in just the dispossessive, exclusionary and genocidal form it has been for 240 years, and have no interest in addressing the toxic disadvantage of First Peoples, would provide clarity about the kind of people we really are, however uncomfortable it may be. That clarity about our true nature is to be welcomed, and not obscured with lamentations of “division”, or blaming inept campaign strategists.
Would a failure of the Voice be the result of any individual campaign? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
The willingness of people to be swayed by the NO sides arguments tells us that they were pushing on an open door. White Australia is still a deeply racist country, especially towards our First Nations people.
I hoped a victory for YES would represent a changing of the times but NO leading speaks to how our nation is still dominated by old white men who refuse to acknowledge that we live on stolen land.
I seem to recall that 20 years ago it took very little effort to find out that:
1) there were no children overboard
2) there’s no such thing as ‘queue-jumpers’ in the context of refugees
3) terrorists aren’t going to sneak into Australia to wreak havoc via a 50-50 chance in a leaky boat
4) sending people slowly insane in dehumanising POW camps offshore is more dangerous (and expensive) that bringing people into community while their claims are assessed…
5) and many more
I also recall that hardly anyone at the time bothered to find these things out.
I think, wishful thinking aside, we need to stop pretending that Australia is, at some essential level, a place where, generally, people’s values are, at some essential level (obviously not reflected in practice), decent, fair and compassionate. We need to fully accept that’s not the case – and start fighting to make it so – rather than wishing it could be revealed, given the chance (such as this referendum).
Because it just ain’t there.
I think it’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation; as a colony founded on brutal subjugation and subsequent whitewashing, poisonous bullsht is the water we swim in.
Find the pollsters who came up with the Howard response to Tampa and the other right-wing dog whistling about refugees – and you may be surprised to find that they are the same people who set the frame from the YES side of the Voice to Parliament referendum – as the strategist advising Albanese on the Voice.
Smells a bit, doesn’t it. Like the lies allowed to make it into the official junk mail.
This really shocks me. Have we sunken (?sank) so far?
Only if we pretend it didn’t happen.
Fair do’s, credit where credit is due: Yes “side” are novices compared to No “side. Tampa delivered government to Howard because that dog-whistling was sending the contagion of fear. Refugees were just the vector. No campaign to Voice is same pathogen, just different mode of transmission.
And, as with Tampa, lots of people will make a voting decision based on fear. Fear Flight Fright….contol this and you control anyone.
The choice was with Albanese and through his strategist for the YES side.
When to hold the referendum – knowing full well that holding a referendum midterm and outside a general election drastically reduces the odds of success.
Setting the parameters for the campaigning – by refusing to allow official YES and NO organisations he has left the field open for any kind of disinformation – leaving it to voters to wade through all the info and claims themselves.
Then you have the communications strategies from the YES strategists that defines opposition to the Voice as based on racism – that deliberately raises objections and polarised the debate.
Yes, but. Most voters will be like me, not stupid, but also no chance of making Mensa (or anywhere near being a member).
I can read and think about stuff, just like all the other millions of me.
The very minute Dutton announced he was backing No, the referendum was lost.
Easy but we have to trust your word?
Are you referring to Crosby Textor or CTI, GOP trained pollsters behind Howard & Tampa, who also help the UK Tory government, now they are advisors to the ALP on The Voice; or pray tell who are you speaking of (presuming it’s in the public domain)?
Mark Textor is the strategist working for the YES side with Albanese.
Mark Textor was also one of the primary lobbyist for the Pangea nuclear waste dump in the 1990’s. CT Group also has ties with the companies that build nuclear submarines for the US.
You would know about his work for the Coalition election campaigns.
Textor has also been working on the issue of a republic with the ARM – and has led focus groups trying to unite republicans over the last 20 years.
This is a common thread with the two referendums the Albanese government is planning to pursue – Voice and (Choice) republic. It is surprising that Albanese adopted the Liberal Party pollsters as soon as he took office.
I share your emotions and follow and extend Bernard’s logic that the electorate should not get off the hook for endorsing these things you mention. Moreover, it did so consistently and for a long time.
When the nihilistic impulse threatens to overwhelm me I do remember that these are small majorities, five percent either way changes everything. So you and I are far from alone, decency and ethics and the ability to think are far from uncommon. If No gets up, especially via these tactics, it will be shameful and disgusting but the arguments for Yes will still be better ones and we will not give up on trying to right the wrongs settlers have inflicted and continue to inflict on First Nations people. Expect more belligerent petulance and unacknowledged racism in response to those efforts. At least the referendum results will give a us guide as to who sits where.
Where the greater danger arises is when, as now, the forces of the right are moving to undermine and trash rule of law, democracy and debates in good faith. Why, because they don’t help them win. Their next logical steps are to alter the rules to disallow and undermine any majority being able assert itself against them. That is the Trumpian direction and the Coalition flirts with it continuously.
It’s already in the pipeline – by the ALP:
https://www.nationaltribune.com.au/yes-labor-s-misinformation-bill-could-jeopardise-free-speech-online/
Yeah wow. Enough vagueness in that to suit some really tyrannical interpretations – sorry, you’re facing legal sanctions because what you said threatens to disrupt society, and we won’t define ‘disrupt’.
No, how is the article link related to The Voice? Simply muddying the water by claiming that it is, when it’s about misinformation etc. in general?
Like elsewhere in the Anglosphere, there is a whiff of desperation from ageing RW nativist authoritarians in US, UK and locally ‘last wa*nk of the skipocracy’ before diversity dilutes them (‘great replacement’).
Targeting older voters ‘to maintain the rage’ (Howard borrowing from Whitlam?), trying to replicate ‘pensioner populism’ and ‘collective narcissism’ of (trying to enforce permanent) Brexit/EU and Trump/SCOTUS campaigns.
If No is the result, in the long run it may well destroy the Liberal Party as we have known it, in favour of retro Joh Bjelke Petersen type policies and outlook via QLD LNP; a la LNP grifters’ favourite, Hungary’s PM ‘mini Putin’ Orban.
Like elsewhere in the Anglosphere, there is a whiff of desperation from ageing RW nativist authoritarians in US, UK and locally ‘last w*nk of the skipocracy’ before diversity dilutes them (‘great replacement’).
Targeting older voters ‘to maintain the rage’ (Howard borrowing from Whitlam?), trying to replicate ‘pensioner populism’ and ‘collective narcissism’ of (trying to enforce permanent) Brexit/EU and Trump/SCOTUS campaigns.
If No is the result, in the long run it may well be curtains for the Liberal Party as we have known it, in favour of retro Joh Bjelke Petersen type policies and outlook via QLD LNP; a la LNP grifters’ favourite, Hungary’s PM ‘mini Putin’ Orban.
Agreed it would’ve taken little effort to find out these things were wrong. But assume that you don’t want them to be proved wrong; why look? The “now” approach was summarised by Kellyanne Conway as “alternative facts”. This concept is the successor of the older “religious faith”, and basically says “you believe what you want, dear, and you really should avoid those who challenge what you believe”.
Well said!
Unfortunately, if the No vote gets up I,and a lot of other well meaning people, will once again be embarrassed to be an Australian.
And there is a common thread running through those embarrassing times- the Coalition and Murdoch.
Sadly,at the heart of it, it appears that Australian’s generally can be small minded, insecure and racist.
The way we perceive ourselves and reality are poles apart.
I am not sure that hardly anyone bothered to find out, rather they already knew and accepted it because it confirmed their own biases. The mainstream media, especially Murdochs, understand the profit that can be made from confirmation bias. It is an article of faith for many that people are entitled to their own opinions and their own alternative facts. Facts and alternative facts have become hopelessly intertwined in the mainstream media, and especially in social media. People pick and choose whatever confirms their own bias.
It has ever been so in Australia, you can go back a lot further than 20 years and add the ‘Domino Theory’, ‘Yellow Peril’, ‘Dole Bludgers’, Reds under the bed’, ‘White Australia’, etc. to your list. Many people knew these were false arguments but still chose to accept them. So popular was the ‘Yellow Peril’ trope that it has been resurrected to support the AUKUS deal. Nothing much has changed.
Dutton’s earnest wish to avoid “division” is an excursion into Wonderland…………………….
……….”division” is the only policy that he has.
Without “division” the LNP is an illusion.
“Us and Them”………..
“African gangs”……….
“Chinese threat”……..
und so weiter……………….
Without fear of the “other”, whether the “other” is internal or external, Dutton is a busted flush.
That filth represents the only other we should fear: the ruling class.
Exterminate the lizard people, I say
I’ve been hoarding 8-ply. Just in case.
Division is intended to unite waverers and usually does so, satisfactorily if briefly. It’s difficult to scale back once deployed, however, particularly for unimaginative misanthropes like Dutton. This looks a bit like a rehearsal: if you wish to gain power without constructive strategies or actual policies, the anti-voice panic could profitably be nurtured and marshalled against a larger minority soon enough (“Albo must not go to China”). Please convince me I’m wrong.
My hope rests with the NACC…………
……….and the likelihood that the complete Coalition will be queuing up for a seance before too long.
Good to see Robert getting the nod today…………….
……………..and he all but reverted to the “Witch Hunt!” line (like his idol) in response.
(……and like his idol, it is going to come as a terrible shock when that six-inch-thick steel door slams behind him).
Often when there is too much media discussion on a specific topic, I get bored and turn off. Especially if the preponderance of commentary is contrary to my point of view. This has happned with the Voice discussion. Quite frankly I’m bored with all of the media coverage and I am sick of having to suffer media tactics which I totally disapprove of and disagree with.
I am still voting Yes but somehow less because of anything to do with the indigenous voice. I simply don’t want the side which has acted to subvert & divide through lies & deceipt to make any progress.
This is the perfect argument to make to those wavering because of the Blak sovereign position, who are only about 20% of indigenous opinion IIRC.
I’m all for the Blak sovereign movement’s aims, but they don’t seem to know how long the game they’re playing is. Civilisation will be over before they get anywhere.
“And this is the context for what appears to be a point of agreement between the Yes and No camps: that division (of which they accuse each other) and polarisation are evils to be avoided.”
I disagree BK. This is Dutton’s MO, and as pointed out by many others, straight out of the Trump playbook. Dutton enthusiastically embraces and facilitates division and polarisation because he’ll do anything for power. If setting back closing the gap and reconciliation by a generation is the egg that has to be broken to make his power omelette, he’ll do it without a qualm. If along the way he can suck more of the polity into believing malign “elites” exist, that they should fear change, be suspicious of “others” to the point of paranoia, and suppress any tendency to be altruistic, so much the better. Dutton has to get voters into a a psychological state where they’ll vote against their own best interest – just like the Red-Wall Brits did when they voted for Brexit – and the Voice referendum has been a convenient vehicle for doing it.
Yes, voters are free agents, hence the aphorism: in a democracy voters get the governments they deserve. But the object of political campaigns is always to persuade the persuadable. Dutton&co have done that by appealing to the worse angels of voters and that is to their great discredit. It is to the discredit of the Yes side that they haven’t put forward an oratory/wordsmith combo like Keating/Don Watson to appeal to the better angels.
Well said, Pig, though I doubt the MSM would provide even the most charismatic and persuasive of possible Yes orators anything close to the print space and broadcasting time it has given so freely and gleefully to the plentiful No liars. Even a pairing of the likes of Mandela and King because where’s the conflict clicks in that? I think the No liars and their media backers have been effective in waking up the sleeping racist giant in Australia. Both are culpable. Both despicable. Without their execrable efforts to poison the well (the former for base political reason and the latter for the $$$ – though the motives of the MSM may be more diverse and depressing than that), I doubt a great many sleepy voters would have been stirred to a state of racist consciousness.
It’s a minority of the populace who employ their intellect to generate their opinions. The rest look which way the wind is blowing, and follow the herd.
Otherwise the MSM would’ve been switched off long ago, the LNP would already be history and most folks would know Labor are also the bad guys.
“Dutton enthusiastically embraces and facilitates division and polarisation because he’ll do anything for power.”…………..
Yep, our very own “Little Finger” (apologies to GoT).
He’d burn the whole place to the ground if he could be king of the ashes………………..
There is a statistic of 8 successful referenda out of 44. But in that statistic is another. That is, of 25 Labor initiated referenda, only one (in 1946) was successful and that was supported by the then Liberal Menzies opposition.
If the Liberal party opposes a refendum, it fails.
The real question is, “why does the Liberal party oppose this referendum”? There is only one answer, unprincipled opportunism.
It might be easier to blame the voters for this decision and that’s true. But when the elites behave irresponsibly, it’s on them.
It was always obvious that Dutton was the single most important person for the chances of winning the referendum.
I guess, you might substitute Murdoch for Dutton (would Dutton have gone with No if Rupert was strongly in favour? Probably not). But in the end, Dutton has chosen to be the leader of the No campaign.