The defeat of the Voice referendum leaves the prime minister a diminished figure. Reconciliation, let alone Indigenous recognition, is wrecked for the foreseeable future, and it happened on his watch. Moveover, his political enemies will work hard to make him wear the blame. The Greens — many of whom sat out the campaign despite the party’s ostensible support for the Voice — have already flagged they want Albanese to be responsible for what they call a “disastrous campaign”. And Peter Dutton’s strategy has always been driven by political opportunism. He has never been interested in the merits or otherwise of the Voice, merely in how it can be used to damage Labor.
That Albanese will wear the blame for the defeat is manifestly unfair. Dutton was always going to oppose any referendum Albanese proposed. Some pretext would always have been confected. The criticism from The Australian last week that Albanese had been insufficiently bipartisan was particularly high-octane nonsense — there is literally nothing that the prime minister could have proposed that would have drawn Coalition support. And there was always a No campaign ready and waiting for anything relating to First Peoples, funded by mining magnates and wealthy right-wingers and fueled by malignant racists online.
Nonetheless, the myth will now take hold that if Albanese had been a better campaigner, had proposed a different question, had delayed the referendum, had been less ambitious, or more ambitious, or somehow done something different, the result would have been Yes. Similarly, the Yes campaign will be decried as ineffectual — that if a smarter, better-targeted campaign had been run, the forms of intolerance, racism and obscurantism that fueled the No campaign could have been defeated.
All of that is alternate history now.
The damage to Albanese needn’t be permanent. Not a single vote cast at the next federal election will be dictated by perceptions of his poor Yes campaign. Instead they’ll be decided on the same basis as elections are always decided — on economic management, on jobs, on the cost of living, on health, on tax. And that election remains half a term away. But the recriminations for failure won’t be limited to outside Labor. There’ll be plenty of criticism, some scathing, of Albanese from within — and question marks about his political judgment. The referendum result might not be high in voters’ minds at the next election, but the resulting disunity might.
For Dutton, it’s a triumph. His opportunism has been vindicated, and he has likely secured his leadership until the next election. The message he will take from his victory is that scare campaigns, appeals to fear, invoking resentment and stoking division remain strong political tactics in Australia. There was literally no substance to Dutton’s campaign against the Voice; it was based entirely around a conspiracy theory of an elite plot to do something bad — never really articulated — to white Australians. But he and the No campaign didn’t need substance. It just needed fear, and downward envy, and the repetition of the claim that a Voice was “divisive”, when Australia is now divided more than ever before as a result of its success.
The result will be a further shift toward MAGA Republican tactics by the Liberals, fueled by the belief that they work, even if not necessarily as well as they do in the US. There’ll be more division, more targeting of groups for demonisation, more conspiracy theories, more insistence that ordinary Australians are the victims of an elite plot. Will it work at the next election as well as it worked on Saturday? Dutton and his senior colleagues are determined to find out.
As for the Greens, by keeping their heads down and generally avoiding being prominently linked to the Voice, they’ve managed to get through a difficult issue on which they’re bitterly divided without too much damage. True, they lost Lidia Thorpe along the way, but that was always going to happen and in any event was a blessing for them. Apart from some coverage from Nine newspapers, the MIA status of several prominent Greens from the referendum has gone unnoticed, freeing them to assail Albanese for failing to achieve something they were decidedly half-hearted about themselves.
Bernard you are so spot on. In fact, had I written this article it would have been virtually identical to what you have stated.
Among the No supporters Peter Dutton’s blatant self interest in his opposition to the voice is that he views this debate as an opportunity to take down the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his ALP government. Dutton may or may not have any real interest in the Voice but nonetheless sees in this debate a political opportunity to further his ambitions for power. Dutton seeks to achieve this by creating fear and division regarding the voice and then support the majority of Australians who he (correctly) assumes will vote no in response to the mistruths of the No campaigners. In doing do Dutton will attempt to come across as someone more in tune with the sentiments of the majority of Australians.
The chief mistruth employed by Dutton and other No campaigners is that the Voice will split Australians along lines of race by granting one group of Australians (Indigenous) more power and influence over government policy than other Australians. Dutton chooses to ignore the possibility that the Voice may lead to a reduction of inequality in Australia. The contested nature of the debate over the Voice involving Issues of power, inequality and self interest involves looking at it from a social justice perspective.
Social justice may mean many things to different people. I argue that there are two major streams to the discussion of social justice that is issues involving distribution and issues involving recognition. Distribution is the steam Australia is most in need of as the income and particularly the wealth gap between Australians continues to grow. Most often inequality may be traced back to the opportunities individuals and groups have from birth. Some refer to this as the lottery of birth where the family one is born into largely determines the life chances the newly born child will have in later years. This is where the second stream of social justice as recognition comes to the fore.
While social justice as distribution seeks the promotion of greater economic equality social justice as recognition requires treating people in an equitable or differently in order to create a more equal/fairer society. Equitable treatment which is what the Voice is all about does not seek to elevate one group above another as the No case falsely claimed, it is but an alternative path to achieving greater overall equality. It takes the saying ‘to walk in another’s shoes’ a step further. Rather than try to interpret the message that the footprints leave behind it is far better to communicate directly with the source or person making the footprint so as to gain greater clarity of the message and then to act accordingly. That is what a ‘fair go’ should really mean in a substantive manner. John Rawls an imposing and extremely famous writer on social justice in fact titled his massive discussion of social justice ‘(Social) Justice as Fairness’. But for social justice to succeed a sense of justice needs to lie within each individual citizen.
I wonder given the result of the referendum whether any such sense of social justice is present in much of contemporary Australian society. I fear instead that we have been converted to the neo-liberal concepts of ‘me first’/ ‘what’s in it for me’ I can only hope, and this something you did not push in your excellent article that this whole episode has made it even more clear how unfit Dutton is for the office of Prime Minister. There is rarely a lower act than using people, especially the most vulnerable/disempowered to serve your own selfish power hungry ends. Once again I hope that when the dust settles over this bleak period of Australia’s history that it will be even more evident what a moral bankrupt Dutton is.
Labor should increase the JobSeeker payment immediately with generous training and social support to become “job ready”. When the LNP objects tell them this is about equal justice for all struggling people, no matter where they live in Australia and to contribute to an Australian workforce.
No we should stop assuming being unemployed is necessariy indicative of being either unqualified or any other spurious catch all label ; stop the middlemen rorts at the NDIS/ job providers who are siloing skimming billions into their profiteering pockets Australia have huge sovereign talents and we are over educated compared to the world ; it is propaganda to move our sovereign wealth into the Big 4 advocated multinational pockets for those in power at the top !
In my 4 weeks experience on hustings (first door-knocking and then pre-polling) the ‘fairness’ argument backfired: there is a substantial minority who justifiably feel that fairness, in the current neoliberal death spiral, has passed them by as well; and there is another substantial minority who see everything as a zero-sum game, where anything given to another is taken from them, and for whom ‘it’s not fair!’ has probably been their mantra since kindergarten.
And of course there’s also the just plain racists – though I observe that merely implying that someone is holding to racist arguments has become the new racism.
Actually, that doesn’t go far enough — in my observation it didn’t require any action (or even interaction) on my part to trigger the unacceptable feeling in many No voters that they were being judged by me to be racists — as demonstrated by the number of No voters who insisted on telling me that ‘they were not racists, but…’ AFTER they had already voted.
Thanks for sharing – really interesting to hear what it was like on the ground…
In the 1990s I was in a university seminar featuring a number of retired politicians who had held cabinet positions at state and federal level. One of them made the point, “Every Premier in Australia knows that if you do something for Aborigines it will cost you votes.” The others nodded sadly. One can conclude not much has changed but I would hope that at least it will not cost as many votes.
One can take heart that a substantial and significant minority of Australians do respect and hold out their hands to the generous offer made by the First Nations’ people in the Uluru statement. We should keep walking with them.
“ and there is another substantial minority who see everything as a zero-sum game, where anything given to another is taken from them…”
I wonder where they got that idea from. Could it have come from both major political parties pushing the “if we do this, we’ll have to cut that because we have to budget and can’t afford things” line for generations? I’m nearly 60 and I’ve been hearing it all my adult life.
You have to laugh. Albanese pleaded with us “ kindness costs nothing”, after he and the LNP systematically taught us to kick down because kindness costs too much for generations – so here we are. Kindness costs so much, Robodebt carried on for years and years, but we’re shocked at the outcome of this referendum. Seriously, you have to laugh, because the alternative’s punching a wall and hurting yourself.
I think you’ve nailed it with regards to perceptions of ‘social justice’ and highlighting the issue, at a high level, was the perception of division by race. At a micro level this took the form of First Nations people would get something they’re not entitled to. Your land, your taxes, with a touch of look at the past 30 years, and the waste, we need an audit etc.
There really seems to be a lack of understanding, or wilful ignorance, of trade-offs. In markets and government every decision is a trade off with winners and losers , and any attempt to address social injustice will result in winners and losers.
I can’t seem to find it, but I recall the Grattan Institute did an analysis of government expenditure by cohort for COTA, showing expenditure per head with those aged 67 and over costing the most. .
So we heavily favour government spending in terms of services and assistance and tax expenditures to this group. Younger generations pay taxes to support this group who pay little to no tax. Yet, this an acceptable trade off we’ve built into the system. Yet if we dare to suggest providing support to First Nations people to close the gap that’s unacceptable.
As highlighted by Anne Twomey in the Guardian, the Constitution already contains divisions and special rights.
Clearly some special interests are are more important than others no matter how wasteful expenditure is, and social justice is simply not important.
Perhaps the spending on the elderly is accepted because in the past families looked after their elderly, now they stick them in homes and consider their job done if they visit once in a while, take the old folk out to lunch or dinner, just so long as they don’t have to physically look after them.
In the past, a lot more people didn’t make it to “elderly”.
Won’t be permanent, e.g. due to demographic change, but viewed as another ‘last w*nk of the skipocracy’ amongst other generational events (since Howard); may have another decade or two of it coming before the above median age vote shakes out while short term the Libs become the QLD LNP?
Saturday night demonstrates just how formidable far right ‘Trumpian ‘style campaigning has become. (Funnily enough, the conspiracy nut jobs who complained darkly and noisily about the AEC staff removing penciled in ‘NO votes on ballot papers are surprisingly quiet today).
Albanese should needs to follow the example of Mark McGowan and Daniel Andrews and implement imaginative and courageous policies that people care about if he wants his government to survive. Forget about seeking any consensus with a Dutton led opposition as it is a waste of time and it would be exploited as a weakness by the LNP and their followers. And use social media tools to talk directly Australians, bypassing the conservative dominated press. And to remember that lies and misinformation travel the world at the speed of light, before truth gets its running shoes laced.
Howard, Abbott and Morrison made an art form of dog whistling, wedge politics, racism and xenophobia and cynical use of fear, division and uncertainty. Lynton Crosby is their export to the UK with Sunak spruiking “stop the boats”.
And don’t forget that Mark Textor was the strategist/pollster steering the YES side of the Voice to Parliament – working with Albanese.
The YES side initially framed the debate defining the NO voters as being racists. It was like an inverse of the Howard-era dog-whistling, setting the frame from the YES side.
Makes you wonder if Textor was really acting for the Yes side.
In the 1990’s he was one of the primary lobbyists for the Pangea Resources proposal to set up a nuclear waste dump on aboriginal land for the nuclear wastes of the UK and USA. Add that to the work on Howard elections – and the way that resulted in the immigration detention regime – and you wonder why he was involved at all. He certainly understood the way the NO case would argue.
I know, right? Seems pretty obvious to me, that this whole Voice sideshow had been a hugely effective dead cat thrown on the table.
Who’s talking about the continuing approvals of coal mines now? Look at all the political capital Albo burned up martyring himself for the Voice; surely he’s a decent man of principle, right? Lol
A lot more “I move that the member be nolonger heard”, particularly aimed at dutton
We don’t want to mess up the scripted narrative, do we?
Looks to me like Albo plans to secure reelection by demonstrating a slavish devotion to capital, with a safer pair of hands than possessed by the Trumpian crackpots of the increasingly unhinged LNP; thus securing the endorsement of the MSM and most of the authoritarian followers who go where the wind blows.
Imaginative and courageous is not on the table; Shorten’s failure saw to that.
And this is why there needs to be laws to stop the lies and misinformation. Laws with teeth that hand out large fines and/or prison time because without laws to break this cycle we can expect worse on every policy put forward by the media that backs the coalition in their lies. Right now they see Labor as softies that can be besten down by lies. That needs to be nipped and fast by tough laws on any and all perpetrators of mis/disinformation and outright lies.
There was a time when what a politician said, and the media reported were true, they may have tinkered a bit around the edges every so often, but now it’s lies, lies and more damn lies by the self-interested and power-seekers for the sake of having power for the benefit of themselves not for the good of the people.
Albanese needs to see that, like the indigenous peoples have realised, extending a hand to those opposite is fatal and seen as weakness. So, please, make the laws and forget about bringing Dutton on board it’s not going to happen, ever.
Rather than blame Albanese, I prefer the words of journo David Lowe in our local rag The Echo today,
“Enter the unelectable duo of David Littleproud and Peter Dutton. Like all vandals, unable to create anything positive, they decided they would destroy the hard work of others. The dividers would accuse the Yes side of division. What followed was the greatest campaign of lies and misinformation this country has ever seen, driven by fear, and relying on the wilful ignorance of history.”
Wish we had a local paper like yours.
Nice! Good to celebrate quality journalism as we see so little of it these days.
Which Echo is it? I’d like to take a closer look from a professional POV. Thanks
Byron Shire Echo. Employs real journalists, has real editors and brilliant graphic artists. Excellent editorials and great letters section. Free printed paper and online, just google it. It’s amazing!
Agree.
An exemplar in so many ways.
Also more or less precluding their own MPs, members, activists etc. from voicing their own voting intentions, if yes.
Spot On.
I cannot agree that Albanese is diminished by this ‘loss’. Firstly the ‘loss’ is one that only those who voted No can wear, and unless you subscribe to the notion that all politics in this country is a just two-horse race where one wins and the other loses, it was in fact a national failure for which every No voter should wear the collar of shame for not listening and not caring. I am so sick of poor widdle diddums being excused for their stupidity and greed, while blaming everyone else for, in quite a few cases, not even knowing the referendum was being held (yes, I did hear that from a few mouths) because their only contact with the world outside their own empty heads is via reality tv (now there’s a misnomer) or their hairdresser.
Every single person in this country has a responsibility to sit up and take notice of what the government, the media, the ‘commentators’ and the experts do or say and to consider it critically for themselves, not just dial up some tripe on social media and call it research.
Albanese didn’t ‘lose’, anymore than Dutton ‘won’. It wasn’t a competition, it was asking people to forget their own petty little grievances and think of how to help one community in this country to have better lives than they have had since whitefellas arrived with guns and germs and kicked them off their lands.
The No voters simply turned their backs and went to watch the footy or chow down on a friggin’ hamburger with chips and a beer because they simply couldn’t care less.
Good old white Australia.
Yes, I agree, Dutton and the Liberals will wear this, not Albanese. And you get to the real point about widdle diddums Australians. Every No argument was refuted by respected professionals with recognised expertise in the relevant field. But not only do “Old Australians” not respect those who have expertise, the best framed argument makes no difference to a population where a majority have the reading comprehension of a 12 year-old, the critical thinking skills of a primary schooler and wouldn’t know the difference between the Constitution and a packet of Weeties.
as a Greens supporter (I mean who else is there?) their silence was very disappointing – however I was pleased (and surprised) to read in this morning’s Worm, that all the Teal seats voted YES – the Greens need to lift their game
Agree roberto .. who else is there? But were the Greens simply avoiding something which was destined to fail. This is Australia, and with a major Party affording to have Dutton as it’s leader. We’re further down the drainhole than some imagine. On the other hand, yes, should the Greens have taken a principled stand and an honourable loss on the issue?
Greens voters certainly didn’t need to be persuaded to vote Yes – Adam Bandt’s seat of Melbourne recorded a Yes vote pushing 80%.
I heard Antony Green saying that all seats that saw a big increase in the Greens vote at the last election had a greater proportion of Yes voters.
True. Greens voters didn’t need persuading. I also seem to recall the Greens saying early on that politics should stay out of the Voice referendum as much as possible.
Dutton in my opinion may have won the wrong vote. As you say all the Teal seats and Higgins in Victoria which was LNP and now ALP all voted yes. Dutton needs to win most of those lost LNP seats back to have any chance at the next election of forming government as I don’t think the LNP can take enough just of the ALP seats unless it can secure a massive unlikely swing form the ALP to put Dutton in the lodge. I think Albo should be ok with this loss as it was an election promise and he can argue the people decided and let’s move on. Dutton may have just helped all those Teal independents have another term and keep him out the top job.
I hope you are right – It was heartwarming to see all the Teal seats and Higgins vote Yes. It may have the effect of releasing some of Dutton’s modus operandi on those members. This could be a very stupid move by him or by Sussan Ley, Angus Taylor, Littleproud, NPs, Pauline Hanson and their like.
Gina Rinehart had a bit to do with that LNP crew you mention as well as she went to Senator Price’s first senate speech and was reported to have been at the No victory party Saturday night in Brisbane that was closed to the press. Price played a big part in convincing the unsure and don’t no to vote no. If an Aboriginal senator like Price tells non aboriginals if you don’t know vote no I think people listened. Also if you have sympathy for the aboriginal plight but voted no based on Prices recommendation then you won’t feel racist. Australia’s wealthiest miner would never had wanted a constitutionally embed voice for aboriginal people and the powers of Canberra central consultation. No way.
Rhinehart -> IPA -> fossil fueled Koch/Atlas Network <- CIS
DeSmog ‘A Secretive Network Is Fighting Indigenous Rights in Australia and Canada, Expert Says. It’s all part of a global playbook from the U.S.-based Atlas Network to protect the profits of fossil fuel and mining companies, argues a Sydney researcher.’
https://www.desmog.com/2023/10/10/a-secretive-network-is-fighting-indigenous-rights-in-australia-and-canada-expert-says/
Thanks I missed the article but it makes sense. Canadian indigenous people have treaties and constitutional recognition as a base at least. After Saturday for our Aboriginals its situation normal, nothing to stand on. Dig with abandon miners.
Unfortunately, I read this scenario as Dutton moving to capture traditional Labor seats, continuing the Tradie conquest that Scumo started with his hand outs to the construction industry.
yes that could be true but can the LNP replace the loss of 7 traditional LNP seats with ALP ones. I also think the use of Senator Price by the No vote was pivotal. If you look the polls from April this year till polling day last Saturday was 6 months. In six months ago 20% of the vote switched from Yes to No roughly. If you had some confusion about the vote and or didn’t know any actual aboriginal people you might well have listened to an Aboriginal Senator telling you to vote No. You could have even been an ALP voter who listened to Senator Price took her vote direction, if you don’t know vote No. You could have been an ALP voter as well. Does that turn No ALP voters to LNP ones? Dutton went for a hard win a political win but I think he focused too much on winning the wrong vote. Time will tell.
Indigenous senator Pat Dodson was asking us to vote Yes but they didn’t listen to him. This was because Price’s voice was amplified tenfold by the Murdoch and Nine media and also by the ABC to provide “balance”.
All the dirty tactics employed by No obliterated any chance of logical debate making it through the miasma of misinformation
Difficult to imagine Dutton offering anything here that Albo wouldn’t be happy to match.
I guess there is a silver lining then. The thought of seeing Spud’s head gloating about being elected is enough to make me vomit.
Paul “charisma” Fletcher in Bradfield will be hopefully be removed in 2025.
Fletcher, local member, has all the charisma of a well used nappy.
A Teal opportunity.
I too am an Independent/Greens supporter. I think the Greens did the right thing. For many of us the whole question is not Yes/No ( I voted Yes and I am very disappointed). Hopefully this part of our history has raised the Issues facing the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people a little in Australia’s consciousness!
I think the Greens did the right thing in not joining the fray. The issue was a humanitarian/human rights issue, and should not have been political.
I agree, Cate. Imagine if Dutton and co had kept their politics out of it?
Mackellar looks like it might just fall short of Yes.
But only one Liberal seat – Bradfield! An opportunity to a local Teal – certainly I doubt if Fletcher is highly regarded locally
Dutton did not really win then did he, the teals will still hold the seats that he needs to win govt
The referendum was defeated and a great deal of mistrust about institutions like the AEC was sown.
I imagine they consider it a win.
Going after the AEC was reprehensible.