Many Indigenous leaders of the Yes campaign have declared a week of public silence, and who can blame them? Some will be politicking, creating new alliances for the post-referendum era. Some will be in genuine mourning, shellacked by the scale of the defeat. Some simply need, and have earned, a long sleep. Loss in any political contest is rejection on a scale few of us are likely to experience, and this one is a multiple of that. Going quiet this week may or may not be a good idea politically, as the No camp establishes its agenda and cements its version of history. But for some, it may be simply existentially necessary.
But as your correspondent noted, once the Voice became a referendum question, it became a white object, requiring 54% of the national vote to get across the line. Even the notion, argued by some, of non-Indigenous commentators stepping out of the way, could not be anything but a political act. In any case, it was one that would be impossible, had it been tried. The right wasn’t going to stop and would have filled the vacuum.
The less credible reason for the flood of Yes commentary was that, well, I would refer you to the “white object” point. For progressives/the knowledge class, there was, until a few months ago, belief that success was inevitable, and that it would crown a series of recent successes, from the same-sex marriage plebiscite, to the 2022 federal victory, the Greens surge, the Aston byelection win, and the reelection of Dan Andrews.
The stonking defeat handed to this most progressivist/knowledge class of proposals — change through recognition, and more talking, more elite convocations — should remind them how provisional their hold on power in the body politic is.
The thumbnail 40% result was basically, I would say, 75% of the 25% who comprise the knowledge class — so about 18% of the vote, with non-European migrants and migrant-descended adding another 3%, Indigenous people another 2%, Gen Z (those who aren’t in the knowledge class group as students) another 4%, older liberal middle classes another 3% or so, and the final 10% coming from the 20-30% or so of the otherwise uncategorised non-tertiary educated who may have voted for it (those figures overlap a little).
On the No side, it is a relative monolith of the non-tertiary-educated. Which presumably divides into four reasons: brute racism against anything that would help “the blacks”; indifference to the issue, and no sense of being bound up with the Indigenous population of this continent; a conscious support of inherited institutions and the formal equality of the current arrangements; and a category of its own, but also overlapping all the others — a belief in the disinformation about taking your house, etc.
So there’s an interesting inversion. The Yes vote came from multiple sources, by social class, but had essentially the same vision. The No vote came from a relatively monolithic mainstream but had apparently very different reasons for rejecting it. The conclusion has to be made that the material-historical meaning of the vote has to be seen in “class” terms: it was a revolt against this march to “class” dominance by the knowledge class, led by the cultural producer elite at their core.
This was a big play from the knowledge class, carried along by an essentially “sealed” morality, an inability to see abstract values — “I have a moral duty to extend concern to all humans because morality must be universal and general — as an expression of their class and its way of thinking.” Universalist morality is not a universal truth, like a scientific law. The other morality — that moral obligation is attached to my own people, my own group, and that loyalty is morally better than equality of treatment — is that of people whose lives are more bound in the particular. The elite of the knowledge class has been trying to discredit this sort of thinking, to portray it as not a morality at all, for decades.
The attachment to the Voice was the final move in this recent historical passage. By achieving the Voice and implementing it in the constitution, the knowledge class would determine not merely the politics of the present but the meaning of Australian history as all leading up to the moment of the Voice, a sort of Paddle Pop Hegelianism.
The refusal of this by the electorate has made the cultural producer elite — the core of the knowledge class — and its commentariat very, very angry. Their first move has been to repeat the Democrats’ post-2016 play, dropping in a simplistic false-consciousness model, treating the mainstream as a blank slate onto which anything can be projected. This was a denial of the obvious truth: the Yes campaign was a shambles, the line put the “mess” in “message”, and the No campaign easily outpaced it. The second stage, which began last week, was simple hatred and disdain directed at the mainstream of the country.
Thus Sean Kelly in the Age/SMH:
I have been struck by the widespread conclusion, based on polling, that Australians were persuaded by the argument that the Voice would divide the country. Voters may well say this was what persuaded them. But it is likely that most were instinctively against the idea; of the reasons they were able to choose between to justify their choice, this one sounded most attractive.
Well, the Voice would divide the country. That is its intent! This was the great blind spot of the Yes campaign, run with to the end. The division — between Indigenous peoples and non-Indigenous Australians — was essential to recognition. It was the enactment of recognition. We weren’t creating a Voice, a separate assembly for, say, the benefits-dependent disabled, whose powerlessness, invisibility and suffering would match that of many Indigenous groups. We proposed to specifically recognise the separateness of Indigenous peoples by recognising no other social groups as requiring or deserving a voice assembly of their own. That was the essential mechanism of the Voice.
The Yes case — that this was really a higher unity, arising from the imposition of division — was gobbledygook, and sussed by the mainstream as such. When it was pinged by the voters, Kelly and others resorted to the idea that it wasn’t their real intent, which moved beneath the murky surface of real psych 101 stuff.
In The Monthly, Rachel Withers repeated, in the last few days ahead of the vote, the one trick many Yes advocates used, of taking Yes Indigenous leaders on trust, while asking No campaigners to prove their credentials:
Conservatives Nyunggai Warren Mundine and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price have been essential spokespeople for the No campaign, using their platforms to claim a Voice isn’t necessary, while Blak Sovereign Movement leader Lidia Thorpe leads the progressive No, who want a Treaty instead of a Voice. But these leaders have received far more coverage than the people they claim to speak for.
Withers tellingly left out all those Indigenous figures — Gary Foley, Celeste Liddle and Michael Mansell among the most prominent — who made it clear that, while they would not advocate for No, they felt the Voice proposal to be a mix of a nothing burger and a stitch-up. Ignoring these voices, with a more complex take, was essential to the Yes elite’s presentation of the issue, as one of obvious justice versus a malign and sinister cabal.
This faint whiff of totalitarian thinking ran through much of the Yes commentariat’s efforts. It had started early. In June, Age columnist Jenna Price stated:
There is only one way forward and that’s all-out war. If we want to pass the Voice referendum (which, honestly, should not even be up for discussion) we will need a leader to lead us to the vote.
That is the totalitarian mindset in essence: the other side of the argument should not even be thinkable, and thus arguable. Price was suggesting that Tim Wilson would make a good Yes spokesman. Bless. One could multiply such examples indefinitely (too many of them, alas, from this publication).
Katharine Murphy rounded this all out for Guardian Australia readers, with an obsessive trilogy of articles, a Duttoniad. On September 23, Dutton was a “one-man insurgency”. On October 7, as defeat approached, he was “the exploding fire hydrant of politics, pushing his party to the angry fringes”, and on October 14, referendum day, he was “Australia’s figurehead of fear and fake news like Trump but without the charisma”. The last article’s ludicrous, desperate comparison was a clue to her hopelessly incorrect analysis. Pushing the Coalition to the “angry fringes”? No won in more than 30 Labor seats and Yes won in a single Coalition seat. That fringe looks more like a wave. Sadly, this Duttomania has had a fair expression in this publication, replacing Scott Morrison derangement syndrome as an explanation for all ills.
There are many causes for the failure of the Yes campaign, but one of them is this absolute insularity of the progressive mindset. That’s a passive thing, an attitude among the wider knowledge class. Among the progressive commentariat it’s been an active enforcement, a truly self-destructive strategy, to reduce the pace of debate by steadily labelling every idea or attitude it doesn’t like as a symptom of something else, or a product of a cabal.
This has been made visible by the failure of the Yes case, because this is what contributed overwhelmingly to its failure. These publications should be arenas for forthright debate and acute self-scrutiny. But they are serving their commercial demands by publishing pabulum, in the same way that The Australian does, for its sunstruck readership of ageing Queenslanders. Guardian Australia and others tell people exactly what they want to hear so they will continue to read it over whatever ridiculous novelty-ethnic breakfast they are having in Thornbury on a Saturday morning. The eve of the referendum had seen a plethora of “this decides what sort of nation we are” pieces. Even Niki Savva got into the act:
Come Sunday, we will either see ourselves as measured, generous people, ready to set aside the daily woes of our lives … prepared to say Yes to something that will cost us nothing, but could measurably improve their lives. Or as a frightened, resentful people …
Which followed on from Peter Hartcher’s “A frightened nation? Yes or No?” a week earlier, which had the same cod cultural analysis, with the usual method: create a false abstraction of what the Australian nation is, drawn pretty much from the high Hawke era. Render any departure or dissent from it as a neurotic reaction to the received truth. Find that, in Jon Faine’s words, the nation failed the civics test. Yes, you know what’s coming don’t you, a bit of Brecht: the people, as audience, have failed the progressive commentariat. It is time to dissolve the people-audience, etc, etc… In recent days, the unquestionable split between the tertiary-educated and others in the vote has led Kos Samaras to try and tie it to economic class — which doesn’t work — and people like Patricia Karvelas and Waleed Aly to tie it to the “lack of information”.
That just goes to show that being educated doesn’t make you smart. The Voice wasn’t a right/wrong answer. It’s not exams, which progressives love, and everyone else hates. It’s not how the contents of thought differ, it’s the form of thinking that differs, and the different moral systems that arise from that.
Will this utter debacle for progressives serve as some sort of wake-up call to editors and proprietors of these publications that, for the good of the country in general, and left and genuinely progressive and liberal thinking in particular, they must create centres of forthright and uncompromising debate, so that ideas and strategies are genuinely tested against reality, before being applied to the world?
Or will they now retreat further into a self-justifying, incurious and complacent disdain for the beliefs of two-thirds of the people they share this continent with? If they do, and imagine that they will not now meet a more concerted and organised resistance to their worldview, then they may themselves be taking that long sleep.
The knowledge class…sigh.
Totalitarianism would be more like dismissing the fact-based opinions of people who know stuff while amplifying the fact-free opinions of people who don’t know stuff (as evidenced by their own factually incorrect comments) .
Articles like this contribute mightily to the right-wing’s tactic of pushing its cause by ridiculing fact-based critical thinking. There’s a reason conservative parties around the world have gone after universities (humanities departments in particular).
Just out of interest, what should the knowledge class do to be more ‘correct’ – forget stuff it knows?
well, look at Birrell and Bett’s findings and Redbridge’s polling, which shows the tertiary – non-tertriat split
The ‘knowledge class’ is a theorisation of that
The prupose of theory is to steer future strategy
More theorisation of this would have led to a better chance of ‘yes’ succeeeding.
The knowledge class dont purvey just fact-based critical thinking. They follow their own arrogant unreflective ideology that arises from their class position
And 60-70% of people then reject their proposals.
Which leaves you sighing
Nobody is perfect and so there was indeed “arrogant unreflective ideology’ at play, but it was there on both sides of the Voice debate.
As a society, we have a range of tools we can use to mute ideology so we can differentiate between better and worse ideas. One of the tools we could/should use in a debate about a subject like the Voice is to listen to those affected by a proposal and to listen to those who have deep knowledge in the relevant subject area(s). All facts are subjective to some extent but we have well-tested ways of telling which facts are ‘truer’ than others. We don’t, as a general principle, base policies on stuff we just make up.
What instruments we have agree, those affected by the Voice – Indigenous Australians – overwhelmingly thought the Voice was a practical idea worth trying.
Those with the deepest knowledge in areas relevant to the Voice – experts in Indigenous disadvantage and constitutional law – overwhelmingly thought the Voice was a practical idea worth trying.
How everybody else ‘felt’ about the Voice is of course important. But most of us know not very much about a lot of things and on any complex subject we need to be educated by those who do know before we can sensibly form an opinion.
In the Voice debate elements of the MSM pushed a certain point of view by flooding the zone with excrement and drowning out informed ‘elite’ opinion. Feelings won in the end. A very sad result, and one smelling badly of racism and ignorance.
It doesn’t matter if your facts are “truer” than those of the other side and it doesn’t matter if people don’t know “very much about a lot of things” and “need to be educated” on complex subjects. If you can’t convince the other side that your facts are “truer” all this doesn’t matter. If a majority of the people who don’t know much and need education don’t want to know much (or maybe they think they know enough) and don’t want to be educated, especially by your side – none of this matters. You won’t get the result you’re after. It’s not enough to point fingers and accuse people – rightly or wrongly, this too doesn’t matter – of stupidity or racism, or both.
There are many reasons why the ‘ignorant masses’ dislike the educated ‘elites’. One of those reasons is that no-one likes to be looked down upon and made to feel inferior. And we can’t deny that some (many?) educated people do look down upon the uneducated and think them inferior. They also make it be known. As a result, the uneducated won’t listen to experts telling them what the uneducated might not want to hear or that simply differs from what they’re told by those who are hostile to the educated. And here again the reasons why the hostile are hostile don’t matter. What matters is that they seem to be on the side of the uneducated.
So, we might know better than the no voters but clearly we failed to convince them that we do and that they should listen to us.
We might take it as a proof of the stupidity and racism (and I don’t deny that they exist, possibly in not too insignificant numbers) of the 60% and continue to harp on about their racism and ignorance. Or we might have a look at what the yes side could’ve done differently to ensure a different result. The latter doesn’t mean that we should let of the hook those who exploited the weaknesses of both sides to advance their own agendas. But I really think we shouldn’t dismiss what Guy writes out of hand. The fact that we dislike what he says doesn’t mean it’s not true, at least partly.
Yes! Some need to see politics through a more practical/utilitarian lens…
Well of course, in the end, the whole point is winning the vote, whatever the subject. But blaming arrogant elites for the failed Yes campaign is childish.
This argument is everywhere at the moment, as if the question people were asked was less important than how people felt if anyone told them why they should vote a certain way.
The question was about addressing significant and endemic disadvantage in a small group or original inhabitants who have been destructively discriminated against for centuries.
That’s a really big question and if you can’t decide without blocking out how you felt when someone put the case for one side then you really need to grow up. Or be honest and admit it’s just a cover for some other feeling that you don’t want to admit to.
And that’s my point about the whole angle that presents knowledge class opinion as ideology. It’s a rampant conservative trope at the moment, which deliberately infantilises every issue by dismissing informed opinion as ideology that has no more truth value than any fact-free comment someone makes in a pub.
The ‘elite’ argument (for which read knowledge class) has been used as cover for Brexit, Trump and now the Voice.
The problem is not that some people know more about some things than you or me, it’s that conservative politicians everywhere have discovered flooding the zone with excrement beats facts.
I agree with you on everything – what the referendum was about, the fact that the conservatives lie and use the knowledge class trope for their own purposes, all that. But it doesn’t change the fact that we failed to investigate what people think and why.
“they must create centres of forthright and uncompromising debate, so that ideas and strategies are genuinely tested against reality” guys you literally did the thing.
so proud of you <3
Yes, agree that this is about both class and race. The prols likely don’t like to feel inferior by the ‘knowledge class’ as opines but then this “class” also does not appear to have any compunction in kicking down either, as this ‘no vote’ appears to demonstrate. I have no doubt if this class suffered the same level of disadvantage under another oppressive class or race then it would have had no difficulty in interpreting the referendum question and the advantage of having a ‘peak body’ group to give voice to its own interests. And whilst we are on the matter of class, an examination about the reasons for backing the no vote by some of our richest miners and their political backers might be in order too.
In your hands ‘knowledge class’ is a pejorative generalisation you use to discredit opinions you don’t agree with.
And in flowery language reminiscent of the sort of po-mo lit-crit bulls*** with which the supposed knowledge class would be enamoured.
no, the terms are simple. No jargon. You’re just intellectually lazy – even tho progressivism has suffered its greatest loss for a generation. You’d rtaher sook than think about how to win next time
no it’s a very simple argument. People with tertiary degrees and the jobs and loves that arise from that, thinkin a certain abstrac, universal way about morality and rights. Theyre about 30% of the population
People who are outside of that, think in forms of particular morality. They’re about 70%.
You win when they consent to your moral story – s in the same sex plebiscite
You lose when they assert a particular morality.
You lost 62-38 for this referendum, and thus lost for a generation
You want to keep losing forever? Ignore the class character of values politics
“You lose when they assert a particular morality”. I’m not clear what is meant by this. What is (or was) the particular morality that ‘they’ asserted? Could you elaborate?
But mate, you are a member of the “knowledge class”. You’re a professional writer. You’re paid to think and write just like the Merdoch hacks and IPA fellows, whose “knowledge class” outpourings helped sway a majority of voters. (Remember the referendum had majority ‘Yes’ support right up until the “knowledge class” scribblers for the status quo began campaigning for ‘No’.)
So it’s ridiculous to say the “knowledge class” lost the referendum, because the “knowledge class” also won it.
No, you can be within any class and think outside of it, if you feel the moral imperative to find the truth. The IPA etc mob are a small minority with a particular idea. They purport to represent mainstream, but dont think like many of them. Gideon Rozner and James Paterson would agree that the reasons for aboriginal disadvantage are structural. But they’d differ on the causes. Many ‘no’ voters, would just think aborigines are lazy and feckless and should get their act together – or that history plays no role. That’s the difference
Spot on.
Guy is clearly a member of the ‘knowledge class’ (aka the ‘intelligentsia’). This article appears to be an exercise in self flagellation. Let him have his fun. It’s mostly harmless.
Yes, in my inner-Melb enclave, there has been much smug insularity on show, and not just on the Referendum result. Damning all No voters as deplorable, racist, etc., and bemoaning the fact that all First Nations peoples didn’t agree that a Yes vote would be a great leap forward.
But the worst of the ‘Yes’ proponents was insular sanctimonious smugness. And the worst of the ‘No’ proponents was full-blown neo-Nazism.
I guess my question is why would somebody be persuaded to lodge a vote against insular smugness more than they’d be persuaded to lodge a vote against overt fascism?
The fact that so many university educated people were not able to convince the non-educated people sort of suggests that their educations weren’t all they were cracked up to be.
Now perhaps It’s because their university education actually didn’t teach them anything useful. Instead they became obsessed with theory v reality.
Take the entirely theoretical arguments about whether colonialism was good or bad. The way the Yes side approached the issue was that it was a historical FACT that it was bad. And when Price said it wasn’t bad there was outrage with white lining up to tell her just how bad her life had been.
Now any person who has studied history properly should realise that in the absence of any counter factual (a parallel universe where colonisation didn’t happen) it’s a question that actually is kind of irrelevant.
Good, bad or indifferent – it happened. That is a historical fact. Whether it was good or bad is a matter of OPINION.
A tertiary education should teach people the difference between FACTS and OPINIONS. (Primary v secondary sources anyone?).
And knowing and appreciating that difference then allows a person to better approach an argument because they know they need to change OPINIONS.
The fact that colonisation was bad is supported by about 200 years of other facts. When Price said it wasn’t bad because…’running water’…she was leveraging her indigeneity to bolster an appalling unsupportable argument.
You missed my point.
The point is the great debate about the rights and wrongs of history is not a factual one.
It’s not 1 + 1 = 2
It’s heavily opinionated, tied deeply to people’s identities, and the subject of centuries of propaganda.
It’s literally the worst debate one can have. Worse even than religion because it’s based on some semblance of “facts”.
Therefore when the No side tried to lead Yes down that rabbit hole the Yes side shouldn’t have taken the bait. One answer might be
“We’re not going to engage in discussions about the past, this is about the future and how we can start taking practical steps to improve things for indigenous people and all Australians. Because a society that protects its most vulnerable is a happier and healthier society”
Or something like that….
The No side continually used the Yes side’s education against it…..
A small number of university-educated people were able to convince a large number of people to vote No.
You’re wrong to say that ‘Yes’ proponents were educated and ‘No’ proponents weren’t.
I’d argue, in fact, that ‘No’ proponents were ‘smarter’ (using the Trumpian sense of the word) because they were more outcomes driven.
I talked to people who’d been persuaded that indigenous Australians were the most advantaged Australians so didn’t really need a Voice on top of everything; and/or that indigenous Australians would take people’s houses if they got a Voice. Now, whoever persuaded those people to believe that nonsense is educated to a very high degree.
If playing dumb is what achieves outcomes, though, the ‘smart’ money will be behind the anti-intellectual rhetoric.
I didn’t mention the proponents.
The proponents have a deep understanding of history especially the early 1930s in Germany….
Oh, so when you wrote “people who were not able to convince the non-educated people” you weren’t referring to ‘proponents’?
Perhaps our dictionaries differ.
Yes, think some people need to stick to their knitting? Citing Australian media, or ‘the medium’ for credible sources to support analysis, leading to almost Orwellian doublespeak to muddy the water?
Birrell & Betts doing analysis with their penchant for old white Australia vs. post 1970s immigrants; linked to US RW fossil fueled Tanton Network in the US which informs Fox, GOP, alt right etc. talking points, ditto UK and locally that faux ‘environmental’ NGO complaining about undefined ‘immigrants’ and ‘sustainable population’, plus MB, News/SkyAD, 7/9 etc?
Blimey, this is what’s wrong with Australia when it’s so easy to astroturf supposed centrists?
are you saying the birrell and betts study is systematically distorted, simply because their findings disagree with what youd like the reality to be – that the population rejects the Voice narrative?
Desperate.
Please don’t gaslight, like others I’ve been privy to their ‘research’ for decades, and where their influences come from (nothing new i.e. 19thC) that has been unfortunately or mistakenly used for dog whistling.
.
I’m alleging it does not include the elements nor follow academic &/or research process including synthesis of credible sources; notes, polls and media opinion doesn’t cut the mustard except for an opinion essay or media commentary… that always ends up showing other types and immigrants in a negative light.
One of them, I vaguely recall, used sources for a paper or article, masquerading as research, on attitudes towards immigration, via comments from the Herald Sun….. does not pass the ‘CRAAP’ test, nor expert peer review.
PS I do like how you come onto the comments section to challenge, rebut and counter, with the bonus that it seems to keep comments (unlike other articles), civil and other contributors should do the same.
Guy’s articles are premised on gaslighting. Guy’s capitalist ideological prism where he selectively distorts communist and socialist ideological theories of class, is at times frightening. What next? Maybe a mass purge of the progressive intellectuals because they seek social justice and truth. The perverse capitalists fear and hate progressive intellectuals because they seek to make them accountable for their injustices and untruths. The Voice was but another example of how perverse capitalists are able to use their power structures to denigrate and stop progressive change, there has been many examples of this abuse of powers over the last twenty-five years here in Australia. The sad fact is, limited or absent progressive changes; that comes as a consequence and interplay of good rigorous SCIENCES, ART, LITERATURE, EDUCATION AND PHILOSOPHY, leads to limited or absent policies, Acts and legislation, enabling the continuing erosion of health and harmony amongst the Governments and ALL the citizenry, to what ends? This insane, perverse and hedonistic beast that is now the dominant form of capitalism worldwide is consuming our humanity, our planet, and still we bicker like children over issues that are of the greatest importance.
It’s quite popular nowadays with various media outlets, in lieu of being adequately resourced, using generic writer contributors tasked on deadlines to write about areas outside their skill set, or worse, no understanding (but channeling others who claim to be experts).
There is a newish ‘conservative’ outlet locally, but seems to target the US for readers, subscriptions and writers; with many linked to the alt right inc. Rebel Media.
Many of the latter are deemed part of the (Anglo) ‘intellectual dark web’ creating doubts and confusion, or worse contempt and criticism of anything left, woke etc. i.e. centrist, while ignoring the right… too easy.
‘It’s just a coalition of thinkers and journalists who happen to share a disdain for the keepers of the liberal orthodoxy.’
Much of the same is related to US ‘Pinkerites’ where they cross over to not just anti-woke but into conspiracies, race pseudoscience, sociobiology/evolutionary psychology, Christianity and IQ or eugenics. Specifically the likes of Spiked (Koch seeded), InfoWars (Bannon), Joe Rogan, Murray/The Bell Curve, Pioneer Fund (Tanton’s mob), local conservative’ outfit etc.
Is Rundle going around your house switching on and off your lights making you think you’re mad?
“Gaslighting” is my least favourite term right now. I’m sure it’ll be replaced soon by the next trendy term.
If you find yourself using trendy terms just stop – they’re like cliches.
On this ‘conservative parties around the world have gone after universities (humanities departments in particular)’ that’s the playbook of Koch Network outlets (share donors in US with nativist Tanton Network), with RW media, influencers, faix experts and sock puppets help produce ‘Trojan horses’ to nobble education, while promoting patriarchy and more religion.
There is a whole conga line of faux (soft) issues being gamed and denigrated in K12 & higher ed, highlighting freedom of speech (coming here soon the FSU), woke, LGBTIQ, curricula/syllabi, content, teaching methods, research, climate/Covid science etc.; an attack on education, empowerment, younger generations and ‘analysis’ or Bloom’s taxonomy i.e. knowledge, understanding, application, analysis, evaluation and synthesis.
The corrupt nativist authoritarian (often fossil fueled) right, wants to knock out the higher level skills based on science and the enlightenment, while admiring Russia, China etc. e.g. Musk, Koch’s GOP Freedom Caucus & their linked think tanks, US RW media etc..
Having campaigned successfully for the “No” vote, Peter Dutton is now pushing for “practical outcomes” for Indigenous Australians whilst lecturing the Albanese Labor government to “listen” to our Indigenous people. Isn’t that exactly what “The Voice” was all about?
Yes, but the ‘no’ case was saying that there were better ways of listening, that indigenous people were being heard, but only some of them, and that the voice would be another bureaucratic obstacle to that process.
Maybe ture, maybe not, but thats what needed refuting. With something more than mere assertion
Why does the Yes case need to refute things with more than mere assertion (when apparently their problem is that they were too hung up on knowledge class reason and facts), when the No case was largely mere assertion.
Asking for a friend.
Because it’s always easier to build a negative case than a positive case, especially for something so permanent as a constitutional amendment. And because life isn’t fair.
Because the No case was winning.
It’s not a moral responsibility, it’s a practical reality. It’s not God who decides it’s the voters, and they need to be persuaded.
Because they’re the Yes case! The rules are not the same for the two campaigns. Yes needed to clearly articulate a coherent case. No just needed to throw mud at it and hope enough stuck.
Same as the Bannonism or PR tactic of ‘flooding the zone’ (to push facts away), raising multiple objections or question via multiple channels for media projection; outcome is many confused voters unable to process all the information due to overload, which is the point.
For an example see climate science and global warming….
Because ‘the voice’ was a complex abstract proposal dodged up in Greg Craven’s office by lawyers 10 years ago, supported by Noel and Marcia’s allied elders – and the no case was a simple appeal to legal equality
So the yes case had to make the case
You didn;t
You understand why now?
LOL. The No case was primarily a call to ignorance (“If you don’t know, vote no”) and fear (“reparations!”, “they’ll take your back yards”).
Legal equality ? What does the overlap of “No” for the Voice and “No” for the SSM plebiscite look like ?
The voice wasn’t that complex or abstract. It was the furphys about “detail” and “the constitution” that were abstract and complex and seemed to signal the first change from 60% support to 60% opposition, not to mention the disproportionate promotion of the tiny amount of No supporting Aboriginal people in the media and by the Opposition.
I suppose you think climate change wasn’t real because most people didn’t believe in it until recently? Even though they did before.
When questionned, the No case was unable to articulate what those better ways were and still can’t identify them. So although this continues to be used as a criticism of ‘Yes’ it arguably can’t be seen to be sincere. Peter Dutton has mentioned his next steps will be listening to a voice – that of Jacinta Price.
Jacinta Price doesnt have a voice of her own. She will speak words but they will be the words of the person paying her and we wont know who that is.
Jacinta Price is there to say the things that the ultra right white people want to say, but can’t.
That’s a mighty generous interpretation of the No campaign.
I agree Yes did a terrible job of selling the Voice to the masses, but to suggest No – outside a very narrow group – were offering a thought-out and considered alternative is absurd.
But the no side didn’t need to offer a thought out, considered alternative. They just needed to offer what a rather large percentage of the electorate apparently and for whatever reason wanted to hear.
Many no votrs didnt feel a new proposal was needed – especially one which broached legal equality in the constitution
They thought the new proposal was no more likely to help than the old ones
You didnt have an argument against that. Just assertion
“Legal equality”? What is this?
Access to the ears of our politicians is based on how much money you’ve got. This is why the Voice was needed.
Legal equality… yeah… hobble some of the footrace runners and then call for “legal equality”.. what a joke, Mr Rundle.
“Many” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, at least from the No campaign.
You mean like yours ?
The key argument put forward by the Nationals was that the Voice would be nothing but more bureaucracy. This from a party not known for listening to FNP.
It’s true though – there would have been a vast new bureaucracy. what evidence do you ahve that it would have made things better? what eveidence do you have that it wouldnt have made things worse?
‘there would have been a vast new bureaucracy’
Guy this is not factual, unless I am wrong and the 20+ other advisory bodies the Government has are costing the ‘billions’ the No campaign claimed the Voice would cost. The proposed Advisory body were not replacing the NIAA so were not running programs. There would have been some cost but there would not have been those of a bureaucracy.
I agree in so far as this statement of your goes but it is a very stunted view of the “Yes” case and it gives the “noes” a free pass. You can’t refute “No” with logic. The idea of “No” is anything but logical or rational. It is often based on fear mongering (country people) and conservatism (if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it logic of city folk). It is more than a little difficult to combat such overwhelming negativity. Don’t get me wrong. I prefer Shooter & Fishers over Liberals any day of the week and the “Nos” were highest in S&F state seats in NSW. I am just showing that there are multiple issues at play and not all of them pleasant or easily explained. You can’t tell such people that being reasonable and rational will help assuage their difficulties. That’s not how politics and partisanship works. You can’t reason with prejudice. You just can’t. You can’t reason with fear. Impossible there too. You can’t reason with hate or suspicion. Waste of time. A 1-issue referendum without political unanimity will see that 1 issue defeated. That is why Dutton is guttoing out of his previous call for another referendum. Littleproud is walking back the same commitment. They’ve got what they wanted. Warren Mundine and Jacinta Price need to be called to account. It is up to 1st Nations groups who supported the Voice to take them on. This referendum should now be fought over by 1st Nations Peoples. Those who supported Yes versus those who supported No. Labor is to its credit, which it has little of lately, concentrating on other matters. Albo’s tactic and strategy all along. 1st Nations spokespeople were prominent in calling for the Voice or opposing it. It is they who should be doing the fighting now. But that is just my opinion.
He’s already walking that back, and telling the public that we’re tired of referenda.
I don’t think Dutton knows what he’s talking about. He has a different stance every day. But for him to come out now and say we should be listening is imo the height of hypocrisy. Nasty little man.
Yes, it was GH.
Now we see what Dutton’s “practical outcomes” means: a Royal Commission into Aboriginal child sexual abuse.
And an audit.
I think the premise here is total bullshit. You know bloody well that the no case was coordinated by the desire to weaken Albanese by seeing the referendum defeated. There is documentation published by Crikey itself to prove this. You also know that the main media in this country is run by Murdoch and with a lone exception their headliners were against it. In the case of the Nationals it was pure racism. They are after all based in the centre of genocide known as Qld. Since the time of John Howard racism has run the Liberals.
So what? The demographic split was strongly tertiary/non-tertiary educated. If the propaganda model worked, the no and yes votes would be more diffused through those 2 social classes. The clumping of the votes clearly indicates that ‘yes’ and ‘no’ attitudes arose from life attitudes not from propaganda.
Or it might be that people with a tertiary education are just better at analysing texts and seeing through bullsh*t dreamed up by other tertiary educated people.
I mean university isn’t only a site of middle-class acculturation, you do actually learn intellectual skills there.
Pretty hilarious that someone with your username should choose to spout such elitist nonsense. Suggesting that a tertiary education is needed to participate in civic life should probably come from someone named Quentin the Media Studies Lecturer.
Of course, you don’t need a tertiary education Kfix, but you need the capacity to detect and reject bullshit. The No case was awash with it.
My father was a self educated blue collar worker and he would have been far better at spotting BS than the people who think they are well informed by conspiracy sites and dubious social media posts.
I wasn’t saying non-tertiary educated people aren’t able to participate in civic life, in fact many people not acculturated to middle-class views by university education are far more able to see clearly than the tertiary educated.
But looking as a whole, a tertiary education is more likely to result in being able to better read and understand texts. That’s what it’s for.
I know enough to understand your straw man argument.
But do you know enough not to use that most meaningless of terms “straw man”?
How come the educated classes all use the same terminology?
That’s not a sign of group think?
Because “you are accusing me of, and demanding I defend, a position I have not stated and do not hold” is a bit wordy and cumbersome.
Exactly. This quote below a perfect example of the straw man argument. It takes something that is a not unreasonable take on the ostensible purpose of tertiary education and stretches and deforms it into an extreme position which was never stated or intended.
Could describe every one of our interactions…
But who cares?
The tendency to use the exact same terminology – ‘gaslighting’ is another popular one used these days – suggests people are just using terminology and the underlying theory, and are not thinking independently.
Sorry it that’s a straw man…
Anyone trying to have a productive conversation ?
Ah, no. No, it doesn’t. At all.
What it suggests is that straw man arguments are so frequent and commonplace that there’s a colloquial term to identify them.
My reply is for some unknown reason waiting for approval so on the off chance you don’t get to read it (it really isn’t that controversial)
Words = meaningless.
Substance = what’s important.
Try and keep up.
How are you proposing “substance” be discussed without “words” ?
What does a person actually mean when they use the word. Words have different meanings to different people and in different context.
I mean do I really have to explain this to you Mr Strawman?
The word ‘left’ means different things to different people. Right now I’d say its most popular interpretation is a person who is socially liberal and fiscally conservative (that describes the Labor Party…the Coalition are fiscally reckless and socially conservative!).
The sensible course of action is to assume someone is using a word in the commonly accepted fashion until you have reason to believe they are not.
Like you do with any other human interaction that isn’t about being a nihilistic **** on the internet.
There is no commonly accepted fashion!
People see and interpret things differently.
There was a case a few years ago where the internet couldn’t decide if a dress was black and blue, or white and gold. It was in fact black and blue but some people genuinely believed it was a different colour due to something called “colour Constance” where our brains interpret colours in different ways.
I’m not nihilistic (I try and avoid group think as much as possible and challenge my biases) but I’m also not arrogant enough to think I know everything which is a constant issue with you and so many people on the Yes side.
You’re all so certain about everything even when you lose.
O.o
There are literally entire organisations dedicated to recording and publishing specific books describing the commonly accepted meanings of words.
Not nihilistic ? Your whole argument here is essentially framing any attempts at written (and by extension, spoken) communication as meaningless, because you argue there is no widespread common understanding of what words – the primary, if not only, means of communication – mean.
Lose what ? I am at best ambivalent about the Voice and have been from the get-go.
I don’t think anyone writing here is more absolutely convinced of the infallibility of what they’re saying than you. FFS, just here you’re five comments deep into a whinge about someone calling out a textbook example of a straw man, which has descended to the point you’re asserting words have no commonly understood meanings in any context – because it’s the only possible way your position makes sense.
Maybe apprentices aren’t trained properly compared to Uni students.
…or maybe, just maybe… our public education system doesn’t teach students how to critically examine an argument and doesn’t adequately teach civics BEFORE people go to university.
Where was the critical analysis of the voice by the Yes side?
Any proper critical analysis would’ve probably exposed it as being pretty meaningless.
That was Guy Rundle’s whole proposition that BtB was running with to counter his wobbly assertions
Exactly, tired of hearing shallow analysis citing educated/literate vs. uneducated/illiterate, but ignores how influential our rubbish MSM or RW monocultural ‘medium’ is between three operators, and anodyne ABC, requiring BS radar that more educated possess.
Used to be universal for anyone completing high school two generations ago, at least in Vic (think NSW) in HSC English Expression Part D, 25% of syllabus was on clear thinking, but ditched without announcement in the ’80s (vs claim skills were being embedded)?
But the tertiary/non-tertiary analysis is borne out by extensive polling
the propaganda model is the shallow analysis
You want to win next time? think harder
I’m not here to win anything? However, extensive political &/or media polling is not Social Science 101 as they do not delve deeply, and e.g. often unclear how questions are formulated in the first place, for measurement of feedback?
I’m merely suggesting that it’s best to look deeper than trust media filtering of polls, same for peer reviewed science research when they focus on one paper eg. an outlier to support climate science denial.
Other factors could be information sources, community, age, gender, voting history etc.; education level lone is simplistic, and it could suggest a theme, and be used, to claim that non educated don’t need similar social initiatives as only the elites care……
Good social research, if applied to a situation like a referendum result (several days ago…), looks at multiple factors through qualitative research to identify issues according to voters vs. guessing or forcing the issue, then formulate questions for measurement and evaluation; social science 101.
The two things go hand in hand though: susceptibility to propaganda almost certainly increases as level of education decreases.
You could just as easily argue demographics are the root of the problem. Voters lean conservative as they age i.e. become more resistant to change. We have a distinct baby boomer bubble in Oz, therefore…
Of course that’s amplified by the education level of the baby boomer population. In Australia less than 25% of those aged over 54 have tertiary qualifications; for the under 55s it’s closer to 50%.
The truth is it’s a multi-factorial problem. Reducing it to any single factor is an oversimplification intellectually, but a useful deceit politically.
I read analysis that a lot of No voters wore broad brimmed hats. Now I am not sure how much that determined their vote but it might mean something. It might just have said they lived in an area that had hot bright sunlight. It might have said you do not have to have a tertiary degree to live in a hot bright sunlit area. But it would not rule out that people with tertiary education might still have lived in a hot bright sunlit area. My guess is that people with tertiary degrees might have more job opportunities in cities where broad brimmed hats are not very common. In that situation their vote may have been augmented by other people with tertiary degrees who lived nearby. Who knows, I may not have enough information.
Tertiary educated people use abstract knowledge to interpret the world. They aruge that abstract morality is the only morality.
Non-tertiary educated people think more concretely. My people matter more than others
That’s only ‘immoral’ from an already abstract position.
People who believe that got their wossnames handed to them on saturday.
If the 30% of tertiary educated people want to win over half of the 70% who aren’t, they better find a proposal half of them can agree with. And stop sneering at them
I’d argue everybody use abstractions to interpret the world. I’d also argue that the higher your level of education the more useful your abstractions are likely to be. And by useful I mean more attuned to reality.
Theories are abstractions, but good theories reflect concrete experience better than bad theories. Morals are a kind of social theory about how people should behave; if the social theory is based on myths and lies then the morals won’t be sound.
Apart from this being a silly overgeneralisation, I can’t believe that someone who’s spent his entire adult life in the cultural underground, holding political and other views consistently outside the mainstream, who lambasts the population for being upset about Joyce and Qantas (because they’re too stupid to understand what “capitalism” is) is suddenly taking this bizarre “I understand das Volk better than the rest of the media and urban progressive class that I’m part of” line.
I think the way you were recently treated by the [snip] “team” appalling, and some of the attacks you got for supposed mysogny, etc. ridiculous, but I suspect it’s given you some sort of fundamental emotional jolt. Which I totally sympathise with. But I don’t sympathise with the intellectual laziness of suddenly opposing a lot of stuff you used to agree with and suddenly re-casting yourself as a social conservative because you’ve got the sh*ts with the intolerable smugness and self-righteousness of a certain class of people who hold a certain range of views.
They won’t stop sneering, Guy. The view’s nice from that moral high horse- especially when it’s comfortably upholstered.
Morals are subjective.
We can barely agree what day of the week it is.
Take murder. The big one. We can’t decide when murder is good or bad. Most people (see history) think it’s ok to murder people in war and we give out medals to murderers.
One person’s freedom freighter is another’s blah blah.
If we can’t agree on murder – the big one – good luck agreeing on the rest.
I do find it odd that an increasingly secular society is becoming even more obsessed with morals.
Did the Pope excommunicate any IRA murderers?
I do find it odd that an increasingly secular society is becoming even more obsessed with morals
I’d forgot that only certain belief systems have the ownership of “morals”. Bob Santamaria would have loved you.
I consider morals to be deeply personal things.
It’s why I reject religion…..
The Pope excommunicated a priest whose crime was falling in love with a woman and moving some money around.
The Pope did not excommunicate child abusers.
Like I said. Morals are tricky things.
Only persons without a moral compass find morals to be tricky things.
Why would you assume I have no moral compass?
Whenever I do those political compass thingies I usually end up near Gandhi!
But let’s pause for a moment.
How did you feel when you accused me of lacking a moral compass?
Did you get a little release of endorphins?
Did you feel more moral by calling me less morals?
It’s fine. That’s a totally normal sensation. It’s why “virtue signalling” is a stupid term and why calling it out is itself a form of virtue signalling.
But the absolute key thing we need to understand is that engaging in moral debates is a terrible idea because to convince the other person they are either immoral (which very few people will admit) or (something we’re seeing more of) they revel in their immorality.
It just doesn’t work. No matter how good it makes us feel.
Seriously. When did this turn into a discussion about YOU? And here was I thinking that we were engaged in a post-mortem about the referendum.
I disagree that morals are tricky (for most people). I disagree that morals are difficult for a secular society.
Twas you who introduced “morals” . Not me infering that voting No was somehow immoral.
I also disagree that people need to forget the past, especially when one is telling others to move on and forget the past.
???
What are you on about?
I wasn’t even talking to you when I mentioned morals. You then accused me of being immoral and when I said morals are personal you then accused me of making it about me!
Was that not just the most pointless debate you’ve ever had!
What a worthwhile education!
OK, please show me where I accuse you of being immoral?. Again it is not all about you. Sheesh.
“Only persons without a moral compass find morals to be tricky things.”
I don’t think there’s much point further engaging with you is there?
Gawd. Bit of presumption going on there (in as much as I was not passing judgement on your individual moral compass). You think people have trouble with morals and I disagree.
I don’t think there’s much point further engaging with you is there?
Why ask me? You are surely capable of making that decision for yourself.
Being “near Gandhi” is not commendable – he was a hypocrite, religious bigot and racist.
And stop sneering at them
This. Thank you, GR, as always.
Or the obvious explanation that people with more education are less susceptible to propaganda.
If it was propaganda. What about the argumnt that all australians are equal and no group should get special constitutional status? Propaganda Or just an argument you couldnt refute?
All Australians aren’t equal and never have been.
Money talks and those who want it, listen. It’s always been this way.
How about the argument that the Constitution already withheld equal status and the Voice might have equalised it?
Recognition as the First peoples gave no change to the race references already in the Constitution. An Advisory body (as described in the proposed words to be added) in the Constitution gave Indigenous Peoples No powers except not to have their voice cancelled. However their voice could still be ignored. Now that makes them no more equal than any other powerless group in the country.
I still believe that would have been something. We will never know. We continue to live the No that has always been here in Australia.
No surprise, you need economic security and substantial confidence in your own culture’s hegemony before you can do more than spare a thought for other sub-groups. Hierarchy of needs or something.
In the circumstances, what’s staggering is that nearly 40% of Australian voters wrote “yes”. That’s an intellectual elite of seven million people I think. No wonder almond milk is so expensive.
Good lord – I hadn’t thought of it that way. Compulsory same-sex marriage must be within reach.
No, many of the tertiary educated are in hospo, academcia etc, poor and on short term contracts. they would all vote yes. as would mike cannon-brooked, im betting. Economic class is no indicator of a yes vote or of moral universalism
That’s still a lot of people voting “yes” given your substantially correct analysis. I’m surprised, staggered even, at how low the “no” vote was. Well-entrenched non-Anglo communities, the tradie fraternity, RSL colonels and trade union elites with permanent jobs and paid holidays could not even manage out of three votes.
The tertiary have done well in our new technological society, the non-tertiary not so well. And so rises the politics of grievance and reactionism.
Done well. Like this?
https://twitter.com/KosSamaras/status/1714783860985401352
The other demographic split was by those who watch Sky News and those who don’t, which suggests to me that propaganda worked. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/16/people-who-watch-sky-news-more-likely-to-vote-no-survey-of-voting-behaviour-finds
Yes, see US doco ‘The Brainwashing of My Dad’ due to watching FoxNews; the apparent antidote is to have them watch centrist news e.g. in US CNN, but locally, SBS?
Two family members who voted no spouted Murdoch media arguments. Given that Murdoch media runs newspapers in all state capitals (except Perth?) and many rural newspapers as well as running Sky TV, it seems likely that many no voters got their information from this source.
However the Yes case was very poorly articulated.
yeah that’s why there’s liberal govts in every state and canberra. thats why dan andrews is in prison. oh wait…
murdoch plays to a minimal hard right audience to support his papers. its clear he cant select govts. so how can he run referenda
Yes lost it, without help
Murdoch has shown a remarkable ability to back the winners in all major elections in the UK ever since “The Sun Wot Won It” in 1992.
He took out Ed Miliband with a bacon sandwich….
YES supporters needed no opposition – the result was all their own work.
The fact that Dutton & Co. saw the referendum as an opportunity to weaken Albanese doesn’t mean that Guy is wrong. I doubt that the 60% of voters who voted no saw it that way tho. Some of them, maybe. But overall I’d say that Dutton succeeded at using whatever sentiments were simmering in the electorate in regards to the Voice for his own benefit. This also doesn’t mean that there isn’t a strong streak of racism running through the Coalition – there is.
Well yes, I voted Yes, but I don’t consider myself an “elite”. Yes, I’m tertiary educated. I grew up in a poor household in Kelmscott, WA. I went to Armadale Senior High School. There we had in our year a girl from Sister Kate’s, a school for aboriginal kids. I didn’t know it was for “stolen” kids – I had never heard the expression – I thought it was for orphans. What I did know is that the girl was shy, didn’t have any friends and was always sitting alone. She was a loner and it made me feel sad. I was young and shy myself (especially shy of girls) and I regret to this day not making her feel welcome at school. One day she wasn’t there anymore.
I studied Surveying and during my Articles I worked in the Great Victoria Desert (1970). On the way there we stopped at Warburton Mission for some supplies. I was surprised not to encounter “desert aboriginals” but many educated and terrific young men my age and older. I was sitting with a small group having a chat when one young guy a little older than me began talking of his time playing football in the VFL. I knew his name then (can’t think of it now) and he related that he couldn’t stay in Melbourne because of the loneliness and the racism he endured (and he would have still endued it today). Later in the trip we called in to the Wingellina Community and stayed there for a couple of days. We were made feel welcome and ended up playing a game of football with the locals (they played bare footed on the dirt field but coped a lot better than us in our work boots). They won. We went to a movie night with the entire population, and all-in-all had a wonderful time. I treasure those experiences. Of course, I have always reflected on their living conditions and the isolation. I came to realise that some would prefer to be in those places to feel connected with land and their people, and I guess to keep away from the racism.
In my travels for work and pleasure I have often sat and had chat with aboriginal people both young and old. As an older bloke myself, I found a couple the elders I have spoken to most interesting – we could relate to life, children and grandchildren. Unfortunately, these days I hesitate to do similar because I think they only see me as a ‘whitey.” Someone with not much to offer.
In many discussions with my racist father in those early years he branded me “pinko commie”. I would defend the “blacks” because of the treatment delt out by “White” Australians since the occupation. I had empathy due to my encounters, and still do.
My empathy led me to vote Yes and was based on my early and life-time experiences. I have read your article and was surprised by the complex arguments you present, and I need to reflect on my simplistic view of just wanting something better for Aboriginal people. I’m still disappointed by the loss of Yes because it could have been the start of something better. To me it was a simple choice.
R
Thank you Ron Babb. You’ve spoken from the heart. My education tells me I should engage my intellect, but with this referendum question my heart got in the way. In all the comments where is there mention of love or caring or respect or just a fair go? Perhaps a ‘Yes’ vote from two people out of five just says a lot about what people felt in their hearts. Not nearly enough Australians have had the first-hand experiences that Ron has.
This is without doubt the most sincere & meaningful commentary of all of the articles and replies which have been printed so far. Thank you.
I’m sure encountering indigenous people was part of that empathy. But the white ‘no’ vote was high in areas like the remote NT. So encounters of themselves dont produce empathy.
One thing that does is the trained capacity to see things from different points of view.
And you were a surveyor. That is literally the core of your training and practice
Regardless of all of that, the Referendum was doomed once there was no bipartisan support.
It should not have proceeded without it. Albo could have blamed the LNP for this. They should
have waited for whoever takes over from Dutton. Hard to believe they wouldn’t be more moderate
than him.
*This* is absolutely correct. To push on blindly regardless was mismanagement and an appalling lack of judgement on Albanese’s part. Utter failure, and at such a great cost.
I fail to see how the Yes side couldn’t have forseen that, given Turnbull & Joyce’s reactions to the Uluru statement in 2017. Did they seriously think Dutton would be more measured than them? Labor should have factored this into their commitments in opposition & prepared for a non-bipartisan campaign.
Did we not just have a non-bipartisan campaign. Has here ever been a successful constitutional change with non-bipartisanship? I think it just needs to be accepted that about 60% of voters were against indigenous having a “special right” that others would not. May not be racism. May be racism. Who knows.
The Yes vote was lost the minute Dutton & Co said No. And Dutton is racist…….past performance over Sorry confirms his small-minded view of the world.
The Yes argument was poorly articulated.
So do we now remove the “special rights” that the political lobbyists already have with access to Parliament. It does not seem fair that they have access and I do not!
Despite that mawkish “we are one” rubbish song, some are more equal than others. So yes, if I ran the world, there would not be political lobbyists.
Any number of people think that they are as good as their master, despite LOTS of evidence to the contrary. I think large numbers of the population are engaged in some sort of mass denial, where they actually believe that the rich and powerful look out for everyone’s best interests.
I expect that No voters comprised a number of sub-groups, including (and not limited to) racists and people who believed that they would lose their backyards. Not forgetting those who thought Yes did not go far enough. And then there were just the nasty ars*h*les.
It may be different in the halls of the “knowledge class” but from out here, the ONLY way Yes could get up was if there was bipartisan support.
How about the argument that the Constitution already withheld equal status and the Voice might have equalised it?
Recognition as the First peoples gave no change to the race references already in the Constitution. An Advisory body (as described in the proposed words to be added) in the Constitution gave Indigenous Peoples No powers except not to have their voice cancelled. However their voice could still be ignored. Now that makes them no more equal than any other powerless group in the country.
I still believe that would have been something. We will never know. We continue to live the No that has always been here in Australia.
Post-referendum I am hearing more about why people voted No. And I can only speak for my small locality. It all seems to boil down to fear of change. When times are tough it is safer to go with the known. So it may all just boil down to the economy. Yes would have got up with bipartisan support.
Sussan Ley.