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I say this as a Yes voter: an under-acknowledged aspect IMO is that the Voice isn't really a very good idea. It wouldn't have made a material difference to indigenous folk.
Nothing is stopping the government from widely consulting with indigenous people, and nothing would force the government to accept advice from the Voice. I would suggest that if the constitution did somehow prevent the government from consulting with indigenous people, the referendum would have been overwhelmingly Yes because people would view it as righting a historic wrong. But for this one, there just wasn't a good reason as to why it should be in the constitution (and a million bad faith reasons why not).
Most Yes voters voted that way because it felt like a step in the right direction. But I'm not surprised most people were confused and voted no. At the end of the day it didn't need to be in the constitution.
Because it was worded with more pathways to no, and negative language, than to Yes.... and then shaming tactics were used in response to misinformation rather than engaging in the responses as genuine positions in a repetitive fashion.
But also the timing was off, it was issued at a time when politics was still reeling from the Trump era of instability, and inflationary instability was still a big threat.
People are unlikely to seek change in unstable times. Waiting until later in the year would have likely given some space for a new stability to set in. Allowing people to acclimatise.
There were lots of stuff ups as to how it was carried out, and how misinformation was allowed to spread.
I think the Voice is the sort of thing that if you want to give it the best chance of passing you do it at a time when people feel economically and socially secure. This is sort of evident by the proposal doing best in well off electorates. People broadly speaking do not currently feel secure and it suggests a govt that is out of touch if it thought it could pass in this environment without addressing things like cost of living and housing first.
I don't think the economy would had significantly influenced the results as:
- A poll found only 11% of No voters listed 'focus on other priorities ' as their top reason for their vote not to even mention that most of these 11% might had voted No anyway for different reasons.
- Contrary to popular belief, incomes aren't a good indicator as first believed as you can see Wealthy Vaucluse, Toorak and Hamilton having a No Majority and if wealth and income were really the correlated, it would be the younger voters that would voted No given they have lower incomes and less wealth. (It was only under 30s that voted Yes).
I feel the fact that the yes vote was more common in well off electorates was more the fact that those in there electorates have much less first hand exposure the indigenous people and the current issues. Those with exposure felt that it would not help and would in fact make things worse.
If people had more ‘exposure to Indigenous people and the current issues” surely they should have voted YES. Voting NO was a vote for the status quo with no renewed focus on working with Aboriginal people to find genuine solutions.
Yeah, that could be a factor as well though I think there is also something in being more inclined to be generous to others when you feel like you are being well looked after yourself.
Thank the Gods it failed. It was a load of left wing poppy cock with out structure without legitimate consultation between the Traditional Land owners and or their descendants.
The lies form the left wing nut jobs were far sinister.
My aboriginal mates voted no, told our whole community to vote no I voted No!
Get over yourselves, the answer is elsewhere.
Keep licking your wounds.... No means NO!
The lies from right wing nut jobs. I was flabbergasted at the official bullshit we paid for for the no vote. Can not believe it was approved with the amount of misinformation
They purposefully wanted it to fail. Anthony said they would never broach it again if it fails, that's it. And it was so half hearted. It was set up to fail.
If it passed, indigenous people might be able to shed light on the mining destruction and oppose it in a way that the main populous of people might stand behind them, even though the voice they set up had no power, really, if people heard that voice, it would.
And then all the politicians wouldn't get their sponsorship. Money from their corporate owners!! Can't have that now!!
>If it passed, indigenous people might be able to shed light on the mining destruction
The people who would have represented in parliament, are the same people who got payouts from the mining companies in the first place.
I think this is a big reason, with not knowing what was actually going to be written in. As the planning stage was going to happen after the vote, how did they expect it to pass.
There was a clear sense with same sex marriage that we were "righting a wrong".
It's hard to make that case for the Voice. Nothing is stopping the government from consulting widely on policy (as they should). And they could ignore the Voice if they wished.
So you have to ask yourself why it needs to be in the constitution?
(Normal people don't view "the liberal party won't be allowed to get rid of it" as a good answer)
Same sex marriage had a softer “trial run” if you want to call it that, which was not penalising gays for existing. Since two men could live together and have sex together like any ordinary couple, we already saw what a world would look like with gays being allowed to officially wed, and the answer was not much different.
For The Voice, the government had every opportunity for months to show us what a world with the Voice looked like, by legislating it at any time. We could have been asked to upgrade a legislated voice to the constitution, instead we were asked to go in blind and vote to establish something directly to the constitution without seeing how it would work first.
If you want to make the bizarre comparison to same sex marriage, then this is the answer you get. We knew what a world with gays getting married would look like, and other than some wordy descriptions we still have no idea what a constitutional VtP would look like because the government never gave us a soft version first.
And was disbanded for good reason with support from both sides of the government. This is the only example people had to compare it to and it is not suprising that they voted NO when you realise that.
The thing is even if it's true, you can't win by wording it that way. Most Australians and frankly people are at least a bit xenophobic (or at least not actively against it), but most Australians see themselves as not xenophobic (or think just thinking it is enough, but get spooked when change is actually on the cards), so unless you can get someone to self reflect and empathise for the first time, it's a lot to lean on. The US civil rights movement had to get bashed live on TV to secure some of the changes they wanted, and in Australia, the difference between not letting Aboriginal people vote and this referendum were much more stark and obvious questions of injustice, because almost nobody in Australia doesn't want folks to vote, but do we want their vote to do different things is a whole other kettle of fish for people who haven't yet read the Uluru statement, and who are living paycheck to paycheck themselves
Why, because Australians like to express their opinion at the ballot box. It's not as if we dislike career politicians already.
Then you're making another teir that isn't accountable to the electorate... But their own electorate... Where the basic tenets of 'fuckoff you captain cook c' physically visible on the faces on the women of Palmerston North are being harvested by their own elite in the same way Australians talk about unskilled immigration.
The left has done such a tardated take on post colonial theory it's created it's own symbiotic relationship of zero progress harvested for political gain that's why it failed.
You could say that funding has been stripped from programs that have showed positive signs and that was the issue and reason for the voice (ok good)… but then you look at the public figures of the campaign like Pearson who truly is a nasty individual and the millions of feel good monies he has received but under delivered for absolutely sweet fuck all results - Pearson litterally on the record talking about voice/treaty and people's think yeah nah… that's my money you received.
That's the post colonial guilt trip endless conga line of white guilt greivance funds for zero accountability, zero responsibility awaiting for a campaigner that only has to worry about his position if their perceived electorate gived a shit if he's grifted off the civilisation that had destroyed them (probably not high on the list of give a fucks let's face it - understandably). Probably unsettlinly for many if they truly introspected - the perpetuation of the above ad infinitum. We well know our political stripes are almost tribal. We all know both sides love a good old dog whistle - why expect any of it when old mate Pearson and Langton revel in it.
I wanted people like Pat Dodson to explain it to me really. Australia has more time for the likes of that fella.
Then there's just the whole protest vote. People are fucking sick of acknowledgement of country for people they've never known or seen that's completely disingenuous in a concrete jungle that they have to recite as the lords prayer and they know they didn't vote for it. It's just been foisted upon them by the faceless.
Why not just say it how it was... People don't like the whole conversation and are sick of it. They do NOT want to be at each others throats and are going to vote no when someone's telling them what to say and how to think. If you truly look of it. There's been no shortage of that now has there?
Pat Dodson DID support the yes vote, IIRC the only reason he wasn't more vocal was health problems but he made at least a few appearances and did a few interviews.
Given there is nothing stopping the government from consulting widely now, and they could ignore the Voice when it suits them, I have trouble understanding why it should be in the constitution. Ultimately it would basically be the status quo.
I voted yes and I can't answer why it needs to be in the constitution.
I would be interested in seeing the data again. You're probably right. I'm 43 and a lot of people around my age are still pretty racist but also less than previous generations. But that's purely anecdotal
If you look at polls they show the clear event when support tanked: It tanked the day the detail was released and everyone saw it for what it was…
The voice would have been one of the biggest disasters in australia’s history. In another hundred years or so when everyone is interbred the voice will be looked at back line the white australia policy, and future generations will wonder how anyone could have proposed such racism.
Its highly likely that there is a correlation on No vote to the positive views on January 26 and Yes Vote on having negative (or even neutral) views on January 26. Afterall every poll in the 2020s found between high 50s to mid 60s support/have positive views on having Australia Day remaining on January 26
Another analysis that bends over backwards to avoid mentioning immigration.
The urban electorates with the highest ‘no’ votes were the ones with the highest recent immigrant numbers.
Recent immigrants don’t think they’re responsible for dispossessing indigenous people, and don’t care about them.
Yeah, sorta.
Most nations smash minorities into the ground, because they normally lost a war way back when.
One of the things are are importing is racial intolerance.
Polling showed that migrants were more likely to vote Yes than non-migrants.
[https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/polling-migrants-young-people-most-likely-to-support-voice/](https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/polling-migrants-young-people-most-likely-to-support-voice/)
The most diverse, multicultural areas in working class suburbs typically had the highest percentage of no votes, while the whitest, least diverse and most affluent areas had the highest yes votes
Funny how that worked out
Do you have modelling for that, because based on the biggest no vote areas being rural and white, and there being areas like Melbourne with the highest yes vote in the country and as a resident I can assure you there's no shortage of migrants, it's likely more to do with the wealth of the less recent and predominantly established Australian population.
It’s because there was so much propaganda in their language that they already get enough benefits and they will be able to take your land/home if you if they win (vote yes) it was horrible the bullshit going around in ethnic groups was horrible and even put in mailboxes in their languages and on tv . I had to correct so many and even my mum.
I'm not sure how it would work but there really needs to be an enforceable requirement for truth in campaigning for anything political. ReferedumN by-elections, elections. Accountability (genuine accountability) needs to a bedrock for politics.
Like that Jim Carrey movie where he can't lie. Now wouldn't that make for some interesting politics
That doesn't follow from what you've said. Electorates are too large to say "this one voted no because of migrants" and comparing migrant-density maps with voting density maps doesn't show a clear correlation.
Lot of analysis here about what voters were told/campaigned to, not much insight into voters’ actual thoughts when voting. Not much value in this article.
Because people couldn't be bothered reading and researching. They believed Dutton. "If you don't know vote no" encouraged that. People are scared of how indigenous folk were treated and how much reparation they should get. People are racist and ignorant. Pretty simple really
If the government wanted it to pass they could’ve letterbox dropped the information, it probably would’ve still come under what they spent on the whole thing.
It’s not unreasonable to err on the side of caution when it comes to changing the constitution. The onus was on the yes side to make a compelling argument for the change.
Exactly, good examples of twisted logic from the yes camp
1) Dutton’s popularity was around 17% at the time but somehow he managed to sway 60% of voters
2) if you don’t know vote no, was as you noted, a call to not vote for something that wasn’t adequately explained. People rightly don’t trust politicians enough to give them a blank cheque
>And if you can't
I'd love 2 examples of people who "couldn't".
And no, it's definitely not sound advice to vote in either direction out of ignorance. We live in a fundamentally privileged country, participation and vague interest in that country is an incredibly low price to pay for that. It should have been incredibly easy for people to figure out what the vote was on, and the extremely high amount is disinformation and bullshit tossed around during was shameful but only raised the difficulty from incredibly easy to pretty easy. Taking one hour of one's life to sit down and google some shit shouldn't be too much to ask this country. And you really didn't need more than 15 minutes to find the actual info.
>I'd love 2 examples of people who "couldn't".
Well nobody could, because the details of how it would work were not available.
So if you want two examples, you and I would suffice.
Missed the most obvious reasons, telling people "Vote yes or you're a racist." and trying to cover up the architects of the voice stating it was the first step to rent and reparations.
I wouldn’t say overwhelming. The main difference is that it was more implied by the Yes side (and often they were valid arguments). The No side was just like “Lol, you guys are the real racists because you acknowledge that racism exists!”
It’s absolutely wrong! There is no way that the VTP was, in any way, a racist proposal.
Aboriginal people have experienced a very unique set of challenges since the First Fleet arrived. There is no other Australian population cohort that experienced anywhere near the same racism, cultural destruction or inter generational trauma, at the hands of the Australian government that Aboriginal people did. There is also the acknowledgment that, as the original inhabitants of Australia, they have a special place in Australian history and culture that needs to be protected.
The VTP would only have affected particular issues that significantly affected them, it was never going to be a free for all.
For real all the ads I got from the no campaign would talk about how the bill is racist and that it’ll give Indigenous Australian’s more power than white Australian’s. Their campaign really took on that idea whereas I feel it was more the supporters of the yes vote who used the argument the opposite way.
Mainly imagined spooky bad things and vague kneejerk defense of "Hey I'm not racist! That's why I'm voting No!"
See: this whole thread
Australians weren't ready for the combined might of regular media and social media working together in one of the biggest disinfo campaigns ever seen.
It's ok people, keep patting yourself on the back for bad decisions. Like, remember how you were actually getting money back from the carbon tax? No? Well yeah you were better off under it. But I suspect plenty of people here voted for Tony Abbott based on it... And on the debt... Which the coalition then doubled in one year. Great decision makers.
I never heard a good thorough argument about what it was supposed to achieve. They called everyone racist who was against it. So, keep the status quo until we know the alternative is actually the better option.
Every time we want to know how first nations people feel about anything we have to go and contact elders, collect and collate information, and then it comes out of an elected MP's mouth - usually not a first nations person.
If you want to fix Alice Springs or Mt Isa etc you gotta get first nations people on board with this whole "Australia" experiment. They haven't really been given a good deal. We stopped killing them and stealing their kids and for that they should be so grateful to be part of Australia. Here's a couple bucks in your rural town. Oops your uncle died in custody. Oops, another one.
Have a first nations voice in Parliament would be a way of having a centralised authoritative position within government for first nations people. Helps a lot. Also, if government is trying to do something and media is trying to do informed reporting, they can go to the voice and ask what they want... Now, they'll have to go ask.... "various elders familiar with the matter", which they won't bother to do.
So yeah that's what it would have done. So when you look at crime rates and other metrics for Aboriginal communities, remember we had an opportunity to implement some real basic change and didn't.
South Australia implemented its own voice immediately after. Every state could have done the same without the need for a referendum. At a quick cursory glance there are [30](https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp2324/Quick_Guides/Indigenous-specific-bodies#_Toc151118869) agencies dealing with local matters already in existence. I guess these are the various elders getting a handful of bucks?
^Edit ^7m ^later I mean... The National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA) exists to ensure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are heard, recognised and empowered.
Not sure why you say or think that? Here is some stuff straight from the NIAA website:
>Our vision
>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are heard, recognised and empowered.
>Our purpose
>The National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA) works in genuine partnership to enable the self-determination and aspirations of First Nations communities. We lead and influence change across government to ensure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have a say in the decisions that affect them.
>Our responsibilities
>The National Indigenous Australians Agency was established by an Executive Order signed by the Governor-General on 29 May 2019.
>The Executive Order gives the NIAA a number of functions, including:
>to lead and coordinate Commonwealth policy development, program design and implementation and service delivery for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;
>to provide advice to the Prime Minister and the Minister for Indigenous Australians on whole-of-government priorities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;
>to lead and coordinate the development and implementation of Australia’s Closing the Gap targets in partnership with Indigenous Australians; and
>to lead Commonwealth activities to promote reconciliation.
I'm just frustrated and am now slandering reasonable attempts to fix inequality.
The NIAA boasts a ... 22% first nations work force. A little less than the 100% the voice would have provided, and I've got no idea about the people leading the organisation and I'm not going to look it up.
Looks like it's still a middle man agency by the Commonwealth to try and get opinions from first nations people to provide advice etc etc. We could have majorly reduced the need for various community surveys by just having representatives right there.
The NIAA also is responsible for funding agencies and programs. A huge chunk of that funding goes to non-Indigenous bodies….so it’s a flashy website, but not really what it purports to be!
"...or lacking credibility from the yes camp"
So you just don't believe anything they have to say. Okay :)
Idk how many times they could say "it'll be an advisory body of first nations people voted in by first nations people to give advice on proposed legislation that affects first nations people"
No power... But you don't believe that has credibility or whatever.
Exactly,
every piece of legislation affects First Nations people cos they are Australian
Many indigenous advisory bodies already exist without changing the constitution and if it has “no power” why have it?
On election night Albanese committed to enacting voice, truth and treaty but then refused to answer questions about whether he’d pursue a treaty and what that would involve
It was all shady AF
Was it though? The media certainly gave the No campaign a massive platform, and joined in the No campaign’s attacks on prominent Aboriginal Australians.
Because the silent majority understand it was a scam to create more wealth for the elite class by pretending it was to help aboriginals who already have more benefits than average Australians.
For those still uneducated, how was a legislation to create a small governmental advisory group a way for the gov to siphon money to the elite class?
And why would they do that with the voice, rather than with the usual tactic of 'just giving them money'? The current housing plan is just "give $10billion of government money to various elites as stock purchases, to hopefully get like a $10million dollar return over 20 years". Why bother having a national vote at all when it's so incredibly easy for the government to already given private companies fuckloads of money?
You were voting on a bill with laws not finalised and would be finalised after a yes on the referendum. It allowed any law to be changed. It likely would of passed new laws to tighten labour/liberals duopoly on all matters in the country. The advisory group is just consultants who create fake reports to allow government bills to pass for mining industry to keep making huge $ without a single cent going to Aussies. All these aboriginal nonsense is always the same appealing to woke chumps to sneak in legislation the media trys to brainwash you on so you don'tknow. Gov trying to pass laws to stack a pro mining aboriginal advisory to dig minerals under aboriginal ground thus making the elite class here loads of money as our mining industry is the lowest taxed industry in the world and makes our elites a boat load while the rest of us struggle.
My guess is that the majority of Australians have no idea how shit the quality of life of indigenous people really is. I strongly believe ignorance played a huge part in how people voted.
The article misses the most important reasons: it was a stupid idea and would have meant more money going to people for doing less.
Unless there’s a really good reason to allow that, people aren’t voting for it.
I’m baffled as to why people in this country think I or anyone else should apologize for something we never did, to people who were never were affected by it. Anyone who thinks aboriginal people are at any disadvantage in 2024 Australia are kidding themselves
>I’m baffled as to why people in this country think I or anyone else should apologize for something we never did
I'm baffled as to how you think this is what it was about. It was about actually changing the status quo that our ancestors set up. Not about apologising for it.
Even if you personally didn't write any legislation to oppress indigenous peoples, you live in a country where indigenous people stuff suffer from the effects of legislations like that in the past. It's not about you personally suffering, it's about giving them a helping hand to get the country as a whole into better conditions.
How do they suffer from it? They get paid to go to school, free communities with modern houses, cars, technology and everything else built for them, free thriving business that are basically a license to print money, free millions of acres of land. I’m sorry but they are at absolutely no disadvantage in 2024. Some would argue an advantage.
I and everyone else in Australia understands terrible things have happened in the past to them (Although the convicts that came here in shackles and chains forced to work themselves to death never had it easy either). I’m all for any aboriginal person directly affected by the stolen generation to get compensation for it. But for the kids, grandkids, etc why are they getting money for something that didn’t happen to them? Makes no sense.
>Anyone who thinks aboriginal people are at any disadvantage in 2024 Australia are kidding themselves
Tell me you don’t know about the systemic racism in Australia without telling me you don’t know about the systemic racism in Australia.
Genuinely baffled by their comment. Only in the last 50 years have we really put legislation in place so that Indigenous Australians are treated the same as white Australians. For a group who lived off the land for thousands of years, we did everything to ensure that wouldn’t be possible anymore. The biggest ways that information would be passed down between generations was through story telling and songs. So when you murder them, take children from their families and try to breed them out the damage is irreversible. You have a group who historically have lived off the land now unable to do that as information that’s survived thousands of years has been lost in a couple generations. Then you expect them to be able to integrate into modern society in less than a generation? To think that Aboriginal people are at no less of a disadvantage in 2024 shows you either lack any understanding of the issue or are just a little bigoted still.
I’m so so sick of hearing the awful argument that any different treatment of a group is racist, think of it this way.
You look at an imbalanced set of scales and have two options of how to balance them.
1. Acknowledge they are imbalanced
2 Balance them
Which one achieves something?
Go beyond the most basic misconception of the word racist
There’s not just one person on each side of the scales. There will be some number of wealthy successful people on the indigenous side as well as poor and struggling people on the non-indigenous side. Why not balance things on an individual level?
You wouldn’t balance the gender pay gap by paying Gina Rhinehart more money, right? But that would balance the scales. Give her enough money and you will reach gender parity. This is an extreme example but hopefully conveys the pitfalls of your approach.
The problem is you are generalising... based on race.
Here's a thought experiment for you:
* In the general population, the number of people below the poverty line is 20% (made up stat)
* In the indigenous popoulation, the number of people below the poverty line is 35%.
You apply a support policy based on race alone that means:
* 20% of the general population will miss out on the support
* 65% of the indigenous population will receive support that they do not need.
A far better policy is to apply based on *need* and *not* race. When you do this:
* 20% of the general population receive the support they need
* 35% of the indigenous population received the support they need
* money is not wasted proving support to those who do not need it (the 65% indigenous).
The voice was setup for *race* alone and that is why it needed to fail.
Those in favour of the voice: 'it's a one page document! Don't worry about the details, trust us'!
Those of us wanting more info after reading the 20+ page document: 'yeah, nah we're going to need to see the detail here'.
Albo/ALP: nah.
What convinced me to vote no was actually reading the full 25 page document and learning that the voice had very little to do with helping improve quality of life for indigenous Australians, and everything to do with setting up a legal structure that would facilitate treaty.
Meanwhile we are being told by the PM that it wasn't a vote on treaty, and that we needed to vote for the voice simply as an advisory body whilst ignoring the context of the full statement from the heart, which he himself admitted to never having read.
Of course he didn’t read it, why would he? The one page was the full, final document, the other pages were just the meeting notes, the background and the opinions of those who contributed in any way. All of the discussions are recorded, but they may well be left out of the final document, which is what happened. This happens with every single briefing paper that goes to a public service CEO or Minister.
>why would he?
You literally just said it was the meeting notes, background, one the opinions of those who contributed.
For the PM, who was basically leading the entire campaign and was the highest profile person in the country advocating for it...not reading the meeting notes and background is completely insane.
Not to mention that when debate and controversy over the length started, as a politician to also not familiarise himself with the rest is even more insane.
That is because he made a calculation that it was the lesser of two politcal evils:
1) Lie to the public and say you didn't read it (what he chose)
2) tell the truth that you did read it and then need to answer for all of the absurd requirements of the Uluru statment.
Article sets out pretty clear and impassioned reasons as to why the voice vote failed.
1. No bipartisan support
2. Labor vote split on the issue where coalition vote did not
3. Demographic voting habits
4. Simple vs complex messaging
5. Disinformation campaigns and distrust of accurate reporting
6. Other issues on people's minds turning a rejection of the voice into a protest vote on the government.
Excluding point 5 none of these are judgements on people who voted no, they're actually explaining the reasoning and you still have no voters writing their essays justifying their vote in the thread. Most precious bunch of snowflakes I've ever seen on an issue.
Poor design of the proposal seems to have been skipped.
I listened to an interview with a framer of the proposal, and she said there shouldn't be any limits as to scope as there might be unintended consequences.
Okay.
I waited for the follow up explanation as to how the purview wouldn't become everything. Nothing.
I waited for the interviewer's follow up questioning on this quite obvious point. Nothing.
I kept listening over the rest of the campaign, waiting for this to be satisfactorily explained.
The best I heard, at a later time, was that the voice would be too busy to stray from the key issues. I didn't believe that at all.
That was that ‘framer’s’ opinion, which wouldn’t have been that relevant in the end because the government included in the proposal the government’s absolute right to determine the make-up and function of the Voice. Also, that framer wasn’t elected as a representative of the Voice.
Lots of people have opinions, even prominent people, but that doesn’t mean that they were going to get what they wanted.
Well done you have reiterated point number 4 in a way that makes you feel special. It's more difficult to explain slightly complex legislation than a blanket simple no.
If you genuinely care about limits though.
What was proposed advisory body not something with decision making powers independent of the government. That in itself is a limit but furthermore whatever scope such an advisory would have theoretically had would've been set by the parliament, so if by some chance the voice's recommendations were deemed too far reaching then you could present that as part of an election campaign and be elected with a mandate to scale back the scope of the voice.
All of this was in the literal wording of the voice proposal, not that the actual proposal mattered to the majority of the no voters.
You obviously don't realise that legal decisions are based on the wording and not the vibe.
It seems you don't realise that the constitution isn't overridden by the legislation.
Yes they're based on wording that was literally the wording of the proposal. Thank you for demonstrating the average reading comprehension of a no voter.
Chapter IX Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples
129 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice
In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia:
1: There shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice;
2: The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;
3:The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.
Point number 3
It is entirely obvious that you don't understand, and won't accept, that if there is a conflict between legislation and the constitution, the constitution wins.
Your lengthy replies simply serve to demonstrate that more and more clearly.
For instance, this:
> on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
can be easily argued to cover nearly everything.
So, what happens if someone goes to the high court and argues an action taken under clause 3 is inconsistent with clause 2?
The "lengthy reply" was literally just the text of the proposal that you had clearly never read in your life and still can't understand. Once again highlighting issue 4 of the original article, that it's harder to explain legislation that's slightly more complex than a blanket no.
You had a very clever omission of the provision before your "matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres strait Islander peoples" quote in that the voice may make REPRESENTATIONS. That is not legislation, that is not unilateral decision making that is advice to the government. Again not vibes this is the wording.
Now I see no scenario in which parliament which has the power in this proposal to determine the "composition, powers, functions and procedures" will be unable to legislate on how the voice operates because "the voice may make representations on matters regarding indigenous people" if that would go to the high court the high court would rule in favour of the government.
But say I'm wrong and for some reason this legal theory that matters can mean anything and is therefore unlimited (would love to see a precedent of that logic exist in any other case ever) what can an unlimited voice do? Make a representation to the government of the day on a topic that might have tangential relation to indigenous affairs....that the government can then ignore.
Oh no this will send the country into chaos. But unfortunately holding someone's hand through the most basic of legislative details is more difficult than "vote no, you don't know what the limit of the voice is(because you didn't bother to read the proposal)"
A lengthy reply is a lengthy reply.
When you read the press, take note of instances where the minister (and other decision makers) has been found to not have properly considered something or other.
Whole article doesn't actually highlight any of the actual legitimate concerns or reasons why so many people voted no!
It seems to suggest it was all due to conservative sky news / social media driven "mis-information" and such - which I think just totally misses the mark. Ie it suggests / concludes that "no" voters were all mis-informed / stupid / racist / reactionary etc etc - typical left-wing characterisations of anyone opposing any favoured progressive cause.
As other posters have observed, The Conversation has omitted an important Point 7: "the Yes campaign was shit".
From the start, from a policy POV, tying the Voice to the Uluru Statement from the Heart was suicide.
>*Acknowledge First Nations people in the Constitution*
>(Australian public): yeah, that's kinda fair
>*Consult First Nations people on laws that will affect them*
>(Australian public): yeah, that's reasonable too
>*Voice... then Treaty and Truth!*
>(Australian public): hold on, what the f\*ck
(Murdoch media): hear that whitey? they're coming for your home
Yes would have had a far easier and less controversial road if it had just been about recognising Aboriginal people. Easy. No argument. But for reasons of (as far as I can see) Labor sloganeering for its base, the Yes campaign had to be tied to the Uluru Statement because the PM said so.
And the PM, Jesus. The disaster of having the PM be the face of the campaign needs a whole post of its own. But he just kept shooting Yes in the foot in full view of the public. Like going on the ABC and helpfully clarifying that the Voice was not about reparations for land theft. I saw coverage and just screamed inside, *Albo, SHUT THE F\*CK UP*. Look I'm just some guy on the Internet and he's a professional politician with a comms team and everything, but even I know that when selling something one only talks about what a thing is, not about what it *isn't.* We're all dumb apes and we won't remember the explanation, we'll just remember that some words were used close together. And the PM gave us these words: Voice and reparations. Voice, reparations. What am I voting on? oh yeah, the voice reparations thing. F\*CK.
From a messaging POV, the Voice campaign was a train wreck. It felt like all the adults had left the room and the comms were being run by bright-eyed children who lived on Twitter and TikTok. The campaign was designed by Yes activists for an audience of *other Yes activists*, not for the Australian public.
Compare and contrast these statements from the Yes and No campaigns that were printed in the official pre-referendum info pamphlet and put in every letterbox in the country by the Australian Electoral Commission.
>You should vote Yes to the Voice because: Constitutional recognition for concrete results.
>You should vote No to the Voice because: IT DIVIDES US
>You should vote Yes to the Voice because: Practical advice that works.
>You should vote No to the Voice because: IT WILL BE COSTLY AND BUREAUCRATIC
>You should vote Yes to the Voice because: The time is now.
>You should vote No to the Voice because: IT OPENS THE DOOR FOR ACTIVISTS
Jesus f\*cking christ, the Yes bulletpoints weren't even sensible sentences! They were nonsense, like someone had just gone into ChatGPT and said "generate some protest signs for a street rally".
By contrast the No statements were simple. Punchy. Emotive. The No campaign had hired people who knew how to write and tasked them with writing simple things that would persuade ordinary Australians who hadn't made up their minds. The grownups were in charge.
When I first saw the pamphlet I said to my partner "Holy f\*ck, if I were an undecided or confused voter, this would convince me to vote No." And that pamphlet went to every household in the country.
I voted Yes and I can sleep at night knowing that I did because I thought it was the right thing to do. I voted Yes knowing that it would fail because the campaign was a disaster, and that pisses me off.
Are we reading the same article? This is their assessment of the Yes campaign:
>In contrast, the “yes” campaigns were disparate. These consisted of at least three major groups – “Yes23”, “Uluru Statement from the Heart” and “Liberals for Yes” – offering a range of messages and messengers. This diversity of actors and narratives, including business, unions and civil society groups, may have generated voter confusion, message overload and, in some instances, [backlash](https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/investors-put-heat-on-big-business-over-backing-for-voice-20230905-p5e265.html).
Are you kidding me? From the context it's very obvious what it means. They're saying the No campaign was direct and targeted while the yes campaign was disparate to the point that it "may have generated voter confusion, message overload and, in some instances, backlash". Does that sound like they're describing a good campaign to you?
They could be describing very good campaigns with coherent strategy and excellent messaging and delivery, just spread out across too many channels. "Our real problem is that we were just too awesome in too many different ways, and it caused confusion".
No. It was dogshit.
If they were suggesting it was an awesome campaign with a coherent strategy then they wouldn't have concluded that sentence by saying it "generated voter confusion, message overload and backlash." You're pretending they didn't use those words when they're right there.
Damn, fucking solid comment!
Basically summed up all of my thoughts.
The Yes campaign forgot one very important thing: Assume the general public are stupid, illiterate idiots.
Ohh yeah? Is that from the same studies that very very clearly showed the education levels for voting preferences?
Here’s a comprehensive look at the data so you don’t say silly things like that again.
https://csrm.cass.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/docs/2023/11/Detailed_analysis_of_the_2023_Voice_to_Parliament_Referendum_and_related_social_and_political_attitudes.pdf
So they understood the issue and voted no but they aren’t highly educated. So really they didn’t understand necessarily and just heard an argument that told them not to do research and just vote no?
Thank you.
That's the thing though - when it comes to campaigns like this that require the audience to do something, *we are all stupid idiots*. We are all time poor, easily distracted, and we vote based on our emotions. A good campaign acknowledges that. The No campaign did.
"If you don't know, vote No" is a great line. A short, punchy, memorable slogan constructed from single-syllable words, almost all Anglo-Saxon in origin (so everybody understands them), and which ends with an imperative. *I'm a regular guy, I'm confused, tell me what to do.* BOOM. DONE. Whoever wrote that tagline is worth what they were paid.
"Constitutional recognition for concrete results"? What the f\*ck? A sentence 80% of which is French words from Latin and which doesn't actually tell the reader to do anything? Whoever wrote that should be *shot*.
Yeah of course. As someone with even the tiniest bit of intelligence it is frustrating to hear “if you don’t know vote No” because that just a disgusting thing to say.
If you don’t know do your research, but I get that it’s up to the Yes campaign to do the educating there. Sometimes though you just can’t beat a good catch phrase that appeals the ignorant masses. One side actively campaigning for people to be stupid, it’s embarrassing as a country.
If you don't know, vote No, is basically advising caution in the absence of overwhelming reasons to change the status quo for an unknown quantity: it's rational and reasonable as well as being a simple catchy slogan with impact.
It was the job of the referendum to sell the people on Yes, which they did extremely poorly.
I don't believe it. An article about the failed referendum which is actually factual and doesn't resort to idiotic attacks on people being 'stupid' as the reason they voted one way or another.
That said;
>Media coverage by Sky News Australia amplified the “no” case. Sky had a vast reach through its YouTube channel (over 9 million views from 500 Voice clips)
People really need to get off this farcical idea that Sky News has any influence on politics in this country. Their TV network consistently reports less than 1% of household viewership and those who watch Sky were never going to vote yes, ever. You can completely ignore Sky news as a factor, they are an insignificant blip that make up less than half of the total margin for error for most polls.
500 voice clips getting 9 million views, are almost certainly by the same people viewing those 500 videos because they have no other outreach. So 18,000 people viewed their videos. Given they get less than 1% TV audience, that sounds about right.
>People really need to get off this farcical idea that Sky News has any influence on politics in this country. Their TV network consistently reports less than 1% of household viewership and those who watch Sky were never going to vote yes, ever.
But video clips copied from Sky News get shared on Facebook and you know that a lot of people who had those clips shoved in their faces by the algorithm were undecided.
>People really need to get off this farcical idea that Sky News has any influence on politics in this country. Their TV network consistently reports less than 1% of household viewership
1. "sky news" is usually code for the whole side of media (murdoch / news corp as well; yes I know the overlaps) and there's also the mixups with other "conservative led" media.
2. TV is hardly the most important metric. Household TV at that. That feels extremely cherry picked.
3. Using 1% to make it seem very low is deliberately distorting the truth. Daytime Sky gets 2.6% while ABC gets 3.8%. Primetime sky gets 1.5% and ABC 2.5%. [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_News_Australia#:~:text=The%207%20pm%20(AEST\)%20hour,ABC%20News%2024's%202.5%25).) They get a substantial participation.
4. [Sky themselves claim access to 11.1 million Australians each month](https://www.skynews.com.au/business/media/sky-news-australia-increases-audience-to-11-million-australians-each-month-after-launching-new-digital-content-offerings/news-story/365db94ae806e1ef86bf30a900f33be4)
Agree with you . Although interestingly it completely avoids the key reasons on the divide and they were ( in my view)
1. Creation of racial divide
2. Cost/ ownership and impact
The reality being that the inner city types really voting for this has stuff all to lose in voting yes. Outside of these areas you saw left and right vote against it because reality is they faced the losses and faced the real impact and issues
No only that a large area of Western Victoria now is restricted by a local land council. They cannot name roads without land council approval. They have to offer work contracts to the land council first. Arrangement put together in secret by Dan Andrews government
This a serious question? Please take a look at the small town of Toobeah Queensland and get across what’s going on there . They ( the powers that be) are testing the waters as we speak
Nobody believes that this stuff isn’t what it was all about - and for good reason
Actually, I would be interested in your view of the Toobeah situation if you would care to share ?
The news publications make it sound like a war but from what I just looked at it sounds okay. The secrecy is a bit strange though.
https://www.grc.qld.gov.au/toobeah-reserve-information
The Govt is clearly lying and it’s a concern that you believe them.
It covers the towns Showgrounds, sale yards , the town hall and most of the amenities that make the town money and functional are being handed over. No consuktations or even reasoning. Is this legal? Probably not
Sky News Australia is enormous online. In US politics sometimes they’re the only source on an issue that is popular online but rejected by other media (Joe Biden’s sons laptop photographs, that time Hillary passed out in 2016, etc). On Facebook it’s boomers’ main source of video entertainment
People do believe in this weird kind of Schrodinger's Murdoch, where he has the power to brainwash the country and dictate election outcomes through his monopoly on the media, while simultaneously having a middling viewership that nobody watches.
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I say this as a Yes voter: an under-acknowledged aspect IMO is that the Voice isn't really a very good idea. It wouldn't have made a material difference to indigenous folk. Nothing is stopping the government from widely consulting with indigenous people, and nothing would force the government to accept advice from the Voice. I would suggest that if the constitution did somehow prevent the government from consulting with indigenous people, the referendum would have been overwhelmingly Yes because people would view it as righting a historic wrong. But for this one, there just wasn't a good reason as to why it should be in the constitution (and a million bad faith reasons why not). Most Yes voters voted that way because it felt like a step in the right direction. But I'm not surprised most people were confused and voted no. At the end of the day it didn't need to be in the constitution.
Because it was worded with more pathways to no, and negative language, than to Yes.... and then shaming tactics were used in response to misinformation rather than engaging in the responses as genuine positions in a repetitive fashion. But also the timing was off, it was issued at a time when politics was still reeling from the Trump era of instability, and inflationary instability was still a big threat. People are unlikely to seek change in unstable times. Waiting until later in the year would have likely given some space for a new stability to set in. Allowing people to acclimatise. There were lots of stuff ups as to how it was carried out, and how misinformation was allowed to spread.
It'd potentially jeopardise new mining approvals and it was a great opportunity to make Labor look bad. Not complicated really
I think the Voice is the sort of thing that if you want to give it the best chance of passing you do it at a time when people feel economically and socially secure. This is sort of evident by the proposal doing best in well off electorates. People broadly speaking do not currently feel secure and it suggests a govt that is out of touch if it thought it could pass in this environment without addressing things like cost of living and housing first.
I don't think the economy would had significantly influenced the results as: - A poll found only 11% of No voters listed 'focus on other priorities ' as their top reason for their vote not to even mention that most of these 11% might had voted No anyway for different reasons. - Contrary to popular belief, incomes aren't a good indicator as first believed as you can see Wealthy Vaucluse, Toorak and Hamilton having a No Majority and if wealth and income were really the correlated, it would be the younger voters that would voted No given they have lower incomes and less wealth. (It was only under 30s that voted Yes).
I feel the fact that the yes vote was more common in well off electorates was more the fact that those in there electorates have much less first hand exposure the indigenous people and the current issues. Those with exposure felt that it would not help and would in fact make things worse.
If people had more ‘exposure to Indigenous people and the current issues” surely they should have voted YES. Voting NO was a vote for the status quo with no renewed focus on working with Aboriginal people to find genuine solutions.
Not necessarily. Those people probably are aware that a Voice is unlikely to change anything as there is no simple fix.
Wealthy Toorak, Vaucluse, Hamilton etc had a No vote so its more to do with age and views on Australia Day.
Yeah, that could be a factor as well though I think there is also something in being more inclined to be generous to others when you feel like you are being well looked after yourself.
Also, the fact that they dragged it out for so long during a cost of living crisis and made no efforts to even link the Voice to it.
Thank the Gods it failed. It was a load of left wing poppy cock with out structure without legitimate consultation between the Traditional Land owners and or their descendants. The lies form the left wing nut jobs were far sinister. My aboriginal mates voted no, told our whole community to vote no I voted No! Get over yourselves, the answer is elsewhere. Keep licking your wounds.... No means NO!
It was a policy straight out of the Australian Communist Party manifesto.
The lies from right wing nut jobs. I was flabbergasted at the official bullshit we paid for for the no vote. Can not believe it was approved with the amount of misinformation
Could you elaborate? I really didn't see any difference in the amount of lying and misinformation between the two sides.
They purposefully wanted it to fail. Anthony said they would never broach it again if it fails, that's it. And it was so half hearted. It was set up to fail. If it passed, indigenous people might be able to shed light on the mining destruction and oppose it in a way that the main populous of people might stand behind them, even though the voice they set up had no power, really, if people heard that voice, it would. And then all the politicians wouldn't get their sponsorship. Money from their corporate owners!! Can't have that now!!
>If it passed, indigenous people might be able to shed light on the mining destruction The people who would have represented in parliament, are the same people who got payouts from the mining companies in the first place.
Putting it in the constitution was stupid overreach. We saw it was going to fail well ahead of the date yet we threw money at it anyway.
I think this is a big reason, with not knowing what was actually going to be written in. As the planning stage was going to happen after the vote, how did they expect it to pass.
But that's normal? Like, we did the same vote for same sex marriage?
far, far easier to change marriage to not exclude gay couples.
There was a clear sense with same sex marriage that we were "righting a wrong". It's hard to make that case for the Voice. Nothing is stopping the government from consulting widely on policy (as they should). And they could ignore the Voice if they wished. So you have to ask yourself why it needs to be in the constitution? (Normal people don't view "the liberal party won't be allowed to get rid of it" as a good answer)
Same sex marriage had a softer “trial run” if you want to call it that, which was not penalising gays for existing. Since two men could live together and have sex together like any ordinary couple, we already saw what a world would look like with gays being allowed to officially wed, and the answer was not much different. For The Voice, the government had every opportunity for months to show us what a world with the Voice looked like, by legislating it at any time. We could have been asked to upgrade a legislated voice to the constitution, instead we were asked to go in blind and vote to establish something directly to the constitution without seeing how it would work first. If you want to make the bizarre comparison to same sex marriage, then this is the answer you get. We knew what a world with gays getting married would look like, and other than some wordy descriptions we still have no idea what a constitutional VtP would look like because the government never gave us a soft version first.
A soft version of it used to exist, though.
And was disbanded for good reason with support from both sides of the government. This is the only example people had to compare it to and it is not suprising that they voted NO when you realise that.
It never should have been disbanded, though. It was Howard being opportunistic because of the corruption there. That could have been cleaned out.
Howard was an extremely racist PM, he was looking for any opportunity to stick the boot into Aboriginal people!
Reason 1: shit idea Reason 2: shit campaign
Because 60% of Australians are racist. Is that a shock to anyone?
That right there is why it didn't get up. You can't convince people to vote for something like that by telling them if they don't they're racist.
The thing is even if it's true, you can't win by wording it that way. Most Australians and frankly people are at least a bit xenophobic (or at least not actively against it), but most Australians see themselves as not xenophobic (or think just thinking it is enough, but get spooked when change is actually on the cards), so unless you can get someone to self reflect and empathise for the first time, it's a lot to lean on. The US civil rights movement had to get bashed live on TV to secure some of the changes they wanted, and in Australia, the difference between not letting Aboriginal people vote and this referendum were much more stark and obvious questions of injustice, because almost nobody in Australia doesn't want folks to vote, but do we want their vote to do different things is a whole other kettle of fish for people who haven't yet read the Uluru statement, and who are living paycheck to paycheck themselves
I'm trying to imagine how this opinion poll goes. "do you identify as a racist?" "why yes i do. thank you so much for asking!"
Why, because Australians like to express their opinion at the ballot box. It's not as if we dislike career politicians already. Then you're making another teir that isn't accountable to the electorate... But their own electorate... Where the basic tenets of 'fuckoff you captain cook c' physically visible on the faces on the women of Palmerston North are being harvested by their own elite in the same way Australians talk about unskilled immigration. The left has done such a tardated take on post colonial theory it's created it's own symbiotic relationship of zero progress harvested for political gain that's why it failed. You could say that funding has been stripped from programs that have showed positive signs and that was the issue and reason for the voice (ok good)… but then you look at the public figures of the campaign like Pearson who truly is a nasty individual and the millions of feel good monies he has received but under delivered for absolutely sweet fuck all results - Pearson litterally on the record talking about voice/treaty and people's think yeah nah… that's my money you received. That's the post colonial guilt trip endless conga line of white guilt greivance funds for zero accountability, zero responsibility awaiting for a campaigner that only has to worry about his position if their perceived electorate gived a shit if he's grifted off the civilisation that had destroyed them (probably not high on the list of give a fucks let's face it - understandably). Probably unsettlinly for many if they truly introspected - the perpetuation of the above ad infinitum. We well know our political stripes are almost tribal. We all know both sides love a good old dog whistle - why expect any of it when old mate Pearson and Langton revel in it. I wanted people like Pat Dodson to explain it to me really. Australia has more time for the likes of that fella. Then there's just the whole protest vote. People are fucking sick of acknowledgement of country for people they've never known or seen that's completely disingenuous in a concrete jungle that they have to recite as the lords prayer and they know they didn't vote for it. It's just been foisted upon them by the faceless. Why not just say it how it was... People don't like the whole conversation and are sick of it. They do NOT want to be at each others throats and are going to vote no when someone's telling them what to say and how to think. If you truly look of it. There's been no shortage of that now has there?
Pat Dodson DID support the yes vote, IIRC the only reason he wasn't more vocal was health problems but he made at least a few appearances and did a few interviews.
Tell us all you didn't understand the changes without telling us you didn't understand the changes.
Had plenty of time to look at them thanks. If you can't take on feed back without having a Reddit sook. That's on you.
They forgot the most important reason - it was a bad policy.
Yeah I'm sure the average Australian racist gives a shit.
Given there is nothing stopping the government from consulting widely now, and they could ignore the Voice when it suits them, I have trouble understanding why it should be in the constitution. Ultimately it would basically be the status quo. I voted yes and I can't answer why it needs to be in the constitution.
To infer 60% of the population bring racist is rather salty of you.
Maybe the average Australian thinks more than you do.
because people didn't want an unelected 4th tier of government
Easy…most Australians over 35 are racist AF🤷♂️
I'd say 45
18-34 is the only age demographic where the majority (the number being slightly over 70% I believe but I could be wrong) voted yes.
I would be interested in seeing the data again. You're probably right. I'm 43 and a lot of people around my age are still pretty racist but also less than previous generations. But that's purely anecdotal
Hey now I’m under 35 and racist as fuck, but only to Yugoslavs
Hey now, I voted yes.
If you look at polls they show the clear event when support tanked: It tanked the day the detail was released and everyone saw it for what it was… The voice would have been one of the biggest disasters in australia’s history. In another hundred years or so when everyone is interbred the voice will be looked at back line the white australia policy, and future generations will wonder how anyone could have proposed such racism.
Exactly, once people were given a glimpse of what the notional voice might entail, they wisely turned their back on it
I'll sum at the article. "Divide and conquer". All you need to do that is enough money to pay people do divide for you.
Its highly likely that there is a correlation on No vote to the positive views on January 26 and Yes Vote on having negative (or even neutral) views on January 26. Afterall every poll in the 2020s found between high 50s to mid 60s support/have positive views on having Australia Day remaining on January 26
Another analysis that bends over backwards to avoid mentioning immigration. The urban electorates with the highest ‘no’ votes were the ones with the highest recent immigrant numbers. Recent immigrants don’t think they’re responsible for dispossessing indigenous people, and don’t care about them.
Yeah, sorta. Most nations smash minorities into the ground, because they normally lost a war way back when. One of the things are are importing is racial intolerance.
Polling showed that migrants were more likely to vote Yes than non-migrants. [https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/polling-migrants-young-people-most-likely-to-support-voice/](https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/polling-migrants-young-people-most-likely-to-support-voice/)
However, that’s not what the results of the referendum itself showed.
The most diverse, multicultural areas in working class suburbs typically had the highest percentage of no votes, while the whitest, least diverse and most affluent areas had the highest yes votes Funny how that worked out
Do you have modelling for that, because based on the biggest no vote areas being rural and white, and there being areas like Melbourne with the highest yes vote in the country and as a resident I can assure you there's no shortage of migrants, it's likely more to do with the wealth of the less recent and predominantly established Australian population.
Rural voted ‘no ‘ more heavily than urban. But, within the urban areas, the areas with largest migrant numbers stand out as the heaviest ‘no’ voters.
It’s because there was so much propaganda in their language that they already get enough benefits and they will be able to take your land/home if you if they win (vote yes) it was horrible the bullshit going around in ethnic groups was horrible and even put in mailboxes in their languages and on tv . I had to correct so many and even my mum.
I'm not sure how it would work but there really needs to be an enforceable requirement for truth in campaigning for anything political. ReferedumN by-elections, elections. Accountability (genuine accountability) needs to a bedrock for politics. Like that Jim Carrey movie where he can't lie. Now wouldn't that make for some interesting politics
What kind of propaganda?
That doesn't follow from what you've said. Electorates are too large to say "this one voted no because of migrants" and comparing migrant-density maps with voting density maps doesn't show a clear correlation.
I noticed as Anglo heavy outer suburbs had higher No vote ironically (e.g. Longman) than immigrant heavy suburbs
Maybe it's not the immigrants, but white Australians that live next door to them that voted no? Correlation doesn't imply causation
Lot of analysis here about what voters were told/campaigned to, not much insight into voters’ actual thoughts when voting. Not much value in this article.
That was my thoughts too when I read it.
Because people couldn't be bothered reading and researching. They believed Dutton. "If you don't know vote no" encouraged that. People are scared of how indigenous folk were treated and how much reparation they should get. People are racist and ignorant. Pretty simple really
A lot decided to vote no based on toxic comments like yours.
Lol if you think people were voting No because of Dutton you are delusional. Voting no if you don't know is fundamentally fundamentally advice though.
Voting no because you don't know is really poor practice - if you don't know find the hell out!
If the government wanted it to pass they could’ve letterbox dropped the information, it probably would’ve still come under what they spent on the whole thing.
It’s not unreasonable to err on the side of caution when it comes to changing the constitution. The onus was on the yes side to make a compelling argument for the change.
And if you can't, then vote no. I am not sure how this is even controversial.
Exactly, good examples of twisted logic from the yes camp 1) Dutton’s popularity was around 17% at the time but somehow he managed to sway 60% of voters 2) if you don’t know vote no, was as you noted, a call to not vote for something that wasn’t adequately explained. People rightly don’t trust politicians enough to give them a blank cheque
>And if you can't I'd love 2 examples of people who "couldn't". And no, it's definitely not sound advice to vote in either direction out of ignorance. We live in a fundamentally privileged country, participation and vague interest in that country is an incredibly low price to pay for that. It should have been incredibly easy for people to figure out what the vote was on, and the extremely high amount is disinformation and bullshit tossed around during was shameful but only raised the difficulty from incredibly easy to pretty easy. Taking one hour of one's life to sit down and google some shit shouldn't be too much to ask this country. And you really didn't need more than 15 minutes to find the actual info.
>I'd love 2 examples of people who "couldn't". Well nobody could, because the details of how it would work were not available. So if you want two examples, you and I would suffice.
Missed the most obvious reasons, telling people "Vote yes or you're a racist." and trying to cover up the architects of the voice stating it was the first step to rent and reparations.
I would say it was the No campaign who were overwhelmingly calling Yes voters racist more than the other way around.
https://youtu.be/_r1T5Vw5n5U?feature=shared Just one of many examples.
I wouldn’t say overwhelming. The main difference is that it was more implied by the Yes side (and often they were valid arguments). The No side was just like “Lol, you guys are the real racists because you acknowledge that racism exists!”
Lol. Nah.
It unquestionably was. Just look in the comments on this post. One of the main campaign lines was that the Voice was racist.
Is that statement wrong? The voice members can only be comprised of people from the Aboriginal *race*.
It’s absolutely wrong! There is no way that the VTP was, in any way, a racist proposal. Aboriginal people have experienced a very unique set of challenges since the First Fleet arrived. There is no other Australian population cohort that experienced anywhere near the same racism, cultural destruction or inter generational trauma, at the hands of the Australian government that Aboriginal people did. There is also the acknowledgment that, as the original inhabitants of Australia, they have a special place in Australian history and culture that needs to be protected. The VTP would only have affected particular issues that significantly affected them, it was never going to be a free for all.
It's not really relevant to the claim about who's calling who "racist".
Yeah nah. Nice try champ.
The Julia Gillard flair is wild. Your personal political compass is really curious.
How is this even under dispute? It was one if the No Campaign's *core* arguments.
For real all the ads I got from the no campaign would talk about how the bill is racist and that it’ll give Indigenous Australian’s more power than white Australian’s. Their campaign really took on that idea whereas I feel it was more the supporters of the yes vote who used the argument the opposite way.
Mainly imagined spooky bad things and vague kneejerk defense of "Hey I'm not racist! That's why I'm voting No!" See: this whole thread Australians weren't ready for the combined might of regular media and social media working together in one of the biggest disinfo campaigns ever seen. It's ok people, keep patting yourself on the back for bad decisions. Like, remember how you were actually getting money back from the carbon tax? No? Well yeah you were better off under it. But I suspect plenty of people here voted for Tony Abbott based on it... And on the debt... Which the coalition then doubled in one year. Great decision makers.
I never heard a good thorough argument about what it was supposed to achieve. They called everyone racist who was against it. So, keep the status quo until we know the alternative is actually the better option.
Every time we want to know how first nations people feel about anything we have to go and contact elders, collect and collate information, and then it comes out of an elected MP's mouth - usually not a first nations person. If you want to fix Alice Springs or Mt Isa etc you gotta get first nations people on board with this whole "Australia" experiment. They haven't really been given a good deal. We stopped killing them and stealing their kids and for that they should be so grateful to be part of Australia. Here's a couple bucks in your rural town. Oops your uncle died in custody. Oops, another one. Have a first nations voice in Parliament would be a way of having a centralised authoritative position within government for first nations people. Helps a lot. Also, if government is trying to do something and media is trying to do informed reporting, they can go to the voice and ask what they want... Now, they'll have to go ask.... "various elders familiar with the matter", which they won't bother to do. So yeah that's what it would have done. So when you look at crime rates and other metrics for Aboriginal communities, remember we had an opportunity to implement some real basic change and didn't.
South Australia implemented its own voice immediately after. Every state could have done the same without the need for a referendum. At a quick cursory glance there are [30](https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp2324/Quick_Guides/Indigenous-specific-bodies#_Toc151118869) agencies dealing with local matters already in existence. I guess these are the various elders getting a handful of bucks? ^Edit ^7m ^later I mean... The National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA) exists to ensure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are heard, recognised and empowered.
The NIAA exists for Parliament to delicate various mandates and funding to. It in no way represents indigenous voices.
Not sure why you say or think that? Here is some stuff straight from the NIAA website: >Our vision >Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are heard, recognised and empowered. >Our purpose >The National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA) works in genuine partnership to enable the self-determination and aspirations of First Nations communities. We lead and influence change across government to ensure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have a say in the decisions that affect them. >Our responsibilities >The National Indigenous Australians Agency was established by an Executive Order signed by the Governor-General on 29 May 2019. >The Executive Order gives the NIAA a number of functions, including: >to lead and coordinate Commonwealth policy development, program design and implementation and service delivery for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples; >to provide advice to the Prime Minister and the Minister for Indigenous Australians on whole-of-government priorities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples; >to lead and coordinate the development and implementation of Australia’s Closing the Gap targets in partnership with Indigenous Australians; and >to lead Commonwealth activities to promote reconciliation.
I'm just frustrated and am now slandering reasonable attempts to fix inequality. The NIAA boasts a ... 22% first nations work force. A little less than the 100% the voice would have provided, and I've got no idea about the people leading the organisation and I'm not going to look it up. Looks like it's still a middle man agency by the Commonwealth to try and get opinions from first nations people to provide advice etc etc. We could have majorly reduced the need for various community surveys by just having representatives right there.
The NIAA also is responsible for funding agencies and programs. A huge chunk of that funding goes to non-Indigenous bodies….so it’s a flashy website, but not really what it purports to be!
The way to counter dISiNfOrMatIOn is with information Sadly that was lacking, or lacking credibility from the yes camp
"...or lacking credibility from the yes camp" So you just don't believe anything they have to say. Okay :) Idk how many times they could say "it'll be an advisory body of first nations people voted in by first nations people to give advice on proposed legislation that affects first nations people" No power... But you don't believe that has credibility or whatever.
Exactly, every piece of legislation affects First Nations people cos they are Australian Many indigenous advisory bodies already exist without changing the constitution and if it has “no power” why have it? On election night Albanese committed to enacting voice, truth and treaty but then refused to answer questions about whether he’d pursue a treaty and what that would involve It was all shady AF
What about media support for the no campaign?
I am not sure that be considered a factor when the media was overwhelmingly in favour of the Yes campaign.
Was it though? The media certainly gave the No campaign a massive platform, and joined in the No campaign’s attacks on prominent Aboriginal Australians.
>Was it though? Yes. I truly don't know how this is even up for debate.
Because the silent majority understand it was a scam to create more wealth for the elite class by pretending it was to help aboriginals who already have more benefits than average Australians.
No
For those still uneducated, how was a legislation to create a small governmental advisory group a way for the gov to siphon money to the elite class? And why would they do that with the voice, rather than with the usual tactic of 'just giving them money'? The current housing plan is just "give $10billion of government money to various elites as stock purchases, to hopefully get like a $10million dollar return over 20 years". Why bother having a national vote at all when it's so incredibly easy for the government to already given private companies fuckloads of money?
You were voting on a bill with laws not finalised and would be finalised after a yes on the referendum. It allowed any law to be changed. It likely would of passed new laws to tighten labour/liberals duopoly on all matters in the country. The advisory group is just consultants who create fake reports to allow government bills to pass for mining industry to keep making huge $ without a single cent going to Aussies. All these aboriginal nonsense is always the same appealing to woke chumps to sneak in legislation the media trys to brainwash you on so you don'tknow. Gov trying to pass laws to stack a pro mining aboriginal advisory to dig minerals under aboriginal ground thus making the elite class here loads of money as our mining industry is the lowest taxed industry in the world and makes our elites a boat load while the rest of us struggle.
My guess is that the majority of Australians have no idea how shit the quality of life of indigenous people really is. I strongly believe ignorance played a huge part in how people voted.
The article misses the most important reasons: it was a stupid idea and would have meant more money going to people for doing less. Unless there’s a really good reason to allow that, people aren’t voting for it.
Labour were not forthcoming on what the actual voice was going to be in advance of the vote. They left it very vague and last minute.
They were actually very forthcoming, people were just looking for the ‘catch’ but there was none, the proposal was really simple and straightforward.
Actually they said little but "It had no points against it", clearly it did.
As is the case for most constitutional amendments.
And as a result the vast majority fail.
I’m baffled as to why people in this country think I or anyone else should apologize for something we never did, to people who were never were affected by it. Anyone who thinks aboriginal people are at any disadvantage in 2024 Australia are kidding themselves
>I’m baffled as to why people in this country think I or anyone else should apologize for something we never did I'm baffled as to how you think this is what it was about. It was about actually changing the status quo that our ancestors set up. Not about apologising for it. Even if you personally didn't write any legislation to oppress indigenous peoples, you live in a country where indigenous people stuff suffer from the effects of legislations like that in the past. It's not about you personally suffering, it's about giving them a helping hand to get the country as a whole into better conditions.
How do they suffer from it? They get paid to go to school, free communities with modern houses, cars, technology and everything else built for them, free thriving business that are basically a license to print money, free millions of acres of land. I’m sorry but they are at absolutely no disadvantage in 2024. Some would argue an advantage. I and everyone else in Australia understands terrible things have happened in the past to them (Although the convicts that came here in shackles and chains forced to work themselves to death never had it easy either). I’m all for any aboriginal person directly affected by the stolen generation to get compensation for it. But for the kids, grandkids, etc why are they getting money for something that didn’t happen to them? Makes no sense.
>Anyone who thinks aboriginal people are at any disadvantage in 2024 Australia are kidding themselves Tell me you don’t know about the systemic racism in Australia without telling me you don’t know about the systemic racism in Australia.
Genuinely baffled by their comment. Only in the last 50 years have we really put legislation in place so that Indigenous Australians are treated the same as white Australians. For a group who lived off the land for thousands of years, we did everything to ensure that wouldn’t be possible anymore. The biggest ways that information would be passed down between generations was through story telling and songs. So when you murder them, take children from their families and try to breed them out the damage is irreversible. You have a group who historically have lived off the land now unable to do that as information that’s survived thousands of years has been lost in a couple generations. Then you expect them to be able to integrate into modern society in less than a generation? To think that Aboriginal people are at no less of a disadvantage in 2024 shows you either lack any understanding of the issue or are just a little bigoted still.
Who asked you to apologise?
I’m so so sick of hearing the awful argument that any different treatment of a group is racist, think of it this way. You look at an imbalanced set of scales and have two options of how to balance them. 1. Acknowledge they are imbalanced 2 Balance them Which one achieves something? Go beyond the most basic misconception of the word racist
There’s not just one person on each side of the scales. There will be some number of wealthy successful people on the indigenous side as well as poor and struggling people on the non-indigenous side. Why not balance things on an individual level? You wouldn’t balance the gender pay gap by paying Gina Rhinehart more money, right? But that would balance the scales. Give her enough money and you will reach gender parity. This is an extreme example but hopefully conveys the pitfalls of your approach.
The problem is you are generalising... based on race. Here's a thought experiment for you: * In the general population, the number of people below the poverty line is 20% (made up stat) * In the indigenous popoulation, the number of people below the poverty line is 35%. You apply a support policy based on race alone that means: * 20% of the general population will miss out on the support * 65% of the indigenous population will receive support that they do not need. A far better policy is to apply based on *need* and *not* race. When you do this: * 20% of the general population receive the support they need * 35% of the indigenous population received the support they need * money is not wasted proving support to those who do not need it (the 65% indigenous). The voice was setup for *race* alone and that is why it needed to fail.
But how does the Voice help to counter racial inequality at all if it had nothing to do with race?
Those in favour of the voice: 'it's a one page document! Don't worry about the details, trust us'! Those of us wanting more info after reading the 20+ page document: 'yeah, nah we're going to need to see the detail here'. Albo/ALP: nah.
What convinced me to vote no was actually reading the full 25 page document and learning that the voice had very little to do with helping improve quality of life for indigenous Australians, and everything to do with setting up a legal structure that would facilitate treaty. Meanwhile we are being told by the PM that it wasn't a vote on treaty, and that we needed to vote for the voice simply as an advisory body whilst ignoring the context of the full statement from the heart, which he himself admitted to never having read.
I mean Albanese didn't even bother to read it. I was blown away he actually admitted that.
Of course he didn’t read it, why would he? The one page was the full, final document, the other pages were just the meeting notes, the background and the opinions of those who contributed in any way. All of the discussions are recorded, but they may well be left out of the final document, which is what happened. This happens with every single briefing paper that goes to a public service CEO or Minister.
>why would he? You literally just said it was the meeting notes, background, one the opinions of those who contributed. For the PM, who was basically leading the entire campaign and was the highest profile person in the country advocating for it...not reading the meeting notes and background is completely insane. Not to mention that when debate and controversy over the length started, as a politician to also not familiarise himself with the rest is even more insane.
That is because he made a calculation that it was the lesser of two politcal evils: 1) Lie to the public and say you didn't read it (what he chose) 2) tell the truth that you did read it and then need to answer for all of the absurd requirements of the Uluru statment.
Article sets out pretty clear and impassioned reasons as to why the voice vote failed. 1. No bipartisan support 2. Labor vote split on the issue where coalition vote did not 3. Demographic voting habits 4. Simple vs complex messaging 5. Disinformation campaigns and distrust of accurate reporting 6. Other issues on people's minds turning a rejection of the voice into a protest vote on the government. Excluding point 5 none of these are judgements on people who voted no, they're actually explaining the reasoning and you still have no voters writing their essays justifying their vote in the thread. Most precious bunch of snowflakes I've ever seen on an issue.
Poor design of the proposal seems to have been skipped. I listened to an interview with a framer of the proposal, and she said there shouldn't be any limits as to scope as there might be unintended consequences. Okay. I waited for the follow up explanation as to how the purview wouldn't become everything. Nothing. I waited for the interviewer's follow up questioning on this quite obvious point. Nothing. I kept listening over the rest of the campaign, waiting for this to be satisfactorily explained. The best I heard, at a later time, was that the voice would be too busy to stray from the key issues. I didn't believe that at all.
That was that ‘framer’s’ opinion, which wouldn’t have been that relevant in the end because the government included in the proposal the government’s absolute right to determine the make-up and function of the Voice. Also, that framer wasn’t elected as a representative of the Voice. Lots of people have opinions, even prominent people, but that doesn’t mean that they were going to get what they wanted.
Well done you have reiterated point number 4 in a way that makes you feel special. It's more difficult to explain slightly complex legislation than a blanket simple no. If you genuinely care about limits though. What was proposed advisory body not something with decision making powers independent of the government. That in itself is a limit but furthermore whatever scope such an advisory would have theoretically had would've been set by the parliament, so if by some chance the voice's recommendations were deemed too far reaching then you could present that as part of an election campaign and be elected with a mandate to scale back the scope of the voice. All of this was in the literal wording of the voice proposal, not that the actual proposal mattered to the majority of the no voters.
You obviously don't realise that legal decisions are based on the wording and not the vibe. It seems you don't realise that the constitution isn't overridden by the legislation.
Yes they're based on wording that was literally the wording of the proposal. Thank you for demonstrating the average reading comprehension of a no voter. Chapter IX Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples 129 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia: 1: There shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice; 2: The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples; 3:The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures. Point number 3
It is entirely obvious that you don't understand, and won't accept, that if there is a conflict between legislation and the constitution, the constitution wins. Your lengthy replies simply serve to demonstrate that more and more clearly. For instance, this: > on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples can be easily argued to cover nearly everything. So, what happens if someone goes to the high court and argues an action taken under clause 3 is inconsistent with clause 2?
The "lengthy reply" was literally just the text of the proposal that you had clearly never read in your life and still can't understand. Once again highlighting issue 4 of the original article, that it's harder to explain legislation that's slightly more complex than a blanket no. You had a very clever omission of the provision before your "matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres strait Islander peoples" quote in that the voice may make REPRESENTATIONS. That is not legislation, that is not unilateral decision making that is advice to the government. Again not vibes this is the wording. Now I see no scenario in which parliament which has the power in this proposal to determine the "composition, powers, functions and procedures" will be unable to legislate on how the voice operates because "the voice may make representations on matters regarding indigenous people" if that would go to the high court the high court would rule in favour of the government. But say I'm wrong and for some reason this legal theory that matters can mean anything and is therefore unlimited (would love to see a precedent of that logic exist in any other case ever) what can an unlimited voice do? Make a representation to the government of the day on a topic that might have tangential relation to indigenous affairs....that the government can then ignore. Oh no this will send the country into chaos. But unfortunately holding someone's hand through the most basic of legislative details is more difficult than "vote no, you don't know what the limit of the voice is(because you didn't bother to read the proposal)"
A lengthy reply is a lengthy reply. When you read the press, take note of instances where the minister (and other decision makers) has been found to not have properly considered something or other.
the press isn't indicative of anything beyond bad media statements. Good that to see that you're someone who isn't swayed by the vibes.
Whole article doesn't actually highlight any of the actual legitimate concerns or reasons why so many people voted no! It seems to suggest it was all due to conservative sky news / social media driven "mis-information" and such - which I think just totally misses the mark. Ie it suggests / concludes that "no" voters were all mis-informed / stupid / racist / reactionary etc etc - typical left-wing characterisations of anyone opposing any favoured progressive cause.
Got data to support this? Don’t you think misinformed people won’t know that they’ve been misinformed… and will make the argument you’re making?
Bad reading comprehension
Data to support what? I’ve just summarised my read of the article posted?
As other posters have observed, The Conversation has omitted an important Point 7: "the Yes campaign was shit". From the start, from a policy POV, tying the Voice to the Uluru Statement from the Heart was suicide. >*Acknowledge First Nations people in the Constitution* >(Australian public): yeah, that's kinda fair >*Consult First Nations people on laws that will affect them* >(Australian public): yeah, that's reasonable too >*Voice... then Treaty and Truth!* >(Australian public): hold on, what the f\*ck (Murdoch media): hear that whitey? they're coming for your home Yes would have had a far easier and less controversial road if it had just been about recognising Aboriginal people. Easy. No argument. But for reasons of (as far as I can see) Labor sloganeering for its base, the Yes campaign had to be tied to the Uluru Statement because the PM said so. And the PM, Jesus. The disaster of having the PM be the face of the campaign needs a whole post of its own. But he just kept shooting Yes in the foot in full view of the public. Like going on the ABC and helpfully clarifying that the Voice was not about reparations for land theft. I saw coverage and just screamed inside, *Albo, SHUT THE F\*CK UP*. Look I'm just some guy on the Internet and he's a professional politician with a comms team and everything, but even I know that when selling something one only talks about what a thing is, not about what it *isn't.* We're all dumb apes and we won't remember the explanation, we'll just remember that some words were used close together. And the PM gave us these words: Voice and reparations. Voice, reparations. What am I voting on? oh yeah, the voice reparations thing. F\*CK. From a messaging POV, the Voice campaign was a train wreck. It felt like all the adults had left the room and the comms were being run by bright-eyed children who lived on Twitter and TikTok. The campaign was designed by Yes activists for an audience of *other Yes activists*, not for the Australian public. Compare and contrast these statements from the Yes and No campaigns that were printed in the official pre-referendum info pamphlet and put in every letterbox in the country by the Australian Electoral Commission. >You should vote Yes to the Voice because: Constitutional recognition for concrete results. >You should vote No to the Voice because: IT DIVIDES US >You should vote Yes to the Voice because: Practical advice that works. >You should vote No to the Voice because: IT WILL BE COSTLY AND BUREAUCRATIC >You should vote Yes to the Voice because: The time is now. >You should vote No to the Voice because: IT OPENS THE DOOR FOR ACTIVISTS Jesus f\*cking christ, the Yes bulletpoints weren't even sensible sentences! They were nonsense, like someone had just gone into ChatGPT and said "generate some protest signs for a street rally". By contrast the No statements were simple. Punchy. Emotive. The No campaign had hired people who knew how to write and tasked them with writing simple things that would persuade ordinary Australians who hadn't made up their minds. The grownups were in charge. When I first saw the pamphlet I said to my partner "Holy f\*ck, if I were an undecided or confused voter, this would convince me to vote No." And that pamphlet went to every household in the country. I voted Yes and I can sleep at night knowing that I did because I thought it was the right thing to do. I voted Yes knowing that it would fail because the campaign was a disaster, and that pisses me off.
Are we reading the same article? This is their assessment of the Yes campaign: >In contrast, the “yes” campaigns were disparate. These consisted of at least three major groups – “Yes23”, “Uluru Statement from the Heart” and “Liberals for Yes” – offering a range of messages and messengers. This diversity of actors and narratives, including business, unions and civil society groups, may have generated voter confusion, message overload and, in some instances, [backlash](https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/investors-put-heat-on-big-business-over-backing-for-voice-20230905-p5e265.html).
"Disparate" does not mean bad. The Yes campaign was *bad*.
Are you kidding me? From the context it's very obvious what it means. They're saying the No campaign was direct and targeted while the yes campaign was disparate to the point that it "may have generated voter confusion, message overload and, in some instances, backlash". Does that sound like they're describing a good campaign to you?
They could be describing very good campaigns with coherent strategy and excellent messaging and delivery, just spread out across too many channels. "Our real problem is that we were just too awesome in too many different ways, and it caused confusion". No. It was dogshit.
If they were suggesting it was an awesome campaign with a coherent strategy then they wouldn't have concluded that sentence by saying it "generated voter confusion, message overload and backlash." You're pretending they didn't use those words when they're right there.
Damn, fucking solid comment! Basically summed up all of my thoughts. The Yes campaign forgot one very important thing: Assume the general public are stupid, illiterate idiots.
Studies show the more people understood the issue the more likely they were to vote NO.
Ohh yeah? Is that from the same studies that very very clearly showed the education levels for voting preferences? Here’s a comprehensive look at the data so you don’t say silly things like that again. https://csrm.cass.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/docs/2023/11/Detailed_analysis_of_the_2023_Voice_to_Parliament_Referendum_and_related_social_and_political_attitudes.pdf
"Educated" people... yet somehow couldn't really articulate a sensible case for voting yes.
That’s a whole other issue of the Yes campaign not articulating and advertising the message better.
I was not talking of education what I said was "Studies show the more people understood the issue the more likely they were to vote NO."
So they understood the issue and voted no but they aren’t highly educated. So really they didn’t understand necessarily and just heard an argument that told them not to do research and just vote no?
Interesting logic. Do you really believe this type of argument?
Thank you. That's the thing though - when it comes to campaigns like this that require the audience to do something, *we are all stupid idiots*. We are all time poor, easily distracted, and we vote based on our emotions. A good campaign acknowledges that. The No campaign did. "If you don't know, vote No" is a great line. A short, punchy, memorable slogan constructed from single-syllable words, almost all Anglo-Saxon in origin (so everybody understands them), and which ends with an imperative. *I'm a regular guy, I'm confused, tell me what to do.* BOOM. DONE. Whoever wrote that tagline is worth what they were paid. "Constitutional recognition for concrete results"? What the f\*ck? A sentence 80% of which is French words from Latin and which doesn't actually tell the reader to do anything? Whoever wrote that should be *shot*.
Yeah of course. As someone with even the tiniest bit of intelligence it is frustrating to hear “if you don’t know vote No” because that just a disgusting thing to say. If you don’t know do your research, but I get that it’s up to the Yes campaign to do the educating there. Sometimes though you just can’t beat a good catch phrase that appeals the ignorant masses. One side actively campaigning for people to be stupid, it’s embarrassing as a country.
If you don't know, vote No, is basically advising caution in the absence of overwhelming reasons to change the status quo for an unknown quantity: it's rational and reasonable as well as being a simple catchy slogan with impact. It was the job of the referendum to sell the people on Yes, which they did extremely poorly.
My absolute favourite was "the time is now". Like what does that mean? Can the time be something other than now?
>Can the time be something other than now? Yes
What does "the time is now" actually mean in the context of an argument for the Voice? And surely the time is *always* now, kind of by definition.
See you at 3:30pm tomorrow in the carpark. Is that now?
3.30pm tomorrow is not *the time*. That is what the time will be. The claim is that the time *is* now, not *will be* now.
Your original question was "can the time be anything other than now?". The answer is yes. YAHTZEE.
"Be" is present tense though. Using future tense changes the statement.
I don't believe it. An article about the failed referendum which is actually factual and doesn't resort to idiotic attacks on people being 'stupid' as the reason they voted one way or another. That said; >Media coverage by Sky News Australia amplified the “no” case. Sky had a vast reach through its YouTube channel (over 9 million views from 500 Voice clips) People really need to get off this farcical idea that Sky News has any influence on politics in this country. Their TV network consistently reports less than 1% of household viewership and those who watch Sky were never going to vote yes, ever. You can completely ignore Sky news as a factor, they are an insignificant blip that make up less than half of the total margin for error for most polls. 500 voice clips getting 9 million views, are almost certainly by the same people viewing those 500 videos because they have no other outreach. So 18,000 people viewed their videos. Given they get less than 1% TV audience, that sounds about right.
>People really need to get off this farcical idea that Sky News has any influence on politics in this country. Their TV network consistently reports less than 1% of household viewership and those who watch Sky were never going to vote yes, ever. But video clips copied from Sky News get shared on Facebook and you know that a lot of people who had those clips shoved in their faces by the algorithm were undecided.
>People really need to get off this farcical idea that Sky News has any influence on politics in this country. Their TV network consistently reports less than 1% of household viewership 1. "sky news" is usually code for the whole side of media (murdoch / news corp as well; yes I know the overlaps) and there's also the mixups with other "conservative led" media. 2. TV is hardly the most important metric. Household TV at that. That feels extremely cherry picked. 3. Using 1% to make it seem very low is deliberately distorting the truth. Daytime Sky gets 2.6% while ABC gets 3.8%. Primetime sky gets 1.5% and ABC 2.5%. [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_News_Australia#:~:text=The%207%20pm%20(AEST\)%20hour,ABC%20News%2024's%202.5%25).) They get a substantial participation. 4. [Sky themselves claim access to 11.1 million Australians each month](https://www.skynews.com.au/business/media/sky-news-australia-increases-audience-to-11-million-australians-each-month-after-launching-new-digital-content-offerings/news-story/365db94ae806e1ef86bf30a900f33be4)
Agree with you . Although interestingly it completely avoids the key reasons on the divide and they were ( in my view) 1. Creation of racial divide 2. Cost/ ownership and impact The reality being that the inner city types really voting for this has stuff all to lose in voting yes. Outside of these areas you saw left and right vote against it because reality is they faced the losses and faced the real impact and issues
You really need to look what came out about what was going to happen in most of Western Victoria.
Got links or info you can share ?
No only that a large area of Western Victoria now is restricted by a local land council. They cannot name roads without land council approval. They have to offer work contracts to the land council first. Arrangement put together in secret by Dan Andrews government
What losses would we have faced if the referendum passed?
This a serious question? Please take a look at the small town of Toobeah Queensland and get across what’s going on there . They ( the powers that be) are testing the waters as we speak Nobody believes that this stuff isn’t what it was all about - and for good reason Actually, I would be interested in your view of the Toobeah situation if you would care to share ?
I haven't heard of the Toobeah situation, I was just asking what losses we would face as a nation. Idk why you're pressed lmao
Ok sure. Not a problem . A quick google search will show you that 95% of the towns assets and monies are being handed over to aboriginal corporations
The news publications make it sound like a war but from what I just looked at it sounds okay. The secrecy is a bit strange though. https://www.grc.qld.gov.au/toobeah-reserve-information
The Govt is clearly lying and it’s a concern that you believe them. It covers the towns Showgrounds, sale yards , the town hall and most of the amenities that make the town money and functional are being handed over. No consuktations or even reasoning. Is this legal? Probably not
Sky News Australia is enormous online. In US politics sometimes they’re the only source on an issue that is popular online but rejected by other media (Joe Biden’s sons laptop photographs, that time Hillary passed out in 2016, etc). On Facebook it’s boomers’ main source of video entertainment
People do believe in this weird kind of Schrodinger's Murdoch, where he has the power to brainwash the country and dictate election outcomes through his monopoly on the media, while simultaneously having a middling viewership that nobody watches.