Indigenous Voice to Parliament

[Pies4shaw]

I wake up this morning and Australia is still an extraordinarily racist country. Well, who'd have thought?

This position is simply not true. There were a myriad of reasons why peole voted no, - genuine racism was that of a small minority. This can be proven by the fact that when the Referendum was first announced, just after the election of the Albanese government, polls indicated that it enjoyed majority support of over 60%. This figure plunged over the last 18 months not because people suddenly became racist, but rather because the popularity of the Albanese government plunged, and mistrust of its motives grew proportionately. It was Marcia Langston who shot the "yes" campaign in the foot when she publicly reviled all those who intended to vote ''no" as "racists, or stupid".

Who said anything about the vote? Not me, that's for sure.

[David]

[think positive]

I agree to a point.

But not every faction is hardened in concrete.


Honestly, the people putting it forward $@&^# up big time.

Hell of a lot of people simply didn’t care enough to look for answers, I asked the questions here, however I was originally yes, switched to no, then I listened to an indigenous friend, and a couple. Of other level headed friends, so I asked, when I had time I read. Sorry, when I made time.

I hate voting, I hate queues, I hate pamphlets and people shoving them down my throat. I voted the Tuesday after the grand final. I claimed deafness to the yes and no people at the door, no queue. I stood there, pen raised. Instead of goodes I thought if Bobby, and his incredible story. And I voted yes.

[Tannin]

There are a couple of very odd things about this whole saga.

First, the cast-iron, unshakeable belief held by the yes camp that sneering at people is an effective way to persuade them. It isn't. The yes camp somehow managed to take a widely-held sense of goodwill and a 80%+ national willingness to support recognition in the constitution - and to do something practical - and piss all over it until they had turned 80%+ support into 39%.

Even odder is their continuing belief, in the face of all the facts, that the thumping loss they worked so hard to engineer was someone else's fault.

Did we have all the usual kooks and loonies and neo-Nazis and anti-vaxxers posting all the usual nastiness and lies? Of course we did. The Peter Duttons and the Pauline Hansons of this world pulled all their usual nasty tricks and told all their usual nasty lies. And there are worse around than those two. But they are always with us. Every question put to the nation, every election campaign, we see the same antics from the usual suspects. And who did they persuade? Well, not all that many. The people they were talking to, the people credulous enough to believe the "they are taking your back yard" lies were always going to vote the party line. They are the same people who voted for Morrison at the last election and will vote for Dutton at the next one, no matter what.

Mainstream Australia is perfectly capable of detecting A-grade bullshit if it's spread thick enough (see the last election and Scotty "I don't hold a hose mate" Morrisons demise) and most of the no campaigners achieved very little by spouting so much of it. Sure, they took the no vote from less than 20% to about 40% by appealing to Liberal, National, and One Nation voters, but they were going to get those people anyway. And the harder the yes campaigners sneered, the more rusted-on that 40% became.

The other 20% - the 20% of Australia which took the no vote up to the resounding 60%+ mark and ensured the defeat of the proposal were, for the most part, the undecideds and the "weak yes" people.

Migrants led the way. Migrants remembered their citizenship ceremonies, remembered being told "You are an Australian now, and equal with every other Australian. You get exactly the same rights, exactly the same vote, and have exactly the same responsibilities as every other Australian."

Particularly for people coming here after living in non-democratic countries, this is a really big deal. And nobody ever gave them a convincing reason why they should vote to give one particular racial group special privileged treatment in the constitution. Privileges forever denied to all other Australians. Many non-migrants thought along the same lines, of course.

Remember, 50% of all Australians alive today were born overseas or are the children of parents born overseas. 80& of all Australians alive today were born overseas or are the children or grandchildren of people born overseas.

When tackled on this point, the yes camp relentlessly and idiotically talked about irrelevant things like crime rates and poverty and health - things which are palpably ridiculous reasons to not spend whatever it takes to deal with, and even more ridiculous reasons to enshrine racial discrimination forever in the constitution.

But they are clueless. Just pick up today's Age or Guardian or read the ABC - they are all running around sneering at everybody else and refusing to take responsibility for their own stupid strategy of (a) combining two completely different policy ideas (one obviously good, the other obviously bad) into just one question, (b) never, ever, ever saying what they actually intended to DO if they won the vote, and above all, (c) sneering and pointing fingers at everybody outside their own ego-massaging echo chamber.

[pietillidie]

^But they're regularly incapable of detecting BS, as you yourself have argued dozens of times.

E.g., they voted for Tony Abbott. They voted against a mineral wealth tax. They happily voted for pitiful, inferior broadband. They laughably cling to someone else's royal family. They believed clueless unqualified morons on climate change. They supported Man of Steel John Howard and his world-wrecking Iraq War.

The opposition leader is a world-class fruitcake and embarrassment, as with every second Glib leader, because incompetent weirdos have traction in the very same electorate.

And if your implicature is correct, the electorate is apparently so empty-headed and puerile, it forms its opinions based on whether it is praised like a toddler or 'sneered' at.

So, what is it? The electorate is competent, halfwitted as you've argued repeatedly in the past, or episodically competent when it aligns with your biases?

Similarly, you can't have it both ways by saying the 'yes' campaign turned them off and was clueless, but in any case there's nothing it could've said because the idea was wrong to begin with. So, by your own reasoning and that of any serious observer, they were on a hiding to nothing from the outset.

The only learning here - and you'd have thought grown adults might already have this covered - is this: Don't try to solve an extremely complex, generationally entrenched challenge lacking clear definition let alone obvious solution, through a cowardly, idiotically simplistic, divisive one-shot referendum, setting up the very people you claim to be concerned about for egregious public and international humiliation.

[slangman]

^But they're regularly incapable of detecting BS, as you yourself have argued dozens of times.

E.g., they voted for Tony Abbott. They voted against a mineral wealth tax. They happily voted for pitiful, inferior broadband. They laughably cling to someone else's royal family. They believed clueless unqualified morons on climate change. They supported Man of Steel John Howard and his world-wrecking Iraq War.

The opposition leader is a world-class fruitcake and embarrassment, as with every second Glib leader, because incompetent weirdos have traction in the very same electorate.

And if your implicature is correct, the electorate is apparently so empty-headed and puerile, it forms its opinions based on whether it is praised like a toddler or 'sneered' at.

So, what is it? The electorate is competent, halfwitted as you've argued repeatedly in the past, or episodically competent when it aligns with your biases?

Similarly, you can't have it both ways by saying the 'yes' campaign turned them off and was clueless, but in any case there's nothing it could've said because the idea was wrong to begin with. So, by your own reasoning and that of any serious observer, they were on a hiding to nothing from the outset.

The only learning here - and you'd have thought grown adults might already have this covered - is this: Don't try to solve an extremely complex, generationally entrenched challenge lacking clear definition let alone obvious solution, through a cowardly, idiotically simplistic, divisive one-shot referendum, setting up the very people you claim to be concerned about for egregious public and international humiliation.

You are sounding very much like Steven May and Jordan Dawson.

[David]

[stui magpie]

^

The thing to remember is that most people don't make decisions rationaly using logic and facts, they make emotive decisions and rationalise them afterwards. TP is a perfect example in this case. (Not having a dig Jo, just your case is a perfect example)

When you want to get people on board to make a siginificant change, fear and distrust are powerful emotive reasons to say No to it and yes, as far as the Sneering goes, you're never going to convince people to agree with your view by insulting them, sneering at them or being condescending. It's the surest way to push them away.

The whole Yes campaign should be written up as a textbook case of how Not to market and deliver a Change Management process.

[eddiesmith]

This was a massive, massive failure by the PM and blaming the electorate and Abbott is laughable because it was ALP heartland and safe seats that overwhelmingly rejected the referendum.

So maybe the electorate is gullible, it’s the same people that delivered a lying, corrupt campaigner a third term with increasing majority that couldn’t find any reason to support Albo’s referendum campaign.

[slangman]

I think that's a poor response to a thoughtful post, slangman

How so??

It was an emotive rant by someone who seems to think that their opinion and ideology is better than anyone who voted No.

I posted earlier that the dumbest thing that Yes voters could do is blame the No campaign, the coalition, Jacinta Price, No Voters etc.
The whole idea of the voice to Parliament was resoundingly rejected by Australians for the idea itself.
Pietillidie resorted to the losers rant tactic of blaming everything and everyone else for the Voice not getting the majority.
That is 100% in the same category of loser whinges as May and Dawson from a couple of weeks ago.
The “ poor response” you mention should have been directed at Peitillidie for the emotive laced sook that had me rolling my eyes at its ignorance.

[think positive]

^

The thing to remember is that most people don't make decisions rationaly using logic and facts, they make emotive decisions and rationalise them afterwards. TP is a perfect example in this case. (Not having a dig Jo, just your case is a perfect example)

When you want to get people on board to make a siginificant change, fear and distrust are powerful emotive reasons to say No to it and yes, as far as the Sneering goes, you're never going to convince people to agree with your view by insulting them, sneering at them or being condescending. It's the surest way to push them away.

The whole Yes campaign should be written up as a textbook case of how Not to market and deliver a Change Management process.

Oh I agree totally! It was the pure emotion of Bobby in the Grand Final that made me write yes! I chose my good fortune over my fear!

[David]

[Magpietothemax]

Demographic analysis of the referendum vote shows that the "yes" vote was preponderant only in inner city areas, among highly affluent upper middle class layers who like to think of themselves as "progressive". The poorer the area, the more likely the vote was "no". 80% of traditional Labor party seats rejected the Voice. This reflects the overall collapse of support for Labor in the working class. The Labor party only staggered into government last year with a historically low vote of 33%. It won this election simply by default - the Liberals had self-imploded.
The wholesale rejection of the Voice reflects the rejection by the working class of the Albanese government itself. Why would any sane person believe that Albanese and his underlings would have any concern for the indigenous population, while they openly solidarises himself with the Netahanyu government, and its genocidal intentions to depopulate Gaza forever? While they attempt to trample democratic rights by strongly discouraging (and in Minns'case, attempting to ban), proPalestinian protests?
Why would any working class person believe a word Albanese says about concern for the impoverishment of the indigenous population, while his government refuses to lift a finger to address the economic distress that vast numbers of working class families are feeling as a result of the cost of living crisis, and real wage cuts??
The No vote is nothing other than a rejection of the Albanese government. It is also a rejection of Dutton, because even though the No vote won, Dutton'
s popularity has remained at abysmal levels.

[pietillidie]

[stui magpie]

^

Nice rant.

The First Nations Peoples who wrote the Uluru Statement asked for regognition and a voice to be put in the constitution. That requires a referendum.

Proposing to Hold the referendum wasn't the problem, it was everything else.

If for example it was 2 separate questions, one about recognition and one about the voice, there was a far better chance of getting Bi-partisan support, which ultimately was necessary. No referendum has succeeded without it.

If they had provided much more detail up front of exactly what the Voice was, how it would work, what it could do and more importantly what it couldn't, they could have headed off the misinformation campaign before it grew legs.

Once it was clear the direction is was going, rather than blunder ahead they should have taken the opportunity to do more consultation and communication and delayed holding the referendum until it had a clear chance of success and if that meant changing some things, then change them.

Geezuz you really could write a thesis on how they just stubbornly bumbled from one **** to the next.