Sign In
0 Items (
Search
Comments (21)
There are two good reasons for continued analysis of the Voice to Parliament’s referendum defeat. The first reason, obviously, is to further understand how a conservative movement not only prevailed during an era of woke, but how we did so having begun our campaign with such a huge polling disadvantage.
And, moreover, an enormous media, business, sports and political deficit. From the outset, the No vote had no big-league supporters.
The second reason for continued analysis, just as obviously, is because it’s fun to ridicule leftists when they lose—especially when they plainly lack the coping ability that a sense of humour might provide. On October 14, the day of glorious judgment, they went down scowling and sneering. Rather than accept the people’s will, pre-fab Voice personality Thomas Mayo angrily declared: “We won’t take no for an answer.”
Tim Blair appears in every Quadrant.
Click here to subscribe
Well, mate, you just did. You and your team copped a resounding No from just about every electorate in the country, aside from a few inner-city Teal tofu zones and our degenerate narcotics-legalising capital. Elsewhere, reason reigned. Two of the strongest No electorates outside of Queensland were Parkes in New South Wales, with a 78.8 per cent No vote, and my own enlightened electorate of Mallee in Victoria, narrowly shaded on 78.4 per cent.
All credit to Parkes. They just put in a better effort on the day.
Massive credit, too, to Jacinta Price and Warren Mundine, whose crusades against the irrational and destructive Voice push were thrilling and tireless. As a friend in the Yes camp unhappily observed, this Aboriginal-focused referendum presented two of the most compelling Aboriginal orators of our time—but they both worked for No.
Price was especially impressive, landing the campaign’s finest woke slapdown during her National Press Club appearance in mid-September. Asked by some white kid in the audience if Australian Aborigines suffered because of colonisation, Price simply replied: “No.” She then elaborated: “A positive impact, absolutely. I mean, now we have running water, readily available food.”
This was a simple truth, empirically established not just in Australia but throughout the planet. Modernity wins. It’s why nobody is begging for dentistry without anaesthetic. As a species, humanity’s entire aim has been to drag ourselves forward—towards, in other words, running water and readily available food. Yet the Sydney Morning Herald was appalled, claiming that Price had challenged “widely held views of Indigenous and intergenerational disadvantage”.
For “widely held”, read “mistaken”, “condescending” or “perverse”. A little more on colonialism later, from a little moron. First, please consider how leftist Voice promoters did so much to destroy their own case, and how this fits a long-standing pattern of leftist behaviour by comparison to conservatives. As my US friend Jim Treacher once put it, leftists want conservatives to shut up while conservatives want leftists to keep talking.
Much if not most of the arguments aimed at Mundine and Price were intended to disqualify them. They were frequently denounced during the Voice debate, as they’ve been denounced by hostile entities throughout their professional lives, as betrayers of the Aboriginal cause. Leftists, aware of how powerful were Mundine and Price’s arguments, wanted to shame them into silence. They wanted them to shut up.
But conservatives couldn’t get enough of Voice boosters Mayo, Megan Davis and especially Marcia Langton, whose ruinous interview with the Australian—published on April 8, when support for the Voice still ran at close to 60 per cent—seemed to accelerate the Yes team’s slide.
In one of Australia’s greatest electoral misreadings, Langton threatened a ban on welcome-to-country ceremonies—and, just to sweeten the deal, a ban on her own conference appearances. “I imagine that most Australians who are non-Indigenous, if we lose the referendum, will not be able to look me in the eye,” she told the Australian.
It was a risk we were evidently prepared to take.
“How are they going to ever ask an Indigenous person, a Traditional Owner, for a welcome to country?” Langton continued. “How are they ever going to be able to ask me to come and speak at their conference? If they have the temerity to do it, of course the answer is going to be no.”
Keep digging, Marcia. Keep digging until you’ve worn down an entire Bunnings worth of shovels to useless wooden stumps. And by all means keep talking—although you might work on your pronunciation of specious. Despite her decades in academia, Professor Langton thinks it’s a three-syllable word. Television auto-captioning renders her attempts as speciesist, which adds a whole new level of confusion.
Another Aboriginal academic, Uluru Statement from the Heart co-author Megan Davis, probably wished she’d been silent in the years prior to October’s Voice vote. Maybe then she wouldn’t have left such a trail of verbal and written evidence contradicting Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s claim that the Statement was just a single-page document.
Sky TV’s Peta Credlin—besides Price and Mundine, the most persuasive No plaintiff—helpfully rounded up all of Davis’s page-worthy performances. In 2018: “The Uluru Statement from the Heart isn’t just the first one-page statement. It’s actually a very lengthy document of about eighteen to twenty pages, and a very powerful part of this document reflects what happened in the dialogues.” In 2022: “The Uluru Statement … is occasionally mistaken as merely a one-page document … in totality [it] is closer to eighteen pages.”
Again in 2022: “It’s actually like eighteen pages, the Uluru Statement. People only read the first.” And once more from 2022, just to drive home the multi-page message: “It’s very important for Australians to read the Statement, and the Statement is also much bigger. It’s actually eighteen pages.”
On August 8, by which time the Yes case was circling helplessly like a punctured-hull Bismarck, Davis offered this online clarification: “The Uluru statement is ONE PAGE.” Whatever you say, Professor. And at that point the Voice to Parliament was a shot duck.
It takes a special talent to destroy a political quest that in its initial stages was so generously supported. It takes an even greater talent to demolish the period of healing or grace that often follows a contentious vote. The Voice team not only bunged on a week-long post-election sookfest, but in so doing demonstrated that the Voice might not have been as “advisory” as they’d promised.
After all, the Australian electorate had just presented this advice: “No.” Fairly straightforward. Easy to understand. Not much room for misinterpretation. Yet Voice advocates, as our mate Mayo explained, just weren’t having it.
Nor was ex-ABC host turned national man in mourning Stan Grant, who in an Australian National University sob speech on October 30 took peculiar issue with the referendum result. “I am hearing that word: no,” Grant said, apparently imagining that the entire $300 million Voice-voting process was about Stan Grant.
He was just warming up. No, Grant continued, was “that word without love. That word of rejection. That word from which no other word can come. This morning in the darkness I am hearing the cold-hearted no of a country so comfortable it need not care.” Seems like “no” is the problem then—except, presumably, when we say no to racism, no to child abuse, no to poverty, no to sickness and so on. It isn’t exclusively a “word of rejection”, unless you’re more or less unfamiliar with the concept of words in general.
Then came Grant’s finest moment. Taking sarcastic aim at Jacinta Price and her rational view on colonisation, Grant fumed: “I drink from a bubbler and I give thanks for running water. That’s the measure of history, we have running water now. Thank you colonisation.”
Running water is one of the greatest single advances in human history. It has probably saved more lives than any other basic technology. To this day, in remote Third World locations, a lack of running water invariably leads to the spread of deadly illnesses.
The Left launched their Voice campaign with the full support of Australia’s wealthiest institutions. They ended that campaign complaining about indoor plumbing. This fascinating episode deserves to be studied for decades.
A central document in that study must be The Voice to Parliament Handbook, co-written by Voice frontman Thomas Mayo and ABC veteran Kerry O’Brien, with illustrations by the Sydney Morning Herald’s Cathy Wilcox.
It’s a rousing call for Aboriginal justice—created by two of the whitest people in the Australian media and a cranky ex-wharfie who celebrates the contribution of “communist elders” to “our struggle”.
You know, the more historians examine this referendum, the more they may be inclined to wonder how it ended up being defeated by 60 per cent to 40. A more reasonable result might have been 90–10.
Love Tim’s writing. Factual realities laced with humour. Lefties are used to being fawned upon by fellow lefties and see themselves as savants. Rude awakening that their every word has been rejected, by democracy in action. How dare we!
I’d settle for a “Farewell to Country” from Mayo, Langton and Davis – at least until they work out how democracy works.
Overall, ABC exposure time – Yes case, 51%, No case 23%. (From Tony Thomas)
.
“A more reasonable result might have been 90–10” had the media and grovelling corporates not betrayed the Australian ethos. But in the end ordinary Australians saw through the Voice.
.
I would like to send a special cheerio to both Jacinta Price and Marcia Langton for the splendid assistance they both gave the NO case. It’s a lot quieter in our house now that Marcia is not on TV and my wife is no longer shouting at the screen.
We need a welcome to suburbia ceremony with an acknowledgement of citizenship and Centrelink.
Langton lied. Unfortunately WTCs have belatedly reappeared.
‘Like the Voice never happened’: Pushes being made for Indigenous treaty, billions more to be wasted paying fictitious compensation claims that supposedly happened without any forensic evidence — based entirely on what someone was told by someone else who told someone else a 100 years ago.
More commonly known as a bulldust confidence job where gullible small minds get sucked into the dreaming dollar-based fantasy — time to get over it and grow what happened in the past has no relevance today — it has become an obsessive Aboriginal mental health issue.
The whole approach to aboriginally affairs were rejected by the people of Australia who voted ‘NO”.
And the rorts continue paying massive fees for unqualified incompetence wasting your taxpayers money that would be better spent on health to solve ambulance ramping and saving lives.
Pushes being made for Indigenous treaty – https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/other/like-the-voice-never-happened-pushes-being-made-for-indigenous-treaty/ar-AA1l4RMI?ocid=socialshare&cvid=7248cb6b452a44a9baefc345cf772380&ei=49#comments
NO MEANS NO!!!!!
My concern is that Langton, Mayo, Davies et al have gone quiet. When the kids in the top bedroom go quiet there is always something brewing.
Perhaps Stan Grant does not understand the term “running water’: running water is the opposite to stagnant water which is the passive recipient of animal and human urine and faeces, decaying organic matter (dead birds) and a host to insect breeding populations which often carry disease and does not enjoy the filtering process offered by water moving through living plant matter.
Should have listened up in geography class Stan.
My favourite was Laurence comment in the Oz:
‘Excuse me, we voted to ensure you get a fair deal. Not some concocted plan set up by the activists to take over Australia for their benefit. Now with the foresight of Jacinta Price you have the door open to achieve your goals. Accept the offer and you will be surprised.’
– Laurence
Pretty much off topic, but ” comment in the Oz” gives me a chance to comment here as The Australian won’t.
.
The most Liked comment on Nick Cater’s article in The Australian(18/12) included:
“Coal, gas and solar are dispatchable because they can be brought on line predictably”
.
OK, the commenter made a “typo” – in my lingo was slack/careless…
BUT the moderator accepted it and so many readers Liked it.
.
My comment, “You should proofread, out loud if convenient, before hitting Send” was, as expected, rejected
PS, The Australian has an edit facility, so you can read your post after it is sent and before it is Accepted/Rejected and correct if need be.
Actually, the No outcome in country areas was even more impressive than Tim suggests. A bloke from Uralla related how in his neck of the woods none of the booths were staffed by No supporters and all were well staffed by Yes supporters. Yet, despite this on-the-ground disparity, which I worried might make a difference on the day, the No vote came in at a solid 75 percent up there.
I wrote (15 Oct) to my NAB bank expressing concern that the banks spent $7million on The Voice campaign.
The NAB responded (18 Oct) – see below.
I twice followed up that response – once by email and secondly using their Complaint Form.
I have heard nothing back from the bank. Either they can’t answer my question or they are using the bank-preferred-strategy > just ignore.
—-
You correctly paraphrased my complaint :
“I understand that you are disappointed in NAB and other banks as they spent 7 million on the Voice ‘YES’ campaign. You advised that it is a waste of money and NAB should stick to banking.”
You have responded (in part) :
“We wanted people to be informed of the issues around the referendum, while being determined to avoid suggesting to anyone how to vote”.
Your response is at odds with the facts.
Refer :
https://news.nab.com.au/news/walking-together-nab-launches-indigenous-star/
and
https://news.nab.com.au/news/nab-calls-on-businesses-to-back-the-voice/
I await your response.
Yairs, they also ignored my emails in their “contact us” box for I suggested that like a cobbler they should stick to their last and look after their investors instead of chasing the “yes” vote. Mind you when passing 80 years of age they emailed advising that I was no longer covered by their travel insurance but replied lickety split when I emailed back with “I must therefore be too old to bank with the NAB and am cancelling all our accounts” and that got an instant reply. All this drama of wokeness or whatever “woke” is when not that long ago one had to make an appointment to “see” a manager, be reluctantly granted an interview, be attired in a freshly dry cleaned grovelling suit on the day and approach his desk on hands and knees all the while strewing neutral coloured glass shards in front of one.
The country town where I live is often referred to as North Northcote, so there was no chance it would vote NO, but at least the rest of the electorate kicked YES right in its wicker basket.
Teal Tofu Zones. I like it! TTZ’s, or TT Zones
Someone calling herself Professor Dr Marcia Langton AO, delivered the 24th Annual Hawke Lecture at the Adelaide Convention Centre on 7 December 2023. Surely an imposter? Or is it that Leftist values can be readily bought and sold fairly cheaply.
Agree with Tim Blair here that Langton et al (Davis, Mayo) helped the NO vote along quite considerably. Jacinta Price (brilliant) and Warren Mundine provided the best of the sharp NO optimism. The sclerotic YES activists had no answer to them, nor to the question on point explaining how a Constitutional change would alter the degraded living conditions of the outback communities.
This laughable conceit, that the Voice failed because of racist hicks who were tricked. Everyone would like aboriginal disadvantage to end, but there was no reason to think that that a constitutionally-entrenched advisory body would fix what the numerous other bodies had not. On the contrary, what people saw was the creation of a bureaucracy which would be treated quasi-reverentially because of its constitutional status, which would inevitably become highly politicised, and whose pronouncements, whether sensible or not on any particular issue, would be hard for certain kinds of politicians to resist. The social and economic implications of that are vast.
And Australians have a particularly good radar when it comes to attempts to patronise them. That TV ad was breathtakingly condescending, with its eager-beaver young folk, all of them child-savants; the grumpy old grand-dad who didn’t seem to like gay marriage much but who you *knew* had a heart of gold and would come good on the Voice; and the sentimental appeals to great indigenous sporting moments. They didn’t even get that bit right. Where was Lewis Jetta’s legendary run for goal in the 2012 prelim against the Magpies? I’m sure that Tim would agree that showing an extravagantly talented indigenous footballer trashing Collingwood would have been quite a vote-winner.
I’d not seen “Lewis Jetta’s legendary run for goal”, so I watched it on YouTube and was taken aback by the obvious disregard for the Rules shown by the umpire in allowing it – the ball has to be bounced or touched on the ground at least once every 15 metres and as the commentator said “He’s run 100 metres and had 3 bounces, how’s your maths?”.
Not my truth, lbl