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I promised my wife that, after the referendum, I’d now let it go and put my mind to those vexatious tasks neglected for too long, like fixing the screen door. But it’s very early Sunday morning as I write and she’s still in bed. Some random thoughts.
I have repeatedly written that it would not be enough for this Voice to be defeated but that it must go down in flames. Which, thank God, it did.
I have also written that a massive defeat would be an opportunity to reset the debate on Aboriginal affairs, arguing that what was once about Aboriginal welfare and advancement has morphed over the past few decades into Aboriginal power, most obviously evidenced by the elevation of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags to the same status as our National Flag. So it was very heartening to see only the National Flag behind Peter Dutton and Jacinta Price when they addressed the media last night. This could be my next campaign (after the screen door, of course).
As to Albanese, he gave the speech he had to give and he did a reasonable job, but his hypocrisy – or duplicity – was laid bare for all to see when he said, ‘the issues we sought to address have not gone away.’ Well neither has his proposed solution – the Voice, which, even if the referendum had succeeded, would still have needed to be legislated.
If this Voice was so critical to Aboriginal welfare that it had to be entrenched in the Constitution, Mr Albanese, why not legislate it? Chris Kenny, who has decried the lack of bi-partisanship, has repeatedly relied on the specious logic that the Coalition also wants a Voice and the only difference between the rival parties on this issue is whether it should be in the Constitution. Will he now call on the government to negotiate with the Coalition to legislate this allegedly status quo-changing initiative? Kenny also dismissed claims the Voice would be divisive by asking ‘if a legislated Voice is not divisive, why would a constitutional one be divisive?’ By the same logic then, perhaps he could explain why a constitutionally entrenched Voice would be effective, but a legislated one would not?
Let me hasten to add that I am not advocating a Voice, merely calling out Albanese’s refusal to legislate one.
Predictably, the defeat was greeted with an emotional response from the leaders of the Yes campaign, whose angst will have been given extra juice by Albanese’s repeated assurances that this was ‘a modest proposal’, ‘a hand outstretched in invitation’ and ‘just good manners’.I have not been able to access the full text of their statement but here it is as quoted in the the Australian (emphasis added):
Indigenous leaders across Australia who have supported the voice have lamented the defeated referendum as a “bitter irony” in that newcomers who had been on the continent for 235 years would “refuse recognition to the true owners of Australia”.
“The referendum was a chance for newcomers to show a long-refused grace and gratitude and to acknowledge that the brutal dispossession of our people underwrote their every advantage in this country,” the leaders said.
“For more than six years, we have explained to our nation why the voice was our great hope to achieve real change for our families and communities.”
The statement declared that it was now a “time for silence, to mourn and deeply consider the consequence of this outcome’’.
It called for a week of silence from Saturday night to “grieve this outcome and reflect on its meaning and significance”.
“Much will be asked about the role of racism and prejudice against Indigenous people in this result. The only thing we ask is that each and every Australian who voted in this election reflect hard on this question,” the statement said.
“We will not rest long. Pack up the Uluru Statement from the Heart. Fly our flags low. Talk not of recognition and reconciliation.
“Re-gather our strength and resolve, and when we determine a new direction for justice and our rights, let us once again unite. Let us convene in due course to carefully consider our path forward.”
And there was this banner(unattributed) in the middle of the article:
‘Right now there is a very visceral feeling that millions of Australians hate them.’
Given all the ‘grace and gratitude’ that have already been extended to Aboriginal people, ranging from Land Rights to cheap opera tickets – and not to mention nearly $40 billion per year – there is not a lot of self-awareness in that. Am I to believe Thomas Mayo, born in 1978, is a true owner of this country but I am not?
And note the trickery in the racism statement: We are not saying you are racist, but you probably are.
A couple of minor observations. I couldn’t let this go without one more swipe at Chris Kenny, whose totally disingenuous defence of the Voice continued unabated throughout the panel discussion – not a lot of self-awareness there either. During the campaign he repeatedly claimed the fall in support for the Voice was caused by misinformation spread by the No campaign, and fuelled by the Coalition whose only motivation was to gain party political advantage. What he seemed to be saying was that much of the support for the No campaign was based on a desire to punish the Labor Party and advantage the Coalition. I have previously pointed out that, if that were so, we would see that mindset reflected in the 2PP polling. And Kenny himself made that point last night when he said that you can’t draw any inference that this result would be reflected in a general election, or words to that effect.
And one minor, perhaps mean-spirited point, when Communications Minister Michelle Rowland was praising Minister Linda Burney, on Sky News last night, she noted that she had had a tough life, had only met her father when she was 28 and that she had lost her son ‘another statistic of closing the gap’. Burney’s son, Binni, died recently at the age of 33 after a life troubled by drugs and mental disorder. That is very sad, as is the fact that Burney’s partner, Rick Farley, also died suddenly in 2006. But Rowland’s glib attribution of the death of Binni Farley to ‘the gap’ is a great example of the cynical misuse of tropes such as ‘the gap’ or the ‘stolen generations’. As was Burney’s past claims of having been administered under the Flora and Fauna Act (since withdrawn) or not having been counted in the census until she was 10.
Jacinta Price gave the best speech of the night, and she will continue to be not only a political star but also a very effective Minister for Indigenous Australians (in a hopefully renamed ministry) in short order.
Finally, Peter Dutton must have been reading my playbook. You’re at 100% so far, Peter, keep it up.
Kenny screeches at Credlin:
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https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/voice-to-parliament/peta-credlin-clashes-with-chris-kenny-over-voice-defeat/video/70619fadce55e78094efa701a26fe59f
I meant to put this point in the article but it slipped through the cracks. The first thing we need to do in resetting the debate is to go stop talking about Aboriginal disadvantage. To close the gap we need to address Aboriginal dysfunction. They are two different things.
The ABC’s chosen ‘expert’ this morning opines that the ‘Yes’ vote in inner city areas and the ACT was due to the greater number of highly educated, relatively wealthy people in those areas. They are, he noted, more ‘cosmopolitan’ and more globally aware. He may be right. In which case the conclusion must either be that everyone else is provincial, stupid and racist – probably the preferred conclusion – or else that people who live in a privileged environment that is insulated from the real world are actually living in a fantasy resembling a cigarette advertisement.
I had the same reaction when I heard that pathetic remark that the Yes voters were well educated etc. I thought – well, that obviously make the rest of us knuckle dragging boofheads. They would do well to get out of their isolated gilded cages and see what real life is all about and listen to other voices for a change.
I’d guess naive, self-righteous, virtue-signallers, living as remotely from “the problem” as possible would best explain the “Yes” hot-beds. Says all you need to know about Canberra, and was fully predictable. The states (and NT) with the biggest Aboriginal populations had the biggest No turnouts — I wonder why?
After reading the comments above I reached for my notes on the writings of George Orwell, one who is beloved and oft-quoted by a very public YES supporter here in Canberra. I soon found the following:
‘What sickens me about left-wing people, especially the intellectuals, is their utter ignorance of the way things actually happen.’
“Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.”
‘The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.’
Perhaps he missed these observations, or the wider pathology among ‘intellectuals’ that Orwell identified: ‘the instinct to bow down before the conqueror of the moment, to accept the existing trend as irreversible’.
Can we expect just a few symbolic changes to reflect the clear verdict given by the people?
Cessation of:-
‘Welcome to country’ ceremonies – as promised by the Voice before the referendum..
‘Triple-flagging’ (and removal of the Cuban Lazo flag from the Sydney Harbour Bridge.)
City renaming
Conferring of magical status on aboriginal people and denying their humanity.
Just a start.
Thank God that’s all over and done with. We can now get on and maintain the unity of the country, as Jacinta Price indicated in her great after referendum speech. The ABC types are not giving up however. On News Radio this morning they played Jacinta’s speech, followed by an interview with some academic non-entity predicting enormous reputational damage with other nations. And, thanks Peter to you and the other writers whose articles in Quadrant so clearly made the obvious case against enshrining The Voice in the Constitution.
Further to the issue of “education”: these people are not “well-educated”, but well-indoctrinated, which produces a surfeit of academic non-entities
Totally agree with that, mrsfarley 2001. Indoctrination has been taking place since the leftist activist campaign started years ago and they thought enough people had been doctrinated through the education system to achieve success. The rest of us have been doing “rope-a-dope” in the boxing ring of politics and society for too long and now it’s time to undo all their “work” and get back to achieving practical and beneficial outcomes where needed.
Just watching Insiders, an unaccustomed treat. Panel gave Albanese a tick for accepting responsibility for the failure. Nothing about what consequences that responsibility might entail.
” Outsiders “this morning was a treat. Rowan was fired up and his take on the consequences for Albanese was “dead man walking”! Love it.
BTW Peter, thank you for your wonderful contributions on this topic along with other Quadrant regular contributors such as Tony Thomas, Peter Smith, Keith Windschuttle and others. All voices of sanity and proven right.
Thank you Ceres.
Yet to watch Outsiders. I generally do it in the evening accompanied by a glass of red.
The NO voters did not win, we all lost in the referendum. The proposal was to include a racist and divisive provision in our Constitution. It was contrary to our egalitarian ethos and should never have been put.
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There is nobody in our country who does not want the dysfunction and misery in aboriginal remote communities to end.
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We have to “Recognise a Better Way”. All children must go to school and be led into seeing that integration into the economic life of Australia is the only proven way to close the gap.
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It will be interesting to see if South Australia proceeds with a State Voice now that 64 percent in that State have voted NO.
Thanks, Peter. If there’s one quality that typifies the Yes advocates, it’s “not a lot of self-awareness”, even after the event. Augurs poorly for future “unity” and “cooperation”. Still going on, after the event, about “mis-” and “dis-information”, when the problem all along was no information from their side (not to mention the even more fundamental objection of racial division).
Now that The Voice has been buried, what’s to become of the NIAA and Coalition of Peaks, both set up expressly to advise governments on “Closing the Gap”, but which have kept an extremely low profile throughout all this? Will they speak more loudly, and will Albanese now listen more attentively (and maybe read a few reports in depth, were he capable)?
On a related note, I was stunned (and extremely disappointed) to read in today’s Weekend Australian Magazine (14/15 Oct, 2023) Phillip Adams announce that his wife was “First Nations”! That explains their poverty, and her limited life opportunities and longevity . . . she clearly needed to have a voice to government. I’d have to say poor Phillip, whom I once greatly admired, must be well into his dotage.
I read that Adams’ wife was born in St Joseph’s Women’s Refuge in Adelaide, adopted as a baby and later learnt her birth mother was Indigenous.
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I know you cannot determine an Aborigine by skin colour or facial features, but I doubt she learnt her birth mother was indigenous by looking in a mirror, and I’m unaware of any mention of it when a newsreader at SBS, presenter of Midweek or co-anchor of Channel Nine’s Today Show.
Does this mean the Yes mob will now directly jump up to their next step, Treaty and Truth-telling?
And does it mean freedom from more Welcome-to-Country ceremonies, or that we can at least object openly to them?
Congratulations to Quadrant, I’m sure its relentless work had cut-through.
Totally agree pgang. Quadrant has been a force for the No campaign.
Well you, rosross, must be all in for the yes campaign , if your pro Palestinian stance is consistent with the referendum.
Agree pgang great work Quadrant!
Add to this my own most grateful voice. Thank you to the doughty cultural warriors.
Australia has made the right call this time. And I join Peter in saying thank God!
Thank God it’s all over. The fact that the NO vote got up in winning numbers in Labor seats was the icing on the cake.
Thank you to all the commenters above for your support.
I actually thought that the Referendum would get up, albeit by a very narrow margin, based on the strength of the omni-present “Yes” campaign; I certainly underestimated the good sense of Australian voters!
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Chris Kenny: I remember somewhere Kenny saying that “No” supporters would end up with egg on their face! The guy’s a Buffoon!
I was not sure of outcomes but heartily relieved by the result.
I live in an electorate where the Yes vote was about 55%. Luckily I know who most of them are because they all put signs up. One of them on leaving the voting area yesterday thought he was being quite smart when he said ” Three letters, it’s pretty simple really”
Yeh – postmodernists might call this “synchronicity”. Your man is a simpleton. And, on this very theme, Canberra should now be highly-obvious as the black hole it has always been for other people’s money.
Such a heartening outcome. Most Australians have a good bullshit detector and reject racism.
The resounding NO vote and its fallout will be interpreted in many ways – probably nearly as many as there are commentators.
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It was certainly a resounding vote. To put it in context the last referendum proposal claiming to do something positive for our First Australians was carried with a 90.77% YES vote in 1967.
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That tells me a number of things but perhaps the most important being: Australians aren’t inherently racist as some YES advocates were saying about the overwhelming NO result. Because if we were there would never have been such an overwhelming YES vote in 1967.
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Obviously there were other reasons which led to the clear defeat of the YES case. But I think it’s worth putting to bed the claim that it was based on racism.
I think the YES case was defeated because many people did not really understand what the constitutional change meant.
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That’s not so surprising because the YES case advocates didn’t seem to know what it meant either, in a practical sense.
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They had the Voice package meaning many things ranging from a watershed moment in indigenous affairs in Australia for the practical good of First Australians to simply providing provision for advice to parliament and government without saying how that would work in practice.
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Given that context the NO case slogan that “if you don’t know vote NO” was probably compelling for many people.
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The YES case also confused the question of constitutional recognition with a Voice. To me they were separate issues. The former arguably would have been carried on its own. And I believe it will be put again on its own and carried after people on all sides have been given the opportunity to reflect on this result.
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And as the PM said it is worth remembering that no referendum has ever been passed in Australia without the support of the major parties. That would have had an effect.
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However I’d be doubtful, given the resounding numbers, that this referendum would have been passed even with that. There would still have been a powerful NO case put by many people including Quadrant (Incidentally I didn’t fully agree with the case generally put by most Quadrant’s writers).
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It’s also worth remembering major party support in itself will not necessarily carry a referendum. It did not carry the 1967 referendum for example on the nexus between the House of Representatives and the senate. It was resoundingly defeated with ironically nearly the same numbers as the Voice was defeated.
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Hopefully there will be some positive fallouts from this result, especially if people heed many of the points made by Senator Jacinta Price. Greater recognition of her abilities has been one positive fallout in itself.
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But as I predicted in posts earlier before the referendum : our First Australians would be devastated by the NO result. That’s actually the word I used and I notice it was the exact word a number used in the aftermath of the referendum. I think some who argued the YES case should bear part of the responsibility for that.
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For the record I voted YES.
But we knew that from your punctuation
Lonsdale
Oh really? How insightful of you.
Thanks
You’re Welcome.
Oh and Lonsdale I’m curious … are you going to have anything substantive or coherent to say on the article or are these your only comments?
For the record I did not vote, having had myself removed from the Electoral Roll after the corrupt election on 16 February 1980 for the South Australian House of Assembly seat of Norwood, and vowing that I owed it to myself to never again participate, given that I did not have the time, ability or sufficient motive to try to correct the corruption that occurred that day and of which the AEC was properly informed, but did nothing.
October 17, 2023
It’s a good thing that the majority of Australians didn’t follow suit. As I assume you were opposed to the “Voice,” your abstinence from the system we have (whatever levels of corruption it contains) deprived the No side of a vote. As it turns out, that did not matter–but what if a few hundred thousand other “Voice” opposers had done the same?
“…but what if a few hundred thousand other “Voice” opposers had done the same?”
Assuming the latest figures I’ve seen are correct (8,471,561 NO, 5,472,312 YES)
1,499,624 others could have done the same and there would still have been an overall majority for NO.
Any votes still to be counted will likely change that figure, but not significantly.
October 19, 2023
This time, perhaps, but not every time (particularly for individual seats in an election).
In any case, the actual number is beside the point. If enough people had felt the way you do, it WOULD have made a difference. I cannot understand people who were very opposed to the Voice, yet refused to help vote it down. All the opposition in the world would have meant nothing if only Yes voters had turned up at the polls. Excuse the comparison, but it reminds me of some pacifists throughout history who have been very thankful when their country won a war in which they refused to fight.
Only some ‘First Australians’ (that is, Aborigines) were devastated. A lot of them were delighted.
BO, on the nose. Very brave though to admit to utter stupidity.
Curious idea that we owe all our success merely to dispossession. The advantages we enjoy in this country are all because of the same formula that led Anglo societies to be successful everywhere including their land of origin: rule and respect of law between strangers, civil society, entrepreneurship, personal ambition married with communal spirit, bravery, cooperation and (until recently) a tolerant faith and commitment to family. The British could have arrived and made a complete mess. Instead they created the best society in the world and everyone gets to be a part of it – if they want to
Albo is quite weak if he was relying on a ‘voice’ to solve Aboriginal dysfunction. And as Peter reminds us: most Aborigines are as functional, effective and enthusiastic contributors to our national life as are members of every other ethno-cultural group.
If there are real problems that are amenable to policy changes, he could make those changes from day one of his government. But he didn’t. In fact, he started on a wrecking campaign: a typical leftist ploy to maintain an issue which will in the future leverage power.
The premise of a ‘Voice’ benchmarked on skin colour or race, should neither be inserted into our Constitution nor legislated in parliament. Because its manifestations are abhorently just wrong.
A factual example of the immoral outcomes of these marxist identity practices can be seen in those hyprocritical corporate companies who vomit their praises for aboriginal elders “past, current and emerging” and yet none of those hypocrites have an aboriginal person on their Board or Executive Management team.
Alas, come tomorrow, the webpages of the hypocrites will see no change.
If you want to improve a certain minorities situation then educate them on good catholic values, employ them and enforce a 2 year military service program.
Thanks for your work Peter,
The First thing we need to do is to revert the Minister for Indigenous Australians back to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs (as WA did years ago) and restore the 17 Million or so Australians born in Australia to their Indigeneity.
This takes nothing away from the Aboriginal People who will still be entitled to both descriptions but restores the majority of Australians to the title of their birth.
Questions:
1. Do you agree that to be sensibly defined to be of a particular race, in the case of Aborigines to be of the Australoid race, rather than merely a descendant of that race, a person’s genetic make-up must contain a majority of that race’s genes?
2. Do you agree that those relatively few Aborigines living in the ‘gap’ do so largely because they are clinging to supposed traditional culture instead of moving to adapt to modern Australian culture?
3. Do you agree that Aborigines who choose to live ‘on country’ will forever need government subsidies to survive where there is no prospect of real jobs and no need for others to pay to use their country?
4. Do you agree that Treaties and the like with Aborigines are divisive and have no place in Australia?
5. Do you agree that presently Aborigines can claim as ‘sacred’ any rock, river, hill, tree, etc, etc, with there being no requirement to prove ‘sacredness’ and that governments at all levels kowtow to such claims to the detriment of other Australians?
I agree with all of that.
Now that is something to which I’m happy to vote Yes!
And then go on to say that these are the kinds of things that must be taken out of the Taboo and Censored categories and thoroughly aired and debated until sensible reversals of policy emerge. Methinks this approach would receive a resounding Yes from the Referendum No voters.