In a historic national vote in mid-October, Australians decisively rejected a constitutional amendment that would have permanently enshrined race-based rights and privileges. The referendum question asked whether the Constitution should be amended to recognize Aboriginals as the “first peoples” of the country and then authorize creation of a permanent Indigenous group — the Voice — to advise both Parliament and the executive government (ie the cabinet.)The referendum question seemed clear enough: “A Proposed Law: To alter the Constitution to recognize the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. Do you approve this proposed alteration?” But both the referendum question and the constitutional amendment itself failed to limit or define the scope and powers of the proposed Voice.The Voice was to be a permanent body of selected (not necessarily elected) aboriginals who would advise Parliament, Cabinet and all levels of the bureaucracy on all aspects of policy and lawmaking that affected Aboriginals. The wording of what the Voice was to be was broad and, if implemented, would have resulted in the examination of virtually all policies and laws “relating to” Aboriginal people.Australia’s Labour government formed an all-party parliamentary committee to discuss the Voice, but the committee rejected the opposition’s concerns out of hand. Accordingly, the Liberal and National parties decided to oppose the referendum question. Thus, the referendum lacked bipartisan support, which had been key to every other successful referendum in Australia’s long history of such popular votes — including the 1967 vote in which Australians overwhelmingly voted to remove two race-based clauses discriminating against Aboriginals from their Constitution.Liberal Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, a mixed-race Aboriginal woman from Alice Springs, was appointed the Opposition’s official spokesperson and became the most effective 'No' campaigner. She objected to a new political body that would divide the country by race.Senator Nampijinpa Price’s view was all Australians must be legally and constitutionally equal. A Voice for only one race would be counterproductive. “Whether you’ve been in this country for 60,000 years or became an Australian 60 seconds ago, you are equal in our Constitution,” she eloquently argued. “You have the same rights and opportunities — the same democratic voice — as every other Australian. Proponents of the Voice want to change that.”When the proposed constitutional amendment and referendum text were announced in late March, polling put the Yes side ahead 60 to 40%. But as the details of the Voice proposal emerged and questions were asked, support began to fall. This dynamic brings to mind a similar swing of public opinion in Canada during the national referendum on the Charlottetown Accord in 1992.The Yes campaign’s many friends in the Australian media responded to the concerns of the No side with spite, accusing No voters of narrow-mindedness, misinformation, telling “Trump-like lies,” lack of vision, ill-will and racism. Marcia Langton, a well-known Aboriginal academic from the University of Melbourne, said every one of the No arguments came down to “base racism…or just sheer stupidity.”Labour Senator Pat Dodson asserted voting No amounted to dehumanizing or negating Aboriginals altogether: “You can’t deny a people whose culture has been here for 60,000 years. If that’s what happens with a No vote, that’s what you’re doing, you’re saying ‘you people have no history here, you have no legitimacy here, you have no right to be here.’ That’s an intolerable proposition.”And yet popular support for the Yes side continued to sag. Australians wanted to know just what the Voice’s powers would be and whether it could veto national legislation or policies — and they weren’t getting answers. As voting day drew closer, the Yes campaign took to saying that only in the last week would Australians really turn their attention to the topic. But each time voters did just that, asking questions, support for the Voice dropped. In contrast, the No campaign was getting far better traction by pointing out the proposal’s obvious flaws.To pass, the referendum needed a national majority of votes plus majorities in four of Australia’s six states. What happened on voting day? Conservative Queensland and West Australia were expected to vote no and did, hammering it with massive No votes. But so did South Australia and Tasmania. Even Victoria and New South Wales, the two big and often more left-leaning states which had been widely assumed to vote Yes, voted No. The sparsely settled Northern Territory voted No. The sole jurisdiction to go Yes was the Australian Capital Territory, Canberra.The national result was a resounding 39.94% Yes, 60.06% No, or 6,286,894 votes Yes and 9,452,792 votes No. The Voice was dead.The Yes campaign took a week of silence to mourn the loss, then issued an unsigned letter expressing its disappointment. “The truth is that the majority of Australians have committed a shameful act whether knowingly or not, and there is nothing positive to be interpreted from it,” the letter reads.The uniform and blatantly expressed bias of the country’s elites was reminiscent of the UK’s Brexit referendum in 2016 and, here in Canada, the aforementioned Charlottetown Accord. As in those seismic votes, Australians endured a deluge of politicians, academics, Aboriginal activists, media mouthpieces, celebrities and corporate leaders telling them to do something based on a combination of platitudes, guilt, insults and threats.The people listened politely — and decided the elites were wrong.Eric Hughes is a dual Australian-Canadian citizen living on the East Coast of New South Wales. He was the budget director for former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s two winning leadership campaigns.The original, full-length version of this essay was recently published in C2C Journal.
In a historic national vote in mid-October, Australians decisively rejected a constitutional amendment that would have permanently enshrined race-based rights and privileges. The referendum question asked whether the Constitution should be amended to recognize Aboriginals as the “first peoples” of the country and then authorize creation of a permanent Indigenous group — the Voice — to advise both Parliament and the executive government (ie the cabinet.)The referendum question seemed clear enough: “A Proposed Law: To alter the Constitution to recognize the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. Do you approve this proposed alteration?” But both the referendum question and the constitutional amendment itself failed to limit or define the scope and powers of the proposed Voice.The Voice was to be a permanent body of selected (not necessarily elected) aboriginals who would advise Parliament, Cabinet and all levels of the bureaucracy on all aspects of policy and lawmaking that affected Aboriginals. The wording of what the Voice was to be was broad and, if implemented, would have resulted in the examination of virtually all policies and laws “relating to” Aboriginal people.Australia’s Labour government formed an all-party parliamentary committee to discuss the Voice, but the committee rejected the opposition’s concerns out of hand. Accordingly, the Liberal and National parties decided to oppose the referendum question. Thus, the referendum lacked bipartisan support, which had been key to every other successful referendum in Australia’s long history of such popular votes — including the 1967 vote in which Australians overwhelmingly voted to remove two race-based clauses discriminating against Aboriginals from their Constitution.Liberal Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, a mixed-race Aboriginal woman from Alice Springs, was appointed the Opposition’s official spokesperson and became the most effective 'No' campaigner. She objected to a new political body that would divide the country by race.Senator Nampijinpa Price’s view was all Australians must be legally and constitutionally equal. A Voice for only one race would be counterproductive. “Whether you’ve been in this country for 60,000 years or became an Australian 60 seconds ago, you are equal in our Constitution,” she eloquently argued. “You have the same rights and opportunities — the same democratic voice — as every other Australian. Proponents of the Voice want to change that.”When the proposed constitutional amendment and referendum text were announced in late March, polling put the Yes side ahead 60 to 40%. But as the details of the Voice proposal emerged and questions were asked, support began to fall. This dynamic brings to mind a similar swing of public opinion in Canada during the national referendum on the Charlottetown Accord in 1992.The Yes campaign’s many friends in the Australian media responded to the concerns of the No side with spite, accusing No voters of narrow-mindedness, misinformation, telling “Trump-like lies,” lack of vision, ill-will and racism. Marcia Langton, a well-known Aboriginal academic from the University of Melbourne, said every one of the No arguments came down to “base racism…or just sheer stupidity.”Labour Senator Pat Dodson asserted voting No amounted to dehumanizing or negating Aboriginals altogether: “You can’t deny a people whose culture has been here for 60,000 years. If that’s what happens with a No vote, that’s what you’re doing, you’re saying ‘you people have no history here, you have no legitimacy here, you have no right to be here.’ That’s an intolerable proposition.”And yet popular support for the Yes side continued to sag. Australians wanted to know just what the Voice’s powers would be and whether it could veto national legislation or policies — and they weren’t getting answers. As voting day drew closer, the Yes campaign took to saying that only in the last week would Australians really turn their attention to the topic. But each time voters did just that, asking questions, support for the Voice dropped. In contrast, the No campaign was getting far better traction by pointing out the proposal’s obvious flaws.To pass, the referendum needed a national majority of votes plus majorities in four of Australia’s six states. What happened on voting day? Conservative Queensland and West Australia were expected to vote no and did, hammering it with massive No votes. But so did South Australia and Tasmania. Even Victoria and New South Wales, the two big and often more left-leaning states which had been widely assumed to vote Yes, voted No. The sparsely settled Northern Territory voted No. The sole jurisdiction to go Yes was the Australian Capital Territory, Canberra.The national result was a resounding 39.94% Yes, 60.06% No, or 6,286,894 votes Yes and 9,452,792 votes No. The Voice was dead.The Yes campaign took a week of silence to mourn the loss, then issued an unsigned letter expressing its disappointment. “The truth is that the majority of Australians have committed a shameful act whether knowingly or not, and there is nothing positive to be interpreted from it,” the letter reads.The uniform and blatantly expressed bias of the country’s elites was reminiscent of the UK’s Brexit referendum in 2016 and, here in Canada, the aforementioned Charlottetown Accord. As in those seismic votes, Australians endured a deluge of politicians, academics, Aboriginal activists, media mouthpieces, celebrities and corporate leaders telling them to do something based on a combination of platitudes, guilt, insults and threats.The people listened politely — and decided the elites were wrong.Eric Hughes is a dual Australian-Canadian citizen living on the East Coast of New South Wales. He was the budget director for former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s two winning leadership campaigns.The original, full-length version of this essay was recently published in C2C Journal.
