Im now firmly convinced the referendum failing is a great thing, especially since its projected to be quite a decisive loss that sends a much stronger message than a very slight loss would. Which means this will have been one of the greatest political own goals imaginable by Albo. I think the loss will be so great that it will effectively poison any radical aboriginal policy for years to come.
I agree in principle, but maybe for different reasons. I think a decisive loss can be a good thing if it moves us away from radical left wing activist style policies. If a decisive loss means Indigenous issues just get ignored then I think it will be a disaster and a tragedy. What is happening in Indigenous communities today really is shameful especially in a developed country.
However, part of my reasons for voting against the Voice is that I believe it will be a platform for the same tired, left-wing activist led policies which are based on grievance and do nothing to move the country forward. I fear we will see more poor legislation like the WA Cultural Heritage Act, or policy ideas like what came out of the Victorian Yoorrook Justice Commission (you know a report has gone too far to the left when Dan Andrews goes to pains to be non-committal). A lot of Indigenous activists seen to be focused on grievance politics and re-litigating the past. At no point do you hear them talking about bringing jobs, education and essential services to disadvantaged communities. Take the Yoorrook Justice Commission's recent report - it's just basically an attack on the "racist white system" and a demand that there be a separate justice/child protection system for Aboriginals. At no point does it highlight the root causes of the issues many indigenous communities face (poor education, a lack of economic prospects and rampant domestic and family violence).
Im hoping a decisive "No" will send the message that it is time to included other ideas on Indigenous issues, such as those from Warren Mundine and Jacinta Price. There needs to be a bit more right-wing/left-wing push and pull so we can get some more centrist led policies in the space.
some data nerd projects an outcome of 38.4% +/- 5% for Yes on the day of the referendum. Polls will need to be unbelievably wrong for Yes to have a chance of getting an overall majority, plus WA and Qld are unwinnable at this point meaning Yes needs to win in every other state despite not having a consistent polling advantage in any of them in order to satisfy the double majority requirement
It really is shocking, earlier this year "Yes" held a 15 point lead and I thought no way they can lose from here. Now with 6 weeks out this has completely reversed. Albo is coping a lot of blame for this, but to me the "Yes" campaign deserves the lion's share because they have run possibly one of the worst political campaigns in my lifetime. Despite having a huge financial advantage, they are unable and unwilling to rebut any of the "No" campaigns criticisms. When John Farnham gave the "Yes" campaign permission to use his song, I thought they would come back with a cracking, all-time great political ad. Instead what we got was a shockingly out of touch video - it's a three minute ad and you can only tell it's about the Referendum 30 seconds from the end. Just a gobsmacking lack of detail when the electorate is crying out for it.
The icing on the cake was when Peter Dutton responded "
The Voice is the perfect song for the Yes campaign, listen to the lyrics, "You're the Voice try and understand it". Just sums it up really.