The chorus of “You’re The Voice” begins:
“You’re the voice, try and understand itMake a noise and make it clear…_”
One of the No supporters on social media was suggesting that this was a terrible own goal by the Yes campaign because it was suggesting that it was hard to understand but given the slogan “Don’t Know, Vote No”, I’m not so sure that they’re right.
I mean, the slogan “Don’t Know, Vote No” has a subtext that if you’re ignorant, come and join Pauline and Andrew Bolt and Tony Abbott because you’re our sort of person…
Ah yes, I’m typical of those elites who think they know better just because they didn’t run a fish and chip shop or drop out or university or knight a Duke. Actually I would think that giving a knighthood to the Queen’s husband is about as elitist as one can get but whatever…
Last week was a bad week for Labor and the Voice according to Newspoll which had Labor slipping by two percent in a recent poll and a majority against the Voice. While it’s true that this has probably been the worst week for Albanese since he was elected, it’s also another time when the media reported a poll as though there’s no such thing as the three percent margin of error. And, while we’re at it, let’s all ignore the fact that polls have been less than perfect when picking election winners. Polls aren’t useless but it’s bit like getting the score at three quarter time and trying to work out which football team will win. There’s a lot still to happen, so if one team has is a little closer than they were it doesn’t mean that much to the final outcome.
But the big news of the week was Peter Dutton’s amazing stroke of genius where he promised a second poll on First Nations recognition when he’s Prime Minister.
On one level this is a bit like me promising a free electric vehicle to every driver once I’m PM; it’s a bold promise but I’m never going to be PM so what the hell…
However, it does raise a few interesting points. For a start, it does beg the question is this like the recognition that Howard promised or is it more like the recognition that Abbott promised? Or are we talking about the plan from Malcolm Turnbull. Did Scott Morrison mention it at all or did he say, “Look mate, I don’t hold a referendum…”
Whatever, I’m sure the plan is to try to win over those who think that there should be some sort of recognition but are a bit confused about what a Voice looks like because the No campaign have been suggesting that nobody knows what a Voice looks like because you can’t see a Voice, you can only hear one so the idea of putting one in the Constitution is at odds with what the people writing the Constitution wanted because they expected the Indigenous population to do the decent thing and disappear so we’d be going against the wishes of our forefathers who weren’t racist and it’s outrageous to suggest that we should call anyone a racist unless they’re one of those people voting Yes.
But Dutton has opened another risk by suggesting a future referendum.
I want to make it clear that not all people voting No are racists. However, I do notice that some of the people who are making incredibly racist remarks are very upset when anyone suggests just because they’ve said something bigoted that they’re a racist, complaining that it’s the Yes voters who are sanction apartheid and we’ll end up losing our backyards to people who never bothered to invent the Hills Hoist in 60,000 years.
And it’s these people that form the hard NO. If they turn on Dutton because he dares to support recognition to people who we don’t like because if it wasn’t for them nobody would be calling us racist, then Dutton may have a whole new set of problems. What will Pauline think about this second referendum idea? How will t go down with Andrew Bolt?
At the moment, the media is giving a lot of time to people arguing a case against the proposed change – supposedly on the grounds of balance. I’ve noticed that they are a number of Indigenous people being interviewed who are members of organisations which aren’t exactly high profile. There was a whole story on what Tony Mundine thought. However, the only Indigenous people seeming to be given exposure are high profile proponents of the Yes case like Linda Burney or Thomas Mayo. However, if there’s one thing the media like, it’s conflict and if there’s any sort of a brouhaha on the No proponents then it might all shift to the divisions between them. Sort of robbing Peter to pay Pauline.
The other possibility is that by the time the vote comes around, that some people will be so sick of the conversation that they idea that we’ll have to go through the whole thing again if Dutton gets elected that they may vote Yes just to get it out of the way.
And amazingly, the anti-Voice voters seem upset that the Yes campaign have managed to obtain approval to use a 1986 hit, complaining that, by giving it, John Farnham sold out, even though he wasn’t paid. Someone even posted that they’d thrown all their John Farnham records in the bin, which – given they’ve already purchased them before CDs were a thing, won’t cost Whispering Jack a cent. (Wondering if I should. add what records are for younger readers… Mm, also wondering if I should explain what CDs are…)
While it does seem like an uphill battle for the Voice to succeed, I wonder how many people will go into the polling booth thinking that this won’t get up so I might vote Yes anyway because I don’t really want to be on the side of Hanson and friends.
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