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Australians vote No in referendum that promised change for First Nations people but couldn’t deliver

With a two-letter word, Australians have struck down the first attempt at constitutional change in 24 years, major media outlets reported, a move experts say will inflict lasting damage on First Nations people and suspend any hopes of modernizing the nation’s founding document.

Early results from the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) suggested that most of the country’s 17.6 million registered voters had written No on their ballots, and CNN affiliates 9 News, Sky News and SBS all projected no path forward for the Yes campaign.

The proposal, to recognize Indigenous people in the constitution and create an Indigenous body to advise government on policies that affect them, needed a majority nationally and in four of six states to pass.

autotldr Bot ,

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Supporters of the Yes vote had hailed it as an opportunity to accept the outreached hand of First Nations people and to work with them to solve problems in their most remote communities – higher rates of suicide, domestic violence, children in out-of-home care and incarceration.

Constitutional experts, Australians of the Year, eminent retired judges, companies large and small, universities, sporting legends, netballers, footballers, reality stars and Hollywood actors flagged their endorsement.

Aussie music legend John Farnham gifted a song considered to be the unofficial Australian anthem to a Yes advertisement with a stirring message of national unity.

Kevin Argus, a marketing expert from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), told CNN the Yes campaign was a “case study in how not to message change on matters of social importance.”

Argus said only the No campaign had used simple messaging, maximized the reach of personal profiles, and acted decisively to combat challenges to their arguments with clear and repeatable slogans.

Maree Teesson, director of the Matilda Center for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use at the University of Sydney, told CNN the Voice to Parliament had offered self-determination to Indigenous communities, an ability to have a say over what happens in their lives.

The original article contains 945 words, the summary contains 204 words. Saved 78%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

calhoon2005 ,
@calhoon2005@aussie.zone avatar

After a definite disinformation campaign with a side of racist fear mongering…ffs. I’m embarrassed to be an Australian.

alvvayson ,

Here in the European press, I read that many Aboriginals also opposed it. They want recognition, land transfers or compensation.

To really reconcile over past wrongs, I get that. There needs to be something substantive and I think something like that will only be possible when most boomers are gone.

MuThyme ,

The point is that this would have given them a path toward voicing those sorts of things, directly to the people who can actually do something about it.

It could have been the start to a lot of great change, it was a simple easy thing to do

alvvayson ,

Sure, I understand the idea and it would have been good if it passed.

But they can still voice their opinions, we have free speech, and change in the future is still possible.

BaroqueInMind ,
@BaroqueInMind@kbin.social avatar

Australia does not have free speech and you are delusional to believe that.

In 2003, CSIRO senior scientist Graeme Pearman was reprimanded and encouraged to resign after he spoke out on global warming. The Howard government was accused of limiting the speech of Pearman and other scientists.

And... Oh wait never mind.

ASeriesOfPoorChoices ,

Who is “we” that has free speech, because that isn’t exactly what Australia has.

batmangrundies ,

As others have stated, we explicitly don’t have free speech in Australia.

We also don’t have any laws requiring political campaigns to be truthful. And as we saw, the day after the vote was done. All the leaders of the “No” campaign flat out abandoned indigenous people and explicitly said they wouldn’t be fronting a new referendum for recognition in the constitution without the voice. A promise they made repeatedly.

The leader.od the opposition who spearheaded the no can.paign has been called a fascist by his peers. And once commented that if elected he would do away with parliament and elections if he could.

fiat_lux ,

Many is a bigger word than I would use. Some definitely did, but no group of people has a homogeneous opinion of what the right next actions on any big issue are, and it's kind of weird anyone would expect otherwise. Overall I got the impression that ATSI Australians supported the change, but others may not have felt it looked that way based on what they saw.

only be possible when most boomers are gone.

20 years ago I believed that might be true. Since then i have learnt to never rely on it being about age. Imcreased age can correlate with increased power and the reluctance to change the system to increase competition, but age isn't the cause of stagnant beliefs. In 50 years time there will still be a generation of old people afraid of social change and a bunch of younger people who are the same or just think change is not in their personal best interest, even though it's an entirely different set of people.

We're all going to have to do a lot more than just keep waiting for the elderly to shuffle off the mortal coil if we want something different for the future.

alvvayson ,

Studies of Millenials show that we are not growing more conservative as we age, and neither did boomers.

It’s more that, what is currently considered progressive becomes conservative and new progressive positions emerge.

Boomers didn’t suddenly become opposed to interracial marriages or premarital sex or divorce or against gay people or minorities as they aged. The generations before them had those issues and now that those generations are gone, those issues are no longer issues.

And now the issues are more things like trans rights, reparations, climate justice, etc.

fiat_lux ,

Cool, there will just be a huge group of people marginalising different groups of people unnecessarily. I look forward to it between the news stories of other people in the world killing each other over the same millenia-old territorial disputes.

Please forgive my complete lack of excitement for that prospect; I don't have it in me tonight.

Jaysyn ,
@Jaysyn@kbin.social avatar

those issues are no longer issues.

Maybe not in AU, but they very much are in other places.

ASeriesOfPoorChoices ,

The numbers were about 80+% of First Nations people are for it.

They may/do want recognition, land transfers or compensation, but voting No helped ensure they wouldn’t get anything in the future.

batmangrundies ,

Over 63% of indigenous people voted in favour of the voice.

You are repeating propoganda.

alvvayson ,

No, the European press stated that it was around that number, so no propaganda.

If this was really such a great thing for them, they would vote 90+% in favor and the battle would have been to get the rest of the country over 50%.

For example, New Caledonia voted 96% to remain part of France. That’s much better as referenda between an ex-colonial power and indigenous populations go.

Seems to me like some better solution must be found that can find a majority support among all Australians and a level of unanimity among indigenous Australians.

vantlem ,

63% voted for it after one of the strongest, most targeted disinformation campaigns that Australia had ever seen. The right-wing parties have made this issue so incredibly divisive and inflammatory. Anecdotally, some Indigenous people, who did not want to be the target of further abuse from racist Australians, were convinced that the Voice would make the abuse even worse because of the ongoing hate and outrage they have experienced during this entire debate. I can understand why they wouldn’t want that experience to solidify constitutionally.

TheOriginalGregToo ,

Sounds to me like you’re being rather racist with your assumptions. You’re characterizing a group of people as having monolithic values based on a shared heritage. They’re indoor people with individual beliefs and motivations. You’re also suggesting that they’re easily coerced, or perhaps simple minded. This too is racist and demeaning.

batmangrundies ,

It doesn’t matter. 63% support among indigenous folks is still a landslide.

You’re not arguing in good faith though. Accusing someone of racism like that. So you can go fuck yourself for all I care.

TheOriginalGregToo ,

Cool. Bigot.

batmangrundies ,

80% support polled prior to the campaigns starting. After a relentless campaign of misinformation courtesy of Murdoch. The actual numb r that voted yes was 63%.

In regional Aus, there is a popular, 24/7 Murdoch-run news outlet, Sky News Australia, not to be confused with Sky News.

Peddlephile ,

I thought it was more like 80%?

Nudding ,

It’s humanity bro. Humans are the baddies.

muntedcrocodile ,
@muntedcrocodile@lemmy.world avatar

I would disagree i think you would be hard pressed to find a large amount of peole against an advisary body. You might see a very large pushback however if u wanted to make a devision based on race within the constitution.

masterspace , (edited )

tfw all those jokes about Australians being racist is put to a national referendum and turn out to be true.

fruitleatherpostcard ,

A toxic mix of the social heritage of brutal colonialism, domestic racism, and the trolling money from China and Russia.

Hogger85b ,

Follow the money.....fossil.fuel and other mining extraction companies would lose if the first nations took more control of parts of land

watson387 ,
@watson387@sopuli.xyz avatar

Every news article I see anymore makes me lose a little more faith in humanity. I don’t have much left…

trewq ,

good for you, you still have some. I have zero faith. Now I’m just waiting for ELE or aliens to wipe us out.

satanssultana ,
@satanssultana@artemis.camp avatar

This is a very sad day in Australia’s history. Many of us thought we were a more progressive nation than we are.

coldv ,

As a POC, I am not surprised, but I was still optimistic because there was no way to vote “no” without looking like a racist cunt. Well turns out Australia has no problem with looking like a bunch of racist cunts.

dyathinkhesaurus ,

Try and tell them they’re a bunch of racist cunts tho… Then you’ll see hypocrisy too!

ReverseThePolarity ,

We are more progressive. The trouble is the amendment was too vague and if anyone asked questions or suggested that they might vote no, they got called a racist and told to educate themselves.
The Yes campaign ended up mostly using the argument that you should vote yes because conservative are telling you to say no.

WaxedWookie ,

It’s a toothless advisory body that could make (ignorable) representations to parliament about matters relating to the indigenous community. What else do you need to know?

ReverseThePolarity ,

There were 2 main issues for me.

  1. The wording did not specify how they would be selected.
  2. The voice did not require that the members needed to be Aboriginal. So it would have been a bunch of non Aboriginal mates of politicians in the voice. Just like how Tony Abbott got to be the minister for women.

The yes campaign just said trust us it will do nothing so you don’t need to worry. What was the point then?

WaxedWookie ,

voice.gov.au/about-voice/voice-principles

The Voice will be chosen by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people based on the wishes of local communities

Members of the Voice would be selected by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, not appointed by the Executive Government.

Members would serve on the Voice for a fixed period of time, to ensure regular accountability to their communities.

To ensure cultural legitimacy, the way that members of the Voice are chosen would suit the wishes of local communities and would be determined through the post-referendum process.

I think it would be bad to specify that the members be indigenous - it needlessly restricts options, which seems unproductive if the indigenous community are doing the selection. If they choose the likes of Tony Abbott (not likely), that’s their perogative.

The Voice establishes a constitutionally enshrined body, so beyond recognition, it facilities better input from the community into affairs relevant to them, and makes it optically bad for the government if they choose to ignore that input while forcing nothing. The point is to close the gap in outcomes between the indigenous and broader communities.

ReverseThePolarity ,

This is about ensuring it can’t be abused. They could have specified how the members would be selected in the wording of the referendum.
They wanted to leave the door open for them to abuse it down the track.

WaxedWookie ,

How would it be abused, exactly?

seiryth ,

It’s interesting to see the breakdown by electorate. Electorates close to Melbourne and Sydney cbds voted yes. The further out of vic and nsw, the more the no grows.

Qld, wa, NT and SA didn’t have the same problem. Blanket no.

Tldr, the progressive part of the country that wants this is city focused. The rest of the country has a long way to go.

fiat_lux ,

Electorates close to Melbourne and Sydney cbds voted yes.

The centre of Sydney has one of the largest populations of ATSI people, not sure about Melbourne, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's true there too.

I think it's easier to see people as people when you live closely with a lot of different variations on the base model.

seiryth ,

Jimmy Carr was on Joe Rogan (I know he’s awful but it was a decent episode) recently and was talking about how Hitler worked out propaganda works best when the “other” feels alien, which is why he closed down clubs in the 30s. Seeing Jews as “one of us” through clubs and hospitality made the propaganda against them ineffective because they were just seen as one of the people and this Hitler guy was just a nut, the whole movie cabaret being about it.

I think you’re right. Melbourne is an amazing melting pot of people, so it’s difficult to be not emphatic towards a cause that would improve their QOL

ReverseThePolarity ,

There are very few in inner city Melbourne.

shasta ,

This is true in the entire world.

coldv ,

Yup. Sounds like Australia. Proudly admitting they’re racist, and afraid even of a symbolic gesture that has no actual power in the parliament. I’m just embarrassed that it is now official.

yoz ,

I know many Germans who voted NO.

Draedron ,

Wow. Didnt know we had voting power in australia!

yoz ,

Yea…nobody likes a smartass. I meant german immigrants who were granted Aussie citizenship

muntedcrocodile ,
@muntedcrocodile@lemmy.world avatar

Would you call making a devision of peoples based on race within a constitution racist?

elouboub ,
@elouboub@kbin.social avatar

Marketing, image, and ads are everything with these kinds of things. Seems like the "Yes" campaign fucked that up.

dragonflyteaparty ,

From the article it seemed that a big criticism of the amendment was that it was too vague. There were people from different political beliefs and some aboriginals who didn’t like how vague it was, though the aboriginals wanted it to further.

ASeriesOfPoorChoices ,

That’s because it was a constitutional amendment.

The legislation (details) that would come out afterwards has been out for 6-7 months now.

ReverseThePolarity ,

I’m sorry. I did heaps of reading about this and I couldn’t find any details. If it was out they did a terrible job of making it available.

ASeriesOfPoorChoices ,

Did you check Wikipedia?

en.wikipedia.org/…/Indigenous_Voice_to_Parliament

(It’s there, under “Structure and powers of the Voice”)

ReverseThePolarity ,

It even says in the Wikipedia article that they would design it after the referendum. They just had a couple of ideas about how it might work.

ASeriesOfPoorChoices ,

Now, that’s not what they said, as much as you wish it.

jagungal ,

The Yes campaign did a shit job of publicising it though. I’ve consistently heard that people were told to educate themselves which is generally a bad way of getting someone to agree with you when the opposition is all to happy to fill in the gaps with disinformation. The fact that we are still telling people why the wording was vague should be enough to tell you that the Yes campaign failed.

ASeriesOfPoorChoices ,

There’s quite a few things they did poorly, sure. Which is a shame, since they did everything else well.

STRIKINGdebate2 ,
@STRIKINGdebate2@lemmy.world avatar

Looking over the r/Australia comments on this referendum has been fascinating. Apparently acknowledging indigenous people in the constitution is giving them special privileges and it was a bad idea to launch this because the average Australian had no idea what this campaign was about as if googling it is so fucking hard. Sorry aboriginal people, but you made me have to use Google so you don’t get any say now.

blazera ,
@blazera@kbin.social avatar

So, what does a right way to accomodate indigenous groups look like? Has any country accomplished it?

What rights or opportunities are these groups lacking?

STRIKINGdebate2 ,
@STRIKINGdebate2@lemmy.world avatar

A good way to start would be making sure they have adequate political representation. Shutting them out of the politically. When you don’t get a groups voice in when making decisions that can lead to consequences. Big issues that aboriginals face in extremely high unemployment, decaying infrastructure and high incarceration rates.

blazera ,
@blazera@kbin.social avatar

Do they not get a vote? And all i hear is the negative statistics, never what people think should be done to address them. Are employers discriminating?

Does any of it stem from them wanting to live more primitively? Are they turning down education opportunities, or are they not available to them?

masterspace ,

Do they not get a vote?

Oh hey look, every indiginous person voted for racial bias training for police, but guess what? The millions of white people voted that they don’t think they really need it so we’re not gonna spend the money on it.

Giving a relatively tiny disparate population “a vote” doesn’t actually address any of their needs.

Are employers discriminating?

Yes.

Does any of it stem from them wanting to live more primitively?

No.

Are they turning down education opportunities, or are they not available to them?

High quality education is not readily available to them, nor is the infrastructure they need to thrive and the government has invested little to nothing into their infrastructure in comparison to what they invested in abusing them over decades, what they’ve invested in white cities and towns, and what the value of the land and resources that were stolen from the indigenous people actually are.

jagungal ,

Them wanting to live on their ancestral lands to which they have a deep cultural and spiritual connection isn’t “wanting to live more primitively”. Because Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples often live in remote communities they do not have anything like the educational or employment opportunities that most of the country get.

LoganNineFingers ,

As an aside for people reading the comments here, and I’m not going to comment on people’s comments correcting them because this isn’t the place ( and it says it in the article as well)

I was told recently, that we should not be using the word Aboriginal. I know this will cause an onslaught of people saying "what do they want to be called now?! " but when you think about the word “Aboriginal” and other words like it, it’s not very friendly. “abhorrent”, “abnormal”, etc. Aboriginal means not original.

We should be saying “indigenous peoples” as it encompasses all and is more accurate. I’ve been told First Nations is also acceptable.

atan ,

You raise an important point, though “Aboriginal” doesn’t mean “not original”. It’s derived from the Latin “ab origine”, meaning “from the beginning”.

ZeroCool ,

Uhh… So it means the opposite of what that person thinks it does? lol.

LoganNineFingers ,

Damn haha. TIL

I’m just going to stay away from it

ZombiFrancis ,

Yeah that tracks.

temp_acct_001 ,

Dispelling Australia’s Referendum Misunderstandings

I thought i’d start a discussion on this as there is an international reputation forming that may not be justified due to misinformation. The vote was to change the Australian Constitution to include a section giving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples a voice in parliament, which they already have through inner dialogue between their mobs and local governments. How this constitutional change would look or be enacted was not known and very vague, with the crux being that it would still be government controlled, there was widespread animosity from First Nations people about it being another ‘white-man’s decision’, it would create division by being unequal when indigenous Australians are striving for equality. These are the key reasons behind the nation’s ‘No’ vote. It was never a vote about if you ‘like Aboriginal Australians or not’ as many of the articles here seem to indicate.

Aussie_Damo ,

This is why I voted no.

Indigenous Australians are striving for equality but are given special treatments with healthcare, loans, employment and education compared to every other Australian that is struggling with all those areas of their day to day and this yes vote will give them more special perks to try “fit in” with everyday Australians. If you give the indigenous special perks it will further divide resentment.

The whole referendum needed more explaining as all the media did was say vote yes but not explain why to vote yes or vote no, people are lazy and don’t wanna google either and will just go off the rumour mill like when the COVID rumours were rampant.

There was also alot of miss information about what was in the referendum and if it was iron clad or would it be a brexir moment and people vote not knowing and then get screwed by their own government.

TL:DR; I’m sure about 60% of other Australians felt the same way, we’re not rasicts we just want indigenous to be with us, not have perks given out at tax payer cost creating animosity within a race.

WaxedWookie ,

So you were capable of, and advocate for doing your research, did the research you’re advocating for then tossed it and voted no purely because there wasn’t enough information actively pushed out? Never mind the multiple info packs mailed to you, etc.

Brexit had very predictable results that were called out loud and early. Sun and Daily Mail reading dipshits ignored all that and cut off their noses to spite their racist faces. An entirely toothless indigenous voice to parliament has similarly predictable results - they’ll either be ignored, or will have a greater say in how money allocated to closing the gap in indigenous outcomes is spent.

What would a similar situation to Brexit actually look like to you?

STRIKINGdebate2 ,
@STRIKINGdebate2@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah. Seeing tons of people claiming the vote was too vague and that people wouldn’t understand while also clearly understanding what this amendment and what it’s implications are has been pretty odd to say the least

zoats ,

absolute horseshit. this entire post is disingenuous. the voice was supported by the vast majority or first nations people.

WaxedWookie ,

The amendment had roughly 80% support from indigenous Australians, and I’m pretty confident the majority of the remaining 20% rejected it because it didn’t go far enough, and they want treaty.

temp_acct_001 ,

57% is far from a vast majority.

smh.com.au/…/months-old-yes-poll-sparks-claims-in…

muntedcrocodile ,
@muntedcrocodile@lemmy.world avatar

This is a very deceptive headline a majority of australians support the idea of a reccomandary body for indiginouse peoples (the voice what was proposed). However, the reason i beleive it failed is because it would have direcrly made a devision of race within our constitution. I would define any devision of race regardless of purpose as textbook racism but i seem to get a lot of pushback from such an idea. I think the thing that ultumatly caused it to fail was not the concept but the unesaasary implementation within the constitution.

vantlem ,

The thing is though, Indigenous Australians ARE distinct from other races in Australia. They are indigenous, and they have been colonised. They have strong justifications to seek the right to determine their own future in this country.

muntedcrocodile ,
@muntedcrocodile@lemmy.world avatar

They have a vote like everyone else. Im all for the concept of the voice itself just not within the constitution.

vantlem ,

Why not within the constitution? The only distinction is that it can’t be removed by the Liberal party, again.

muntedcrocodile ,
@muntedcrocodile@lemmy.world avatar

Putting it in the constitution devides race in the constitutuion i dont compromise of equality. Plus heres the history of the variouse bodies and why they where abolished lemmy.world/comment/4547041

AreaSIX , (edited )

You keep replying to people rephrasing the same dumb lie. No, the majority of Australians clearly don’t support an advisory body, as demonstrated by the vote being discussed. The fake nuance you try to apply to the vote is transparent and it’s fooling no one. A majority of Australians are racist against the native population, and that’s painfully obvious to anyone who’s spent time there. A beautiful country, but the racism is absolutely blatant. You just refuse to acknowledge that.

muntedcrocodile ,
@muntedcrocodile@lemmy.world avatar

Are you saying the 11th most ethnic and culturaly diverse nation in the world is blatantly racist? Im not sure if ur a CCP shitposting bot ur just think that australians not voting for a racial divide in the constitution is racisist. We must fight the racial divide with another racial divide sounds like doublethink to me. Its a bold statemwnt to go and call an entire nation racist one i would hope u can back (and no the vote for the voice does not count that was about wether its in the constitution nothing more nothing less).

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