Australian Politics

As someone who voted yes in a very no place, I was actually a bit frustrated by how poorly the yes campaign communicated with people - right up until those pamphlets came out, most of the people I was talking to had never heard of the referendum, and only after that most people started looking up what it was about.

I would argue the no campaign had a huge head start on the yes campaign, there was negative speculation going on a year before the referendum, and it gradually snowballed into misinformation before the yes campaign even started. So the stuff people found was all negative. For the people I was talking to, I was the only person they knew who thought a voice was a good idea.

One of the people I was talking to mentioned how they hadn't even encountered a single ad promoting a voice to parliament until a week before, and it didn't bother talking about how it would work or why it's a good idea. They did eventually vote yes, but only after I talked to them about what I understood about it. In fact, my experience is that most people leaning no were willing to vote yes after hearing enough about it.

I think a huge issue is that the yes campaign either failed to reach here somehow, or just relied on the media and self-research for informing people. And the media was very insistent on platforming no campaigners while almost never platforming yes.

One of the most confusing things to hear was how people in the capital cities had heard so much about it when people here had barely heard of it. Some people missed the referendum date entirely.

that's pretty fucking bad but anyone voting yes after reading the legislation was even worse.

it's sad to think without bigots like your dad we might have passed that nonsense.

Cool, but yeah, I do think modern western government are struggling to get messages out in the digital age of media consumption. People don't have to go look for info, and often don't care to, so they get bubbled in their own algorithms.

They didn't refuse to answer, and some of the questions were designed to derail the effort, such as "Define Aboriginality" when that's not in the purview of the Australian government (just like define britishness wouldn't be), the Australian government can only (in a parliamentary setting where the questions were tabled) define Australian, and only do so in legal terms.

The reasonable questions were answered, such as "Would it be a decision making body" the answer being no, it was an advisory body.

But yeah, that the Liberal party wanted to play party politics with the good will and unity of the Australian people and the desire to settle historical and cultural divisions isn't surprising and isn't the win you think it is.

It's just another sign they're not responsible, and not fit to be in a leadership position that requires unity and good will, not attempts to derail the country by plunging it into culture wars.

https://www.crikey.com.au/2023/01/10/peter-dutton-letter-indigenous-voice-parliament/

No shit no one alive "did anything"*, it's a euphemism for a part of history, it's intended to impart a general understanding of the transaction in a brief amount of words that sums up events. It's not intended to accuse modern people of litteral thieft.

It's okay insecure white man, no mob is going to come a knocking with a deed to your property. They didn't even have a system of written language, and your property didn't exist.

That said there will still be people alive today who either were involved in the forced separation of Aboriginal children from their parents (because there was a spate of that in 1960s still, as per the "bringing them home" report, about the "lost generations"), and/or whose grandparents and so on were involved in stuff like that. Samantha Armitages' family, and probably Gina Rhinehart's... That's part of the psychology of why some are paranoid on the issue.

But paranoia is by definition an irrational fear. The voice simply isn't about reparations.

As for the idea it will give some racial groups more power than others - again this isn't true because it wasn't just about race. Does nothing for big city Aboriginal people for instance.

It was SPECIFICALLY about people from very remote Aboriginal communities who barely count politically and are unlikely to have any affect or contact with the PM otherwise. People who can't just mount a protest in a capital city as most Australians could (90% of us live in Capital cities).

So it was about addressing a disadvantage creates by distance AND race/culture, caused by just how large Australia is (as well as our history, and why pockets of rural Aboriginal communities exist in the first place).

So nah, addressing the unfortune of being a small community that goes ignored isn't a function of over powering them or giving them a "racial supremacy".