The sausage sizzles are beginning. There is a calm cheer around the polling booths and people smile as they hand out ‘how-to-vote’ pamphlets. Even if individuals disagree it’s unlikely to get ugly – this isn’t a country of political extremism.
Australians are sensible. We wear seat belts. We weren’t taken in by anti-vaxxers. People these days don’t deny the fact that smoking damages health or that industrial smoke from fossil fuels drives climate change.
Of course, we each differ in how conservative and how progressive we are, how realistic and how idealistic. We support different football teams. We even support different football codes. Our women’s soccer team, the Matildas, is adored.
Australia is in the ascendance and is becoming a better and more influential country. We can be a voice of calm reason, arguing for the rule of law and human rights across the world.
But if the polls are right we are about to trash our global reputation as a united country of laid back people, immune to Trump-style divisions, and committed to a fair go.
How can this be happening?
It’s simple. In the modern age the speed of information spread hands fake information an advantage. It takes time to sort through and separate facts from falsehoods.
Trump-style politicians take advantage this. Unscrupulous politicians can make things up faster than fact-checkers toiling away in the halls of knowledge can refute them. There is never enough time to refute every claim. By the time refutations have come the news cycle has moved on.
In Australia, many, but not all, of the politicians promoting a No vote are using Trump-style tactics. Several have no record of being interested in Indigenous affairs but see this as an opportunity to damage their opponents and lift their own profiles. Others are genuine but I worry that even they may wake up filled with regret that will last years if the referendum fails.
I talk about mis-information but what is my evidence?
Here’s some.
We’re told there are not enough details. But there are pages of detail in the Calma, Langton report. Importantly, the actual proposal explains that Parliament can change the details and improve the Voice at any time. So, it wouldn’t make sense to lock in details now. The Constitution never contains details. The principle of the Voice is just being embedded in the Constitution as a mark of respect for our history and first peoples, and so that it cannot be abolished, as every previous Indigenous advisory committee has been.
We are told it will affect our government and our courts. But legal experts repeatedly explain this is just a body that can make ‘representations’ about laws that affect Indigenous people. It cannot delay the process of government.
We are told it is not enough. But it will provide first-hand information that will enable better law making and improvement buy-in to laws that will affect Indigenous people. It will make a difference.
We are told Indigenous people would gain special rights and privileges. But look at what we all know about our Indigenous people. They are 3% of the population. They are not advantaged. The small steps forward, and the Voice is another one, will help close the gap and help Indigenous people. The Voice gives no special rights, other than the right to speak. This right is enjoyed by hundreds of existing advisory committees.
We are told that all we need to do is start listening through existing mechanisms. But the facts of history deny this will work. It has not worked so far and there is no alternative plan for how things will work. The Voice is a plan that will ensure Indigenous buy-in and provide a path to unity. There is no progressive No vote.
We’re told this is rushed. In fact, the process has run for years and has been supported by both sides of politics. The irony is that over the years both parties have supported the development of the Uluru Statement from the Heart. Now it is time to take a positive step together with the Voice.
Finally, some contend the referendum will divide our nation. If we wake up with a No vote we may be like the US after Trump, or the UK after Brexit. We will feel divided. But if there is a Yes vote we will have begun healing a divide that began when Europeans arrived in Australia. A division that is not unique but has occurred every time two peoples have met across human history.
It’s just that in Australia, because of the doctrine of ‘terra nullius’, the idea that our first people were nomadic and did not properly occupy the land, our Indigenous people were never officially acknowledged. Now they can be, and it is one small and safe, but very real step, in the right direction.
A No vote means no progress.
Professor Merlin Crossley is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor Academic Quality at UNSW.
