If the Voice referendum fails, where do we go from here?

I am vote NO. My greater concern lies with the escalating cost of living and the increasing interest rates.

“My tip is the vote won’t happen this year. “

That would be a very big call for a PM who has been talking about this issue, and the timing of putting it to the voters, with monumental righteous certitude since election night last year.

Deferral of the vote beyond the end of 2023 would quite rightly be seen as a very large defeat and a clear sign of political mortality for a PM who is surrounded by would-be successors whose every public performance looks a lot like an audition for the top job.

Most dangerously of all, deferral due to dismal polling, in spite of the PM having invested so much of his authority in this issue, would be a sign of that most fatal of all problems for a political leader – the public has stopped listening.

For those sorts of reasons, I think the vote will happen this year, and if deferred at all, it won’t be by much, and is still more likely than not to fall over the line.

But that’s not the point, the real point is that a “Voice” as proposed, whether or not it happens, and whether or not it’s in the Constitution or simply in an ordinary act of Parliament, is simply not going to produce anything like the magical benefits which are being hyped. All it might really change is the format, the venues and maybe the sitting fees and allowances for the usual cast of community representatives talking to the usual cast of bureaucrats about the usual issues for which the solutions are either unknown or unpalatable.

I am open to the concept of this but Labor seem very reluctant to share the details (or have no plan at all and are just going to make it up as they go along).
Voting YES to something so scant in details is a level of trust that I will never place upon any Government!

Maybe when it goes down , they can stop whinging about every thing and actually down something for themselves

Excellent question. I suspect some believe it’s just going to be ‘life as we know it’. I’m not so certain. Many First Nations elders – familar faces and voices – have staked the future of their peoples and their legacy on the Voice process. If it were to fail they would be gone. Left behind. Yesterdays men and women. Who then steps into the unresolved void? What tactics and approach will they bring? Make no mistake, the issue doesn’t die with a failed Voice vote. It doesn’t go away. The political answer via a democratic process does, but the issue of First Nations people remains.

Ross Solly doesn’t seem to comprehend that the very article he has written is a good reason not to vote for it.

Don’t think of the Voice referendum as having failed. Think of it as being extremely successful in its main purpose to wedge the Liberal party, enshrine Aboriginal victimhood, portray all opponents and doubters as racists, while dividing the community into the morally superior and all others.

The average punter is more concerned with a lack of operational detail, costings and modelled effectiveness of The Voice, that is, the vehicle itself, than the esoteric nuances of Constitutional change. From my well researched and lived perspective, Ross, The Voice is just a Noble Savage fantasist and elite activist driven Albo vanity project that is just an added layer to what is an effective communication network between already on the ground. A broad network of indigenous designed and run organisations, implementing and operating long running successful programs and schemes that have benefited the hundreds of thousands of indigenous Australians that have located themselves to benefit best from the services and opportunities offered by their own people and government funded organs are already in play. I see The Voice as just another layer of governmental hard decision deferring, employing the usual suspects and diverting many millions needed to operate it from more practical usage on existing programs. I also don’t like the way the YES campaign is misleadingly using Gross The Gap statistics without giving the voter a more specific locational perspective that, even according to the recent Productivity Commission interim The Gap Report, states that the Gap data is in many cases outdated, unreliable and in some cases doesn’t even exist. They also state that ‘remoteness’ is the biggest contributor to poor indigenous statistics and that widespread smoking, which according to an ABC article today is that: Data from the Australian Burden of Disease Study showed that tobacco use was responsible for 20 per cent of the health gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. So it’s not lack of communication, it is unsuitable location that is the killer, in so many ways. The WA Government tried to shut down remote settlements to improve access to services and opportunities but Noble Savage advocates shut the WA Government down. A big mistake. As big as The Yes mistake thinking that Constitutional Change is their biggest problem.

If the Yes campaign is broken, fix it.

People want more detail because opponents, led by the opposition, have muddied the waters and racists, trolls and boys have used social .media to amplify disgusting and misleading arguments.

The Prime Minister needs to respond. At risk of having detail attacked, provide detail through an outline of proposed legislation.

Go on the offensive to attack Dutton’s almost non existent credibility and debunk fanciful claims.

Get more grass roots Indigenous Voices into the public domain, to explain why the Voice is needed and how it will help.

A week is a long time in a referendum.

If it goes down, the focus should be squarely on Albanese and his misjudgment. Not Murdoch. Or Dutton. Or the racism of Australian voters, as implied here.

Perhaps if those promoting a Yes vote actually tried to address the legitimate concerns of undecided and no voters, we’d be better off than the continued weak straw-manning and ignorance put forward once again here?

“The draft wording that has been announced goes beyond ensuring that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have a right to participate in decision-making that affects them. It inserts race into the Australian Constitution in a way that undermines the foundational human rights principles of equality and non-discrimination and creates constitutional uncertainty in terms of its interpretation and operation.” (Lorraine Finlay, The Australian, 30 March 2023. Lorraine Finlay is the Human Rights Commissioner and has previously worked at the High Court of Australia as a Judges’ Associate.)