Voice to parliament referendum fails in defeat that Indigenous advocates will see as a blow to progress towards reconciliation

Australians have resoundingly rejected a proposal to recognise Aboriginal people in its constitution and establish a body to advise parliament on Indigenous issues.

Saturday’s voice to parliament referendum failed, with the defeat clear shortly after polls closed.

  • danl@lemmy.worldEnglish
    502·
    1 year ago

    Leaving the moral arguments aside, there were also massive campaign failures on the Yes side. No had two clear cheerleaders with an absurdly simple catchphrase: “If you don’t know, vote No”. Meanwhile Yes didn’t have a star for the campaign and had made the amendment way too simple/general so there weren’t any included details of the practicalities. So they ended up with 100 people having to re-explain their plans every campaign stop and occasionally tripping over each other’s messages. As a result, the complicated sell from Yes played right into No‘s hands.

    • SeaJ@lemm.eeEnglish
      234·
      1 year ago

      So the No side’s campaign was one of deliberately not educating people? To me that just says that people educated on the subject are voting Yes.

      While that may be an absurdly simple slogan, it is also absurdly stupid.

      • Cypher@aussie.zoneEnglish
        112·
        1 year ago

        The only Territory to vote yes, out of all our States and Territories, was the Australian Capital Territory which is the most educated and most involved with governance.

        • Ilandar@aussie.zoneEnglish
          31·
          1 year ago

          I don’t understand why the media is so desperate to frame the result around cost of living. It was clearly about education.

        • Staccato@lemmy.worldEnglish
          42·
          1 year ago

          Just Google it, the advice you always hear when the other person is shutting down any more conversation. What an unfortunate result

          • ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            1 year ago

            “Google it” vs “no”. The point of the slogan was to highlight a) how the other side was shutting down the conversation and b) that their premise of ignorance was stupid, in a short pithy way.

            It wasn’t saying “go find out”, so much as “you CAN find out if you care, there is no reason to not know”

            That said, without question, the Yes campaign’s official messages were pretty poor. Supporters have been far more eloquent.

            On the “just google it” topic, this short video was brilliantly well done: https://youtube.com/watch?v=SAqIypjk-5A

        • Ilovethebomb@lemm.eeEnglish
          12·
          1 year ago

          Which isn’t in any way how it works. You’re making the claim, you sell it. I’m not going digging to make someone’s claim on their behalf.

      • Elliemac@aussie.zoneEnglish
        612·
        1 year ago

        The ‘No’ campaign was largely nonexistent. The ‘Yes’ campaign was enough reason to vote ‘No’. And the ‘No’ voters are just as educated as ‘Yes’ voters. It’s just that some people can’t understand why other people would disagree with them.