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Notes -
The ABC's called it: the Australian referendum to enshrine special Aboriginal representation in the Constitution has utterly failed. They needed a majority nationally and a majority in four of the six states; they've gotten at last count 41% (possibly less; pre-polls are counted last, and while I wasn't expecting it they seem to have more No than the on-the-day vote) of the national vote and have lost in all six of the states (again, I was expecting Tasmania and/or Victoria to buck the trend - Victoria being the most urbanised Australian state, with 75% of its population in the state capital of Melbourne, and Tasmania having a long tradition of hippie-ism and being the birthplace of the Greens; they were also polling the highest Yes).
Most of the Yes campaigners - at least, those the ABC talked to - seem to be going with the line of "the No campaign was misinformation and this doesn't count because they were tricked"*. That's wrong (there were a few people with crazy ideas, of course, but for the most part what the SJers are decrying as "misinformation" is true or plausible), but it's at least wrong about a dry fact and not nearly as divisive as going "this proves Australia's a racist country".
The result does seem to have emboldened people to actually stand up against SJ; Opposition Leader Peter Dutton was very hesitant to go with No (though he eventually did), but in his speech upon hearing the result he specifically said that this result was Australians rejecting activists' claims.
At-least-partial credit to @OliveTapenade, who said:
...the last time we discussed this on theMotte. They mostly seem to be leaning on "ignorant" rather than "racist", but yes, they're saying "this demonstrates need for Truth".
*NB: this doesn't, for the moment, include Prime Minister Anthony Albanese; all he's said on the matter of "why No" IIRC is that referenda never succeed without bipartisan support.
One of the things that was remarkable about this campaign was how overwhelming the Yes campaign's resources were. Over the course of the campaign I saw ads and billboards and people handing out pamphlets and even a choir promoting the Yes case. In comparison I saw exactly one (1) bumper sticker for No and nothing else. At the polling booth there were half a dozen volunteers for Yes and the whole fence was blanketed with their signage while No had one guy with one sign. And I've heard there were other polling places that didn't even have that.
I really wish people would learn that all this campaign paraphernalia is completely worthless, and arguably counterproductive. It was extremely clear the people with money and power wanted a Yes victory, but that doesn't actually convince anyone.
The proposal was the result of starting with the idea of putting Aboriginals in the constitution and then jerry-rigging it into an advisory body after people complained that they wanted something practical, but also trying not to do anything concrete or specific that could offend someone. It was a mess of an idea and really someone should have had the balls to stop this process before it got to this point instead of shunting off the responsibility of putting it down to the voting public.
I don't feel any joy in this result, though it's the outcome I voted for. We've had a bunch of angst and drama for no gain, and it seems clear no one is going to learn anything from the experience. All the talking heads are busy convincing themselves that the problem is somehow the sales job and not the product. No one is even thinking to ask if maybe it just wasn't a bit implausible that you needed a constitutional amendment to create an advisory committee, or that an advisory committee was going to somehow fix all the massive problems Aboriginal Australia faces. Maybe we just need to lecture people not to be racist harder next time. Yeah, that'll work.
The amount of resources there are behind progressive politics is pretty much always immense, basically every influential institution was supporting Yes. At the entrance of my train station, there were Yes campaigners outside for days, handing out flyers to people. Even bodies that should strictly be impartial such as local governments (City of Sydney) were putting up advertisements all over the place telling people to support the Voice, which is frankly inappropriate and clearly overstepping the bounds of their ambit. As you note, it ended up being very clear that this was not some grassroots campaign for change, but a well-funded, dominant group filled with people who have an overwhelming influence over what the public gets to hear and see.
It's also very clear that the well-funded progressive elite, the people who populate the opinion-setting parts of the media, academia, and various other institutions, have hugely lost touch with the rest of the country and simply don't care to listen to them. Then every single time people turn against their policies, there always seems to be such a great amount of surprise and dismay that people would disagree with them, and a knee-jerk assumption that the reason for lack of support can simply be chalked up to stupidity or racism. Perhaps some of it is performative, but I do think that they really believe it.
Are we sure this is not due to some Russian trickery with the elections?
As we know, it's not real democracy if the people vote for the opposite of what the establishment want them to.
Surely Trump/MAGA/QAnon must be involved somehow! 😀
The Sydney Morning Herald helpfully reports:
Anti-Voice rallies organised by pro-Putin conspiracy theorist
Putin strikes again.
I wish I was ten percent as competent as the left believes Putin is.
So does Putin.
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