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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.
ABC (the Australian one) has a votemap by electorate. Unsurprisingly, electorates with the highest aboriginal population roughly correlate with an increased NO vote.
Heavy YES votes were concentrated in progressive areas, particularly those with low aboriginal populations (such as in inner Melbourne and Tasmania).
As discussed, there is muted sniping that this is somehow a racist result, rather than people voting against any group being given special privileges above other citizens, or against deliberately ill defined powers and the likelihood of additional spending being given to first nation people.
Aboriginals have been allocated additional resources and spending for multiple generations and still face huge disparities in quality of life and success (insert standard HBD argument here). Australia already has a federal ministerial portfolio to address their needs. Of course after all of this focus being met with little success, progressives wish to pour even more money into the pit by backdoor means such as through the voice to parliament. Thankfully it didn't pass the sniff test and Australians (for all of their cultural flaws) seem to still have working bullshit detectors. For now.
I think much of this doesn't even need the standard HBD argument of "evolution doesn't stop at the neck". Even if evolution does stop at the neck, Aboriginals had no cities and no domestic animals and thus were not selected for disease resistance to the extent Old Worlders were; same thing as why most Native Americans died in the Columbian Exchange. And they weren't selected for dealing with alcohol because TTBOMK they didn't have any. You don't even need to talk about the brain to get a biologicalist explanation of The Gap (whether or not that's the whole story, I'm not sure).
NB: I think there is cause to put at least some additional resources into figuring out ways around the effects I mention, even if I don't think a failure to get parity automatically equals being terrible. Having shitty immune systems isn't their fault.
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