this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2023
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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.

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[–] [email protected] 183 points 1 year ago (22 children)

As an American, it's nice to know we're not the only pieces of shit out there.

[–] [email protected] 75 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Oh it's not just us.

UK, and Canada have sordid pasts as well.

[–] [email protected] 54 points 1 year ago (2 children)

UK

Where do you think the US learned it from?

[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 year ago

Where do you think Australian colonialism comes from?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

I LEARNED IT FROM YOU, MOM AND DAD! 😭😭

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah but this is the present.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Canada is actively shitty to their indigenous people.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

I'm from the UK so I can vouch that the government are actively shitty to it's not rich people.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

You mean... the UK. Given that the USA, Canada and Australia were all British colonies, ergo the same past.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Quite honestly it was a very confusing referendum. The question seemed simple on the surface but as soon as you ask questions very quickly it was hard to find answers. I think this confusion is the reason the majority voted no, they were scared to choose yes for something they didn't understand. I tried to understand and still couldn't find a straight answer of what this referendum was actually about.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

We're both born from Western colonialism and converted into capitalism

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[–] [email protected] 65 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I personally didn’t pay close attention to the campaigns, and think it pretty obvious Australia has a fair way to go on indigenous issues, but my impression is also that the Yes campaign was poorly executed and thought through, failing, in part, to recognise how much of an uphill climb it was going to be and how easy the No campaign was going to be. For instance, while reading the ballot, I was taken aback by how vague and confusing the proposal was, despite having read it before.

Otherwise, I’m hoping there’s a silver lining in the result where it will prompt an ongoing conversation about what actually happened and get the country closer to getting better at this.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There was a massive, heavily funded FUD campaign by the "no" proponents. Sadly, it was very effective.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah as soon as I heard the "if you don't know vote no" slogan I knew it was already over.. this one line just forgives people for being racist.

I'm not saying every No vote was racist just that many would have been and this made it so fucking easy for them to feel no guilt.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yea that’s kinda what I meant. The No campaign here was pretty easy to cook up I think. And for the Liberal party it was a very attractive chance to kick the Labor govt down no matter the cause.

Which means, IMO, if you were going to do this, you had to be ready for all of that and not rely on calls to be “be on the right side of history”. Australia isn’t there and needs convincing, unfortunately.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The mining lobby seems to be behind it too - they stand to lose a lot if Aboriginal rights are given more credence.

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[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 year ago (17 children)

I'm sorry, I'm stupid and not up-to-date with this.

Taken at face value, Constitutional Recognition for the indigenous population sounds correct.

So what was wrong with it?

[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Nothing.

The no and yes sides to a referendum prepare an informational pamphlet that everyone receives but there's absolutely no requirement that any of it be truthful, so the opposition just openly lied until the whole thing died.

Actual information was obscured, fear mongering was rampant, the voice was harmless at worst, but could have been the spark that changed Australia for the better.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Thank you. But I'm still not sure I get it. Could you maybe give an example of what kind of lie or fear mongering would make people want to say:

"No, I don't want the constitution to recognise that there were an indigenous people here before us."

That seems like an unarguable fact, isn't it?

I'm sorry, I don't mean to put you on the spot but since you were kind enough to take the time to give an overview, it makes me hungry for more detail!

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago

The referendum was (if I understand it correctly) about adding an advisory body of indigenous people to parliament. This wouldn't have given them any power to make decisions, only to advise parliament on things.

The No Campaign just straight up lied to people saying it would let them write laws, take away your land, etc..

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

First off to be precise, this was a ”proposal to recognise Aboriginal people in its constitution and establish a body to advise parliament on Indigenous issues".

Some examples of what I think were sadly effective for the no campaign:

"This will allow indigenous peoples to reclaim your land"

"It will only further divide our nation"

"We don't know how this might be misused"

These all play on peoples fear. On the other hand some indigenous peoples also were campaigning for a no vote, primarily because they thought it wasn't strong enough.

This gave voters a lot of reasons to hide behind while voting no.

And all this was not helped by a rather poor yes campaign that barely did anything to address misconceptions.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-19/fact-check-yes-no-campaign-pamphlets-aec/102614710

There's the bare bones of the thing. The yes side had the exact same grasp of messaging that the Democrats in the US do. Which is to say none.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (10 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

It's clear that most of the people responding to you are being deceptive and crying 'racism' to make themselves feel superior.

This was not a referendum to recognise indigenous people. Whomever titled this article is a liar. It was a referendum to create an advisory body that makes representations to parliament to support a specific race. Contrary to the holier-than-thou crowd around here, many people voted 'No' because they do not agree with permanently enshrining this in the Constitution.

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (12 children)

It's always so funny when Americans on here, including me, are openly willing to discuss how shitty, racist, and full of bigots the United States is. Around 40% of the population is complete filth and we're happy to openly acknowledge that.

Meanwhile, Canada, the UK, and Australian users, even if they're on the left, try to find excuses to not acknowledge that their general public is also significantly racist and bigoted. And always have been.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Lefty Canuck here - Very willing to admit my country is full of racist pieces of shit. And so is every other country. 30% of the world is made up of trash humans who would fuck over their mother for a dollar, or to get to their destination 10 seconds faster.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah this fucking sucks. I have to admit I was expecting Yes to win by a landslide, but I guess I give people too much credit.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

The preview image looks like the lady on the right just let loose the most foul stench imaginable and the other two are being forced to deal with it.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Thanks to the media shovelling fear, misinformation and lies into our minds. I blame Facebook, Twitter and Murdoch for this one.

The conspiracy theories around this issue were fucking wild. Ranging from the UN taking control of our government, to abolishing all land ownership and giving them the right to have your home demolished, to some bizarre thing about the pope or some shit.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (3 children)

How grim.

This is a victory for racists, and bad-faith actors, some some of which have received lots of money from China and Russia to help destabilise another Western country.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Honestly don’t know if that latter bit is true. We manage to be absolutely atrocious to the indigenous population without third parties meddling. I don’t think there’s a single native population that hasn’t been mistreated; had their culture and names taken away, sent for reeducation, eugenics, and so on, so forth.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

Yea I wouldn’t go around underestimating Australia’s ability to fuck up its indigenous people without any conspiratorial help like that.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (4 children)

If the Yes campaign are serious about the Voice to the nation being important to the Indigenous people, then no-one is standing in the way of making it happen. The vote to enshrine it in the Constitution failed, but the body can still be created and can still function primarily the same.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

This is shameful. I'm sorry.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yet again, I'm sorry. And yet again, that's not enough.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

It would have made more sense to just legislate an advisory body to parliament as envisioned and planned, to show people: see, it's literally just an advisory body with no veto or other legislative power, and then put it to a refenedum to enshrine it in the constitution afterwards.

Would have given the no campaign less space. "If you don't know, vote no" would have had less traction.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


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

The defeat will be seen by Indigenous advocates as a blow to what has been a hard fought struggle to progress reconciliation and recognition in modern Australia, with First Nations people continuing to suffer discrimination, poorer health and economic outcomes.

Nationwide support for the voice was hovering at about 40% in the week before the vote, with coverage of the campaign being overshadowed by the outbreak of war in the Middle East in the crucial final days.

The failure of Australia’s previous referendum in 1999 – to become a republic and acknowledge Indigenous ownership – was seen to have failed because it put forward a specific model to voters.

It weathered accusations that it championed the voice push while failing to deliver tangible improvements for citizens facing cost of living pressures and a housing crisis hurt the yes side.

Opposition also emerged from the far left of progressive politics and a minority of grassroots Indigenous activists, who rejected the voice while calling for more significant reconciliation measures, including a treaty with Aboriginal Australians.


The original article contains 724 words, the summary contains 196 words. Saved 73%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

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