Most Australian households have now received their Voice referendum booklet in the mail. It looks quite official and is being distributed by the Australian Electoral Commission. Unfortunately the contents haven’t been fact checked. Like most other forms of federal political advertising, lying and misinformation in this context is completely legal.
The political ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ Voice camps have each been given 2,000 words to make their case. The Yes side have focused on big picture claims and aspirational language. The anti-Voice side have used all caps headings – ‘IT OPENS THE DOOR FOR ACTIVISTS’! – and lots of boxes containing snippets of scary information.
Both sides have employed quotes, mostly from people identifying as First Australians, although neither side explains in print when these people are actively working for one side or the other.
Origins
Even though the Labor Party has done very little listening to Aboriginal people for most of its history, their main pitch here is that ‘listening works’. Australia is essentially being asked to take their word for it that a Voice will help close the gap. We don’t know that it will deliver ‘real results’, as claimed, although it’s certainly true that not much else has worked so far.
The Yes camp says the Voice emerged from the Uluru Statement from the Heart, although constitutional recognition has a longer history than that, and is being rolled together with the Voice idea in this referendum.
While the Yes argument claims that the Voice will be diverse and representative of the many Indigenous nations and communities in this country, it’s unclear at this stage if that will be true, or even possible. The Albanese government can’t make precise claims about something that won’t be under its control if the referendum succeeds, or into the future, and hasn’t shared a detailed model.
Risks
The No campaign says ‘we want to help Indigenous Australians in disadvantaged communities’, but claims that the Voice is definitely not the answer, and will cost too much (actually no one knows how much it will cost at this stage).
They don’t suggest what the answer is, apart from bare constitutional recognition, and make no mention of treaty, except in a bogeyman context, and by incorrectly saying a treaty can only be made between governments.
They say that the Voice ‘represents the biggest change to our Constitution in history’ and is ‘legally risky’ with ‘no issue beyond its reach’. Actually, all the Voice would be able to do is suggest ideas to help Indigenous Australians (which is one of the reasons many people think it’s not worth the effort). Anthony Albanese has repeatedly said that it would have no right of veto and would not be binding on the parliament.
In any case, the precise powers and design of the Voice will be completely subject to parliamentary oversight. All the referendum asks is whether it should exist.
Who wants it?
Polls over the last five years have shown 80 per cent plus support for the Voice idea among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, but the No campaign doesn’t acknowledge this, saying simply ‘many Indigenous Australians do not support this.’
While that statement is undoubtedly true, it would be bizarre if any large group of Australians 100 per cent supported any political position, food preference, favourite colour or sporting team. That’s the way humans are, apart from Sky News viewers.
The No camp claim the Voice is unnecessary because there’s already a body most Australians have never heard of, called the National Indigenous Australians Agency, with a budget of $4.3 billion and 1,400 employees. Actually this is just the latest version of the Aboriginal Affairs Department, which works as part of the machinery of government, delivering programs, and is not an independent voice in any sense. Most of its employees are not Indigenous, and under Scott Morrison 39 per cent of its grants were paid out to non-Indigenous organisations.
It’s another example of weaponising ignorance, and the old ‘special treatment’ argument.
Precedents, and legal issues
The No camp says ‘putting a Voice in the Constitution means it’s permanent. We will be stuck with negative consequences.’
Actually anything in the Constitution can be changed with a further referendum, and the way the Voice works in practice can be changed by the parliament of the day, the same as other laws.
The assumption that the consequences of the Voice will be negative is unknowable at this stage.
The No lobby claims ‘there is no comparable constitutional body like this anywhere in the world’. There are some problems with this. One is the assumption among conservatives that Australia can never lead the world, but only follow.
Also, Sweden, Finland and Norway already have a Saami parliament to advise on Indigenous issues, and Canada and New Zealand both have formal Indigenous advisory groups that speak to government about matters that concern them. The sky hasn’t fallen in any of those countries yet.
In Australia, both sides have wheeled out legal experts to support their positions, but the Yes camp have found many more senior people to stick their heads above the parapet than the other mob.
Lies with that?
The No side uses the words ‘don’t know’ ten times on their half of the pamphlet, emphasising doubt as a justification for voting ‘No’. Their pathetic focus-grouped phrase ‘if you don’t know, vote no’ appears in bold print at the start and at the end of the document.
They offer no independent sources of further reading for those who want more detail, instead closing their pitch with links to three highly partisan websites, all operated by the same organisation, Advance, which was formed to counter GetUp in 2018, and has previously been associated with campaigns to deny the climate change emergency and oppose same sex marriage.
The question remains, how much more useful could this taxpayer-funded and distributed referendum booklet have been if the Greens and independent senator David Pocock’s proposal for independent fact-checking be carried out before sending millions of copies across the country?
Originally from Canberra, David Lowe is an award-winning film-maker, writer and photographer with particular interests in the environment and politics. He’s known for his campaigning work with Cloudcatcher Media.
Long ago, he did work experience in Parliament House with Mungo MacCallum.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
