🇦🇺 Australian Indigenous Voice to Parliament Referendum (October 14th)

[Ebowed]

We're nearly there.  I'm predicting a national vote around 41-59 (with a little room for margin of error, of course).
NSW, Vic, SA, QLD, WA - No
ACT - Yes
Northern Territory & Tasmania - No idea!

You may now collect your accolades.

Thanks - Victoria was looking a bit close there for a while, but it was always reasonable to assume that pre-polls (which are counted later in the night) were going to skew towards older voters, which would pad the No margin.

The biggest surprise has got to be the NT, not just voting No, but so emphatically.  However it fits with the class-based pattern of the result (the two territories provide a very interesting comparison in that regard).

Also, based on the way electorates across Melbourne and Sydney have voted, I think it's fair to say that this referendum did poorly among non-indigenous ethnic minorities.

[GoTfan]

In all fairness to Australia, I'm not sure a similar referendum would pass in the United States.

It would fail by a much wider margin.

Australia's record on indigenous people is far worse than America's.

In some ways it's even worse because most of the white population is incredibly touchy about the subject here. If you dare to suggest we didn't treat the Indigenous people like angels, then you'll have about ten minutes before Newscorp jumps down your throat to accuse you of 'stoking division'. What the right is doing in Australia-and have unfortunately proven successful at-is importing American politics into Australia.

From the endless droning about 'wokeness', the usage of people who are plainly opportunistic to cover any racism charges, and the accusations that the Electoral Commissions are rigging results for centre-left blocs, there is a clear attempt by certain people in Australia to import American style right-wing grievance politics.

Price has even stated that her next target is the transgender population, which is less than 1% of the country and has no bearing on how she or anyone else in this country lives their lives. I fully expect 2025 to see this come full circle and we end up seeing an American-style conservative grievance campaign that shrieks about 'wokeness' and 'politicisation' while at the same time implicitly encouraging attacks on people. I recall Peta Credlin saying 'There are more than enough baseball bats for both Albo and Andrews to cop a whack' and Rowan Dean saying 'Hopefully the good people of Melbourne can bring out the baseball bats for Dan', and that was when they weren't printing lies about Kevin Rudd.

Someone is going to get hurt in 2025, and there is a decent likelihood that someone will be killed. Dutton and Price need to be extremely careful of some of the forces they've unleashed in this referendum, or they'll end up sending us down the path of the United States.

[MaxQue]

In all fairness to Australia, I'm not sure a similar referendum would pass in the United States.

It would fail by a much wider margin.

Australia's record on indigenous people is far worse than America's.

In some ways it's even worse because most of the white population is incredibly touchy about the subject here. If you dare to suggest we didn't treat the Indigenous people like angels, then you'll have about ten minutes before Newscorp jumps down your throat to accuse you of 'stoking division'. What the right is doing in Australia-and have unfortunately proven successful at-is importing American politics into Australia.

From the endless droning about 'wokeness', the usage of people who are plainly opportunistic to cover any racism charges, and the accusations that the Electoral Commissions are rigging results for centre-left blocs, there is a clear attempt by certain people in Australia to import American style right-wing grievance politics.

Price has even stated that her next target is the transgender population, which is less than 1% of the country and has no bearing on how she or anyone else in this country lives their lives. I fully expect 2025 to see this come full circle and we end up seeing an American-style conservative grievance campaign that shrieks about 'wokeness' and 'politicisation' while at the same time implicitly encouraging attacks on people. I recall Peta Credlin saying 'There are more than enough baseball bats for both Albo and Andrews to cop a whack' and Rowan Dean saying 'Hopefully the good people of Melbourne can bring out the baseball bats for Dan', and that was when they weren't printing lies about Kevin Rudd.

Someone is going to get hurt in 2025, and there is a decent likelihood that someone will be killed. Dutton and Price need to be extremely careful of some of the forces they've unleashed in this referendum, or they'll end up sending us down the path of the United States.

Again, a big part of it is Labor being afraid of bringing something similar to the old US fairness doctrine or breaking up the media oligopoly.

If a media is going to be partisan, its operation costs should be included in the electoral expenses of the party/side they support.

[GoTfan]

In all fairness to Australia, I'm not sure a similar referendum would pass in the United States.

It would fail by a much wider margin.

Australia's record on indigenous people is far worse than America's.

In some ways it's even worse because most of the white population is incredibly touchy about the subject here. If you dare to suggest we didn't treat the Indigenous people like angels, then you'll have about ten minutes before Newscorp jumps down your throat to accuse you of 'stoking division'. What the right is doing in Australia-and have unfortunately proven successful at-is importing American politics into Australia.

From the endless droning about 'wokeness', the usage of people who are plainly opportunistic to cover any racism charges, and the accusations that the Electoral Commissions are rigging results for centre-left blocs, there is a clear attempt by certain people in Australia to import American style right-wing grievance politics.

Price has even stated that her next target is the transgender population, which is less than 1% of the country and has no bearing on how she or anyone else in this country lives their lives. I fully expect 2025 to see this come full circle and we end up seeing an American-style conservative grievance campaign that shrieks about 'wokeness' and 'politicisation' while at the same time implicitly encouraging attacks on people. I recall Peta Credlin saying 'There are more than enough baseball bats for both Albo and Andrews to cop a whack' and Rowan Dean saying 'Hopefully the good people of Melbourne can bring out the baseball bats for Dan', and that was when they weren't printing lies about Kevin Rudd.

Someone is going to get hurt in 2025, and there is a decent likelihood that someone will be killed. Dutton and Price need to be extremely careful of some of the forces they've unleashed in this referendum, or they'll end up sending us down the path of the United States.

Again, a big part of it is Labor being afraid of bringing something similar to the old US fairness doctrine or breaking up the media oligopoly.

If a media is going to be partisan, its operation costs should be included in the electoral expenses of the party/side they support.

There is a bill going to Parliament soon; I can't remember the actual title, but I do know it was to crack down on disinformation. I just hope Labor has seen the light and decides to include news outlets in the bill, and not just social media.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

The NT doesn't surprise me that much given that electorates like that are very polarised.

I am intrigued that Newcastle was a yes, whereas, say, Adelaide was a narrow no.

[Farmlands]

In all fairness to Australia, I'm not sure a similar referendum would pass in the United States.

It would fail by a much wider margin.

Australia's record on indigenous people is far worse than America's.

In some ways it's even worse because most of the white population is incredibly touchy about the subject here. If you dare to suggest we didn't treat the Indigenous people like angels, then you'll have about ten minutes before Newscorp jumps down your throat to accuse you of 'stoking division'. What the right is doing in Australia-and have unfortunately proven successful at-is importing American politics into Australia.

From the endless droning about 'wokeness', the usage of people who are plainly opportunistic to cover any racism charges, and the accusations that the Electoral Commissions are rigging results for centre-left blocs, there is a clear attempt by certain people in Australia to import American style right-wing grievance politics.

Price has even stated that her next target is the transgender population, which is less than 1% of the country and has no bearing on how she or anyone else in this country lives their lives. I fully expect 2025 to see this come full circle and we end up seeing an American-style conservative grievance campaign that shrieks about 'wokeness' and 'politicisation' while at the same time implicitly encouraging attacks on people. I recall Peta Credlin saying 'There are more than enough baseball bats for both Albo and Andrews to cop a whack' and Rowan Dean saying 'Hopefully the good people of Melbourne can bring out the baseball bats for Dan', and that was when they weren't printing lies about Kevin Rudd.

Someone is going to get hurt in 2025, and there is a decent likelihood that someone will be killed. Dutton and Price need to be extremely careful of some of the forces they've unleashed in this referendum, or they'll end up sending us down the path of the United States.

Again, a big part of it is Labor being afraid of bringing something similar to the old US fairness doctrine or breaking up the media oligopoly.

If a media is going to be partisan, its operation costs should be included in the electoral expenses of the party/side they support.

There is a bill going to Parliament soon; I can't remember the actual title, but I do know it was to crack down on disinformation. I just hope Labor has seen the light and decides to include news outlets in the bill, and not just social media.

So, the classic proposal of making the government have full control of what is truth or not because a pet cause lost decisively in a fair vote. Even for Australia, one can hope this fails to meaningfully take off.

[GoTfan]

In all fairness to Australia, I'm not sure a similar referendum would pass in the United States.

It would fail by a much wider margin.

Australia's record on indigenous people is far worse than America's.

In some ways it's even worse because most of the white population is incredibly touchy about the subject here. If you dare to suggest we didn't treat the Indigenous people like angels, then you'll have about ten minutes before Newscorp jumps down your throat to accuse you of 'stoking division'. What the right is doing in Australia-and have unfortunately proven successful at-is importing American politics into Australia.

From the endless droning about 'wokeness', the usage of people who are plainly opportunistic to cover any racism charges, and the accusations that the Electoral Commissions are rigging results for centre-left blocs, there is a clear attempt by certain people in Australia to import American style right-wing grievance politics.

Price has even stated that her next target is the transgender population, which is less than 1% of the country and has no bearing on how she or anyone else in this country lives their lives. I fully expect 2025 to see this come full circle and we end up seeing an American-style conservative grievance campaign that shrieks about 'wokeness' and 'politicisation' while at the same time implicitly encouraging attacks on people. I recall Peta Credlin saying 'There are more than enough baseball bats for both Albo and Andrews to cop a whack' and Rowan Dean saying 'Hopefully the good people of Melbourne can bring out the baseball bats for Dan', and that was when they weren't printing lies about Kevin Rudd.

Someone is going to get hurt in 2025, and there is a decent likelihood that someone will be killed. Dutton and Price need to be extremely careful of some of the forces they've unleashed in this referendum, or they'll end up sending us down the path of the United States.

Again, a big part of it is Labor being afraid of bringing something similar to the old US fairness doctrine or breaking up the media oligopoly.

If a media is going to be partisan, its operation costs should be included in the electoral expenses of the party/side they support.

There is a bill going to Parliament soon; I can't remember the actual title, but I do know it was to crack down on disinformation. I just hope Labor has seen the light and decides to include news outlets in the bill, and not just social media.

So, the classic proposal of making the government have full control of what is truth or not because a pet cause lost decisively in a fair vote. Even for Australia, one can hope this fails to meaningfully take off.

This is a blatant falsehood that people on the right have been trying to spread about it.

Here is the reality: what media in this country that is not owned by the Murdochs is owned by Peter Costello and Kerry Stokes. All of them are pretty united in their support of the Liberal Party, which has included the wilful spread of disinformation, including an outright lie about Kevin Rudd's petition for a Royal Commission that Sky News later had to retract.

That media monopoly-we have the highest concentration of media ownership in the world-should be snapped apart mercilessly.

[Intell]

Which electorate will have the highest Yes %? Wentworth? North Sydney?

I think it will be similar to the SSM referendum but with muslim/immigrant electorates trending more to yes (think Blaxland, Watson etc), and outer suburban electorates shifting to no.

I think Yes will be heavily correlated with the green vote, and an educated, young electorate. Sydney/Granaylder in NSW, Melbourne in VIC etc. However my point is that the electorate of Curtin will have higher yes vote than let's say the electorate of Burt/Brand (in WA).

It is just remarkable how this vote in the city was different to the class based labor-liberal vote and how much it mirrored the republic vote (which says something about the campaign)

[Vosem]

Someone is going to get hurt in 2025, and there is a decent likelihood that someone will be killed. Dutton and Price need to be extremely careful of some of the forces they've unleashed in this referendum, or they'll end up sending us down the path of the United States.

What a disaster it would be if Australians vote for policies aimed at lifting their standard of living to match that of the United States!

[Vice President Christian Man]

I’m disappointed at the final results, but given opinion polling leading up to it I’m not surprised.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

100.00% of polling stations reporting:

60.25% No, 7,833,783 votes
39.75% Yes, 5,167,425

  1.07% Blank/Invalid, 140,145

74.34% Turnout, 13,141,403

(I assume that there may be a few thousands postal votes yet to count.)

No, more like about 1.5-2 million votes still to count. Postals will continue to be received and counted for the next fortnight, and absents and provisionals won’t begin counting till the end of the week.

[Meclazine for Israel]

A statement from Indigeous Australians who supported the Voice.

https://alc.org.au/newsroom/media-releases/a-statement-from-indigenous-australians-who-supported-the-voice-referendum/

We are calling A Week of Silence from tonight (Saturday 14th October) to grieve this outcome and reflect on its meaning and significance. We will not be commenting further on the result at this time.

We will be lowering our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags to half-mast for the week of silence to acknowledge this result. We ask others to do the same.

[Meclazine for Israel]

We're nearly there.  I'm predicting a national vote around 41-59 (with a little room for margin of error, of course).
NSW, Vic, SA, QLD, WA - No
ACT - Yes
Northern Territory & Tasmania - No idea!

You may now collect your accolades.

Thanks - Victoria was looking a bit close there for a while, but it was always reasonable to assume that pre-polls (which are counted later in the night) were going to skew towards older voters, which would pad the No margin.

The biggest surprise has got to be the NT, not just voting No, but so emphatically.  However it fits with the class-based pattern of the result (the two territories provide a very interesting comparison in that regard).

Also, based on the way electorates across Melbourne and Sydney have voted, I think it's fair to say that this referendum did poorly among non-indigenous ethnic minorities.

Your polls were spot on, and provided the framework to have a proper discussion. It's a shame Albanese did not have your numbers beforehand.

You missed it by 1% in the end.

[GoTfan]

Someone is going to get hurt in 2025, and there is a decent likelihood that someone will be killed. Dutton and Price need to be extremely careful of some of the forces they've unleashed in this referendum, or they'll end up sending us down the path of the United States.

What a disaster it would be if Australians vote for policies aimed at lifting their standard of living to match that of the United States!

They had nine years to raise our standard of living to the US and did nothing other than fearmonger. I get you like that about politicians, but try and understand that I am not being hyperbolic. The crowd that the No side has whipped up-which includes actual Neo Nazis-will not go quiet now that it's over.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Cricket World Cup - India

Australian cricketers were told they have access to counselling services to deal with any disappointment they may feel should the Indigenous Voice to Parliament end up NO.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

I note that the basic geography of the referendum on The Voice is much the same as that on the Monarchy in 1999.

As was postulated by Antony Green prior to the referendum. It's a very clear "social/cultural axis" divide, if you can forgive the political compass reference. In Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide and Hobart it very starkly aligns with income, much as culture in those cities does. Meanwhile in Melbourne and Perth it's far less income stratified (with Melbourne having far more woke working class, and Perth far more legit rich bogans, than the other cities). But more than anything else it correlates very strongly with the combined Greens/Teal vote, which is expected yet interesting.

https://www.datawrapper.de/_/voYPu/

https://twitter.com/MarkusMannheim/status/1713168221296304557

[TheTide]

Newspoll once again proves itself to be the Gold Standard of Australian polling, perhaps the Gold Standard of any advanced democracy polling. Although compulsory voting no doubt helps.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Andrew Bolt

Takes His Accolades

https://youtu.be/uqRdoI2Aqfs

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I am intrigued that Newcastle was a yes, whereas, say, Adelaide was a narrow no.

Newcastle remains the most working class substantial city in Australia, but it has a longstanding small 'l' liberal culture because of its university and its position as a major regional centre for public services: note that it voted for a Republic in 1999. Class patterns in these results were incidental rather than a primary driver, this even being true in places where they were very marked.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

I am intrigued that Newcastle was a yes, whereas, say, Adelaide was a narrow no.

Newcastle remains the most working class substantial city in Australia, but it has a longstanding small 'l' liberal culture because of its university and its position as a major regional centre for public services: note that it voted for a Republic in 1999. Class patterns in these results were incidental rather than a primary driver, this even being true in places where they were very marked.

Meanwhile on the pre-2019 boundaries Adelaide and Boothby would both vote Yes, far more in line with what you'd expect and the Republic referendum. Now SA is down to 10 electorates the boundaries have bloated across traditional divides.

[TheTide]

It's funny how much many of the seats in Queensland (and to a lesser extent in other states) that Rudd gained in 2007 voted against this. If he had been more mentally stable then he could have been another Hawke or Blair - the kind of social democratic leader who can appeal to voters that just about any other leader can't appeal to - and been in office for about a decade.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

It's funny how much many of the seats in Queensland (and to a lesser extent in other states) that Rudd gained in 2007 voted against this. If he had been more mentally stable then he could have been another Hawke or Blair - the kind of social democratic leader who can appeal to voters that just about any other leader can't appeal to - and been in office for about a decade.

But you can’t seperate Kevin’s psychosis from his success. Without it he never would’ve risen to the top in the first place, especially given the way he did it in ‘06.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's funny how much many of the seats in Queensland (and to a lesser extent in other states) that Rudd gained in 2007 voted against this. If he had been more mentally stable then he could have been another Hawke or Blair - the kind of social democratic leader who can appeal to voters that just about any other leader can't appeal to - and been in office for about a decade.

His charming side was properly disarming and very effective as well: e.g. when he said on election night that his father would never have expected to see him where he now was, deliberately paused for a second and then added in a very genial tone: 'he was a member of the Country Party'. And yet that other side to him...

[Vosem]

Did it matter that South Australia is implementing its own state-level Voice? Newcastle voting for the Voice doesn't seem that strange to me, going by the Republic referendum and its own historical preferences, but Adelaide voting against seems legitimately very strange, and the whole state seems more hostile to it than I would've guessed. Were there special factors leading to a more Voice-hostile environment in SA than elsewhere?

[Ebowed]

Did it matter that South Australia is implementing its own state-level Voice? Newcastle voting for the Voice doesn't seem that strange to me, going by the Republic referendum and its own historical preferences, but Adelaide voting against seems legitimately very strange, and the whole state seems more hostile to it than I would've guessed. Were there special factors leading to a more Voice-hostile environment in SA than elsewhere?

It is the inescapable conclusion that the more Aboriginal people there are in an area, the more likely the white population was to vote 'No'.  In both WA and SA, Labor had big state election wins where they have implemented indigenous policies that they were running on.  As I said about WA months ago, people there didn't overwhelmingly vote for Mark McGowan because of his cultural heritage laws.  And people in SA didn't choose Labor because of its state Voice.  They won for entirely different reasons.

But I will say that the SA draft legislation, outlining the structure and operational mechanisms of the state Voice, was released before it was passed into law, removing one of the central concerns over a lack of detail.  The state elections for its Voice body will be held early next year (they were postponed so as not to coincide with the national referendum).  Whether that state body is a popular one will probably depend a lot on what happens as it gets off the ground over the next little while.  I put myself through the displeasure of watching ABC's Q&A the other week (if you don't know what that is, just stay that way) and it featured SA Premier Peter  Malinauskas, who had to toe a difficult line with an angry (anti-Voice) indigenous activist essentially accusing him of genocide on the one hand, a subtle acknowledgement that his state was likely to vote No on the other hand, and remain committed to Labor policy on the third hand.  He handled the whole thing quite well, actually!