The Voice is the Biggest Ever Change to Australia’s Governance. By Paul Kelly. This PC editor of The Australian is finally coming out swinging against the Voice.
This referendum is a profound risk for Australia. It has been a long process but with extremely limited consultation with the public — no constitutional convention, no parliamentary committee collaborating on the model, no meaningful effort to strike bipartisanship, incredibly not even the release of legal advice from the Solicitor-General and then, on Thursday, the Prime Minister doubling down in a rejection of efforts to modify or temper the model whose flaws have been documented.
In his announcement Albanese endorsed a maximalist voice, thereby guaranteeing a fundamental change in Australia’s system of parliamentary and executive governance and making a contentious referendum even more contentious. Instead of putting qualifications on the voice Albanese went the other way — bowing before the Indigenous working group, he refused any meaningful change to the voice’s capacity to advise the executive government or address reported concerns of the Solicitor-General and Attorney-General. …
The optics are disastrous — Albanese left the impression of a compliant prime minister submitting to Indigenous demands. …
Beware prime ministers when they get emotional; it usually means a lurch into unreality. …
It is a sad conclusion from Albanese’s latest remarks that he seeks to carry this referendum on a tactic of deception — relying on goodwill, emotions and the injustice Indigenous people have faced for so long. This is an intellectual and moral deception. …
There are numerous problems with the model but Labor essentially has chosen to ignore them and press ahead in a “crash through or crash” fatalism. …
No criticism allowed, that’s how we do things in the age of Woke:
It is, frankly, incredible that since Albanese outlined his proposed referendum at the Garma Festival seven months ago there has been no public institutional process to examine and assess the proposal – just talk behind closed doors. This is an unacceptable foundation on which to ask the Australian people to endorse probably the most far-reaching referendum proposal since Federation. …
Lying by omission is par for the course nowadays:
The voice is an institution based on group or racial identity … We are told by Albanese this will unite the country. How does that work?
If the Australian public understood what this institutional arrangement involved would they vote for it? That’s why Albanese’s campaign says the two issues are recognition and consultation. But that’s misleading.
There are thousands, probably millions, of people who support recognition and consultation but who will oppose the voice because they believe it is divisive or dangerous. …
Power for the Woke team:
The referendum is about power. The voice will make representations not just to parliament but the executive government including cabinet, ministers and public servants as decision-makers. The idea the voice has limited influence because it is advisory is disingenuous. It will function as a powerful political entity exerting enormous influence. That’s the entire purpose. It’s what the whole idea is about.
The constitutional amendment is open-ended and unlimited, such that the voice can make representations on virtually anything – from the conditions of Indigenous people to tax, social, economic, resources, cultural, defence and foreign policy. …
The appeal to moral vanity will be irresistible to the usual suspects:
The Prime Minister said people should support the referendum because we will “feel better” about ourselves. This is insulting and demeaning. …
The more he says this, the more he insults people. On every issue Albanese has deferred to the authority of the voice. This is surely an omen of the future – he has previously said it would be a brave government that ignored the advice of the voice. This underlines the sheer enormity of the political nature of this proposal. …
Will ordinary Australians be impressed when voice members give doorstop TV interviews on parliamentary sitting days? Will they be impressed when there are public brawls over whether the voice has been properly consulted and listened to? Will they be impressed when there are deals done and horse-trading between voice members and federal parliamentarians? …
This looms as a remarkable moment for Australia given our elites – the professional classes, corporate leaders and progressive opinion-makers – seem united in supporting the referendum, with Labor assuming they will put money behind it. … This referendum will become the most critical test for many years of the character and leadership quality of those elites. …
It’s not going to fly:
The problem is the model of the voice being proposed, its extraordinary constitutional powers and their implications. It is fatuous to say those constitutional powers, once granted, will not be used. The case against the referendum lies in its essence – the institutional power it seeks to create. That is where the decision must be weighed and made. Albanese carries the final responsibility for that model — and he has failed that test.
The opinion polls are about 50% in favor of the Voice and dropping. Then there’s the shy Tory effect — people tell a pollster that oh yes they’re in favor, not wanting to appear racist. But in the privacy of the election booth…
