The Voice Result, Same Sex Marriage, and Canberra. By Greg Sheridan.

Australians refused to inject racial classifications into the Constitution by an almost identical margin, 62 to 38 (when all votes are counted), by which they embraced same-sex marriage, 62-38. No campaigners must take this welcome rejection of identity politics forward. …

The Constitution doesn’t mention any race, including Indigenous Australians. It did before 1967, but this was removed at that referendum. The Constitution does have a race power, under which very few laws have been passed. …

Canberra stuck out like a sore thumb on referendum night:

It’s a lovely small city situated close to a fascinating foreign country, Australia. Canberra was the only state or territory to vote Yes. It voted Yes by about the same margin the rest of the nation voted No.

Elites versus ordinary folks? Does it occur to anyone that it’s a little subprime, so to speak, to have the bureaucratic and academic elite at the heart of national power aligned in social policy outlook only with the richest plutocrats and the densest inner-city soviets, while in furious, complete, social and ideological contradiction of the rest of the society it misrules and doesn’t understand?