Reflections on the Voice Referendum

The dust has begun to settle after Australia’s contentious Voice Referendum, but amid the accusations of bad faith and ignorance, how many people on either side bothered to read or understand the report which laid out how the Voice would have worked, and the problems it raised or failed to address?

Misconstruing misinformation

The defeat of the Voice referendum has been blamed on latent racism and misinformation, but the Prime Minister was repeatedly warned the referendum would fail if recognition was linked to the Voice.

A cacophony of voices

Misinformation and disinformation have come to curse the debate around all national issues in recent times, and the Voice Referendum is no exception.

The Yes campaign goes down in flames

A barnstorming speech by Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, the leading Indigenous woman of the “no” campaign, at the National Press Club capped another disastrous week for the Yes campaign, which now seems unlikely to carry a single state in October’s referendum.

Listening to other voices

With the polls trending heavily against the ‘Yes’ campaign, more thought must be given to what happens if the Voice Referendum fails to pass in October and alternative ways to improve the lot of Australia’s first nations peoples.

The magnificent seven

As support for the Voice to Parliament continues to plummet in the run-up to October’s referendum, the intensity of the campaign on both sides is bound to increase, so here are seven guidelines to bear in mind to ensure a healthy and positive debate on both sides of this divisive issue.

Two sides to the ‘no’ campaign

While the “yes” campaign has largely coalesced behind a single message, the “no” campaign is not a singular cohort. There are two sides to the “no” camp and they are very different.