Reflections on the referendum
Dutton’s contempt for a policy contest
There has been a great deal of comment about why the referendum failed. There are single explanations for why it all went so wrong, categorical statements about how reconciliation will play out in the future, and theories illuminated by the clarity of hindsight. We would do well to wait until there has been some patient analysis, which will probably reveal several reasons why the “yes” vote collapsed.
One common observation, confirming past experience, is that without bipartisan support the referendum was bound to fail. Early on the National Party and then the Liberal Party announced that they would oppose the referendum. These decisions seem to have been based on directions from party leaders rather than on party room deliberation.
What followed from the Coalition was not an argument about reasons to reject the proposal, but rather a hysterical Trumpian scare campaign. That led to a distinct asymmetry in the way “yes” and “no” campaigns progressed. Yet the media, even media that carried no partisan bias, treated the campaign as one in which each side should be given a fair go, even though the “yes” and “no” proponents were operating on different rules. It was as if we were living in a postmodern dystopia in which there is a moral equivalence between arguments based on truth and evidence, and a nihilistic “post-truth” approach.
As John Hewson wrote in his Saturday Paper contribution last week, Dutton wasn’t interested in the referendum question. To quote:
Does anyone seriously think Dutton would ever have offered genuine bipartisan support, especially when his game plan was to create maximum division to undermine the prime minister and his government.
and
Dutton had no genuine interest in reconciliation or in closing the disadvantage gap, just in scoring a win against the government.
Another comment is by Thomas Mayo in a 20-minute podcast on Schwarz Media’s 7 am program: What follows the voice. The first half is about the campaign and the second half is about the future path of reconciliation.
In clear language Mayo takes to task what the “unbiassed” media, concerned with “balance”, failed to say during the campaign. They noted that the campaign had become dirty, but their general comment was to say something like “the campaign has turned to lies and misinformation”, and “it has become a Labor/Coalition contest”, as if there was no human agency in those developments.
Mayo disputes this “neutral” approach. He says “Any analysis needs to point out who actually lied to the Australian public”.
When asked “Who do you think is responsible for spreading those lies?” he gives a direct reply, assigning responsibility to Dutton. This is followed by a clip from Dutton confirming Mayo’s statement that Dutton claimed it would “re-racialize” Australia.
Mayo doesn’t state categorically that “Dutton lied”, but he makes it clear that what Dutton said about “race” is untrue, and that the lies and misinformation dominated the campaign only after Dutton decided to claim, falsely, that the Voice would re-racialize Australia.
Maybe Dutton was just using loose language, or maybe he really doesn’t understand the difference between “race” and “aboriginality”. That’s hard to believe because prime ministers are carefully briefed by well-schooled people who should know the distinction, and who know that the distinction is important. Also Dutton went on making the statement about race even after he was challenged. But Mayo doesn’t make a moral judgement about Dutton’s behaviour. He charitably allows for the remote possibility that Dutton’s statements resulted from ignorance or use of sloppy language, rather than any deliberate intention to deceive.
Mayo’s strong statements should have the media, particularly those sectors that carefully avoid taking a partisan stance, questioning how they report on a campaign when there is asymmetry in the way the campaign is being conducted. Are they not letting the community down when they fail to call out bad behaviour?
If in a political contest, one side with substantial following chooses to engage in a campaign of lies and misinformation, and tacitly allows their more extreme supporters to do the same, any hope of retrieving an argument about public policy is lost. The other side is left with the choice of sticking to reason and facing an assured but honourable loss, or adopting similar tactics and hoping that by random chance they win. Either way the public loses.
In a healthy democracy there will always be different perspectives, different interpretations of data, and different assumptions about unresolvable matters. In the Voice campaign, however, the difference was about the basic rules of political discourse.
The open letter
On Monday, after a week of silence from indigenous leaders, the media started to dribble out quotes from the “statement for our people and country” – an open letter to politicians and the Australian public.
None of these media reports included any link to the full text. That is, until The Monthly published a link, along with an exhortation to people to read it. It’s only 1200 words, in twelve concise paragraphs. It is indeed worth reading in full.