Australians have resoundingly rejected a proposal to recognise Aboriginal people in its constitution and establish a body to advise parliament on Indigenous issues.
Saturday’s voice to parliament referendum failed, with the defeat clear shortly after polls closed.
Thank you. But I’m still not sure I get it. Could you maybe give an example of what kind of lie or fear mongering would make people want to say:
“No, I don’t want the constitution to recognise that there were an indigenous people here before us.”
That seems like an unarguable fact, isn’t it?
I’m sorry, I don’t mean to put you on the spot but since you were kind enough to take the time to give an overview, it makes me hungry for more detail!
First off to be precise, this was a ”proposal to recognise Aboriginal people in its constitution and establish a body to advise parliament on Indigenous issues".
Some examples of what I think were sadly effective for the no campaign:
“This will allow indigenous peoples to reclaim your land”
“It will only further divide our nation”
“We don’t know how this might be misused”
These all play on peoples fear. On the other hand some indigenous peoples also were campaigning for a no vote, primarily because they thought it wasn’t strong enough.
This gave voters a lot of reasons to hide behind while voting no.
And all this was not helped by a rather poor yes campaign that barely did anything to address misconceptions.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-19/fact-check-yes-no-campaign-pamphlets-aec/102614710
There’s the bare bones of the thing. The yes side had the exact same grasp of messaging that the Democrats in the US do. Which is to say none.
The problem is you’re trying to rationalise racism, which isn’t rational.
Then go look it up, lazy. That other person has no obligation to teach you a customized course on the Australian referendum to recognize indigenous peoples. Use the internet that you’re reading their post with to look it up yourself if you’re so hungry for detail. I’d be willing to bet you can find scanned copies of each pamphlet if you tried. I’d Google it to find out for sure, but then you’d want me to read them to you.
I dont understand people who complaining about other people asking simple questions. What a waste of time to make such a pointless and angry reply.
Your point is a valid one, so I’ll answer it. Initially I did use Google. I was overloaded with a mash-up of sites from which it would have been difficult to resolve right from wrong. As this doesn’t relate to my country I’d have simply moved on.
Instead, I feel much more informed from all the considered, well-written responses which people were kind enough to write here.