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.

  • danl@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Leaving the moral arguments aside, there were also massive campaign failures on the Yes side. No had two clear cheerleaders with an absurdly simple catchphrase: “If you don’t know, vote No”. Meanwhile Yes didn’t have a star for the campaign and had made the amendment way too simple/general so there weren’t any included details of the practicalities. So they ended up with 100 people having to re-explain their plans every campaign stop and occasionally tripping over each other’s messages. As a result, the complicated sell from Yes played right into No‘s hands.

    • SeaJ@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      So the No side’s campaign was one of deliberately not educating people? To me that just says that people educated on the subject are voting Yes.

      While that may be an absurdly simple slogan, it is also absurdly stupid.

      • Cypher
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        1 year ago

        The only Territory to vote yes, out of all our States and Territories, was the Australian Capital Territory which is the most educated and most involved with governance.

            • Whirlybird
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              1 year ago

              Link? You must have it on hand.

              Also someone being uni educated doesn’t mean they’re educated on the topic at hand.

              • naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                1 year ago

                Why don’t you just go to the abc tab and click it yourself? you could even see it on the lemmy Australia or news or whatever community page right now. You’re not actually interested or you would have done it, you’re just trying to be exhausting.

                • Whirlybird
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                  1 year ago

                  I’m not looking for your source. If you can’t provide it I have to doubt it exists or says what you say it does.

        • Ilandar
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          1 year ago

          I don’t understand why the media is so desperate to frame the result around cost of living. It was clearly about education.

        • Staccato@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Just Google it, the advice you always hear when the other person is shutting down any more conversation. What an unfortunate result

          • ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            “Google it” vs “no”. The point of the slogan was to highlight a) how the other side was shutting down the conversation and b) that their premise of ignorance was stupid, in a short pithy way.

            It wasn’t saying “go find out”, so much as “you CAN find out if you care, there is no reason to not know”

            That said, without question, the Yes campaign’s official messages were pretty poor. Supporters have been far more eloquent.

            On the “just google it” topic, this short video was brilliantly well done: https://youtube.com/watch?v=SAqIypjk-5A

        • Whirlybird
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          1 year ago

          And when we tried to find out, they said we don’t need to know that, just trust us.

        • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Which isn’t in any way how it works. You’re making the claim, you sell it. I’m not going digging to make someone’s claim on their behalf.

      • Whirlybird
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        1 year ago

        So the No side’s campaign was one of deliberately not educating people?

        No, but that’s what people are trying to pretend. The “if you don’t know, vote no” slogan is also about when people are trying to find details on what this advisory body would look like and are being told “oh we’re not going to tell you that, don’t worry about it, just trust us”. If you don’t know what the body will look like because they won’t tell you, why would you vote yes?

        • SeaJ@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          It sounds like that was something that would need to have been fleshed out in legislation since the amendment only specified that an advisory body would be created. It’s only advisory and has no legislative power. Does it matter much what it might be made up of? From reading it sounds like it would be less than 100 people nationally. Seems a bit ridiculous to vote no on something like that.

      • Elliemac
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        1 year ago

        The ‘No’ campaign was largely nonexistent. The ‘Yes’ campaign was enough reason to vote ‘No’. And the ‘No’ voters are just as educated as ‘Yes’ voters. It’s just that some people can’t understand why other people would disagree with them.

        • ⸻ Ban DHMO 🇦🇺 ⸻
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          1 year ago

          Didn’t get a single flyer from the yes campaign, the no campaign, however. Just depends on where you live

        • ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Some are educated, some are racist - no reason they can’t be both.

          It’s easy to understand ignorance and racism.

          (There’s a third option, and that’s for the mining magnates like Clive who want less complaining about digging up sacred sites)