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.
It would have made more sense to just legislate an advisory body to parliament as envisioned and planned, to show people: see, it’s literally just an advisory body with no veto or other legislative power, and then put it to a refenedum to enshrine it in the constitution afterwards.
Would have given the no campaign less space. “If you don’t know, vote no” would have had less traction.
The whole thing was a fumble. They picked the wrong time and appealed to the wrong people. They also never sold why it needed to happen.
What does a Chinese, Afghan or Sudanese citizen even understand or care about a group of people when they probably have never even met one.
They appealed to the inner city rich snobs and no one else. The inner city was going to vote yes anyway. Why didn’t they go where the no votes were?
I’m not an Aussie and I’m not following this in particular, but from what I’ve seen that’s how bad ideas work: you don’t want to start a dialogue where the noes point out all the flaws in your ideas. In the US the extreme of this is legislation passed in a specially coordinated session at midnight with an absolute minimum of debate.
With that said, why the hell does a budgeted program belong in a constitution and not in a regular legislated budget? And why the hell does one specific group need specific recognition defined at the level of a constitution, as opposed to broad rules changed in such a way that their specific exclusion is forbidden with a catch all that also benefits other minorities?