With a two-letter word, Australians have struck down the first attempt at constitutional change in 24 years, major media outlets reported, a move experts say will inflict lasting damage on First Nations people and suspend any hopes of modernizing the nation’s founding document.
Early results from the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) suggested that most of the country’s 17.6 million registered voters had written No on their ballots, and CNN affiliates 9 News, Sky News and SBS all projected no path forward for the Yes campaign.
The proposal, to recognize Indigenous people in the constitution and create an Indigenous body to advise government on policies that affect them, needed a majority nationally and in four of six states to pass.
After a definite disinformation campaign with a side of racist fear mongering…ffs. I’m embarrassed to be an Australian.
Relying on scared white supremacists to not be white supremacists is foolish.
This is a very sad day in Australia’s history. Many of us thought we were a more progressive nation than we are.
We are more progressive. The trouble is the amendment was too vague and if anyone asked questions or suggested that they might vote no, they got called a racist and told to educate themselves.
The Yes campaign ended up mostly using the argument that you should vote yes because conservative are telling you to say no.
A toxic mix of the social heritage of brutal colonialism, domestic racism, and the trolling money from China and Russia.
Follow the money…fossil.fuel and other mining extraction companies would lose if the first nations took more control of parts of land
Marketing, image, and ads are everything with these kinds of things. Seems like the “Yes” campaign fucked that up.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Supporters of the Yes vote had hailed it as an opportunity to accept the outreached hand of First Nations people and to work with them to solve problems in their most remote communities – higher rates of suicide, domestic violence, children in out-of-home care and incarceration.
Constitutional experts, Australians of the Year, eminent retired judges, companies large and small, universities, sporting legends, netballers, footballers, reality stars and Hollywood actors flagged their endorsement.
Aussie music legend John Farnham gifted a song considered to be the unofficial Australian anthem to a Yes advertisement with a stirring message of national unity.
Kevin Argus, a marketing expert from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), told CNN the Yes campaign was a “case study in how not to message change on matters of social importance.”
Argus said only the No campaign had used simple messaging, maximized the reach of personal profiles, and acted decisively to combat challenges to their arguments with clear and repeatable slogans.
Maree Teesson, director of the Matilda Center for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use at the University of Sydney, told CNN the Voice to Parliament had offered self-determination to Indigenous communities, an ability to have a say over what happens in their lives.
The original article contains 945 words, the summary contains 204 words. Saved 78%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
tfw all those jokes about Australians being racist is put to a national referendum and turn out to be true.
Australia is just US without the introspection.
As an aside for people reading the comments here, and I’m not going to comment on people’s comments correcting them because this isn’t the place ( and it says it in the article as well)
I was told recently, that we should not be using the word Aboriginal. I know this will cause an onslaught of people saying "what do they want to be called now?! " but when you think about the word “Aboriginal” and other words like it, it’s not very friendly. “abhorrent”, “abnormal”, etc. Aboriginal means not original.
We should be saying “indigenous peoples” as it encompasses all and is more accurate. I’ve been told First Nations is also acceptable.
You raise an important point, though “Aboriginal” doesn’t mean “not original”. It’s derived from the Latin “ab origine”, meaning “from the beginning”.
Uhh… So it means the opposite of what that person thinks it does? lol.
So, what does a right way to accomodate indigenous groups look like? Has any country accomplished it?
What rights or opportunities are these groups lacking?
Yeah that tracks.
