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Fuck. I’m sad. I’m sorry to be Australian right now.
Yeah - the voice didn’t really mean much to my day to day at all, but this loss is indicative of our deepening conservative bent.
With any luck it would have meant something to mine. I’m devastated.
Genuinely sorry for your loss.
Thanks, sadly I’ve learned a lot about my country and my local areas in how they’ve polled
Deepening? How new are you? Homosexuals were criminals until recently.
It has nothing to do with anyone becoming “conservative”. Another advisory board would change nothing when the ones we already have are ignored and aren’t working.
60% of the country voted for gay marriage, a far more “liberal”/“progressive” thing than the voice, so saying we’re getting more “conservative” makes no sense. The fact is that the actual progressive people recognize that this was all grandstand virtue signalling, and we want more than that. “It’s better than nothing” is not a valid reason to change our constitution. How about actually doing something meaningful as a starting point instead?
I think you’ve misunderstood this. Sure it’s ‘virtue signalling’ and not gonna do anything. But that’s all it was meant to be, recognising the original owners of the land in our constitution was really all it was meant to do. And so what if that’s literally all it did? How is there any reason to vote against that? What has anyone achieved by voting no? We could have had a more respectful constitution today but instead we’ve got nothing. Well done, we’ve denied Aboriginals the smallest bit of acknowledgement and respect. Good job Australia. Fuck I wish Sky News would start telling people to jump off a cliff.
recognising the original owners of the land in our constitution was really all it was meant to do
Without any detail about how these processes would actually work, this seemingly common sense statement is fraught with danger. This has been rightly recognised by those most likely to encounter legislative change around land management and compulsory engagement with indigenous groups. As you move outwards from inner city suburbs, the percentage of no voters increased and this should not surprise anyone at all…that doesn’t mean country folks are racist or that they don’t care about first nations issues. It means they are far more likely to have been caught up in the absolutely disgusting mess of previous government attempts to put a framework around cultural heritage issues or challenges to private land ownership.
The guarantee of ‘an indigenous voice to parliament’ completely failed to elucidate how this could possibly hope to deal with the fractious state of existing first nations groups who can not and will not work together or settle disputes over borders. Obviously this is a problem originally caused by colonisation and forced encampment, but it’s not easily put to bed. Right now where I live there are heated battles raging over native title claims; over boundaries and which family groups are the rightful representatives of each tribal group. 4 or 5 districts that cannot decide on who is the rightful native title claimant, all with various corporate backing fighting tooth and nail with a view to securing the imagined wealth of being ratified as the original inhabitants of one patch of dirt or another.
This is where it ends up:
This wasn’t some mining company looking to explore for gas or resources…it was a group of people trying to carry out a waterway restoration project. To help undo damage to the land. They were asked to pay 2.5 million dollars to the Whadjuk Aboriginal Corporation for the privilege.
That CEO has since been rightly removed, but you get the picture. There are so many corporate groups out there just rubbing their hands together and hoping to turn this ugly mess into a gravy train. I have first hand experience dealing with these situations and it has been absolutely heartbreaking. White solutions to black problems seems to just lead to more exploitation and fresh wounds.
About 6 months ago we had some cultural heritage training delivered at work just as public discourse around ‘The Voice’ was starting to ramp up heavily. There were about 100 people present across a few sessions and I think they were extremely powerful for some people. Some minds were changed on a few issues and the facilitator was absolutely fantastic. Towards the end of the session I was absolutely shocked when that facilitator who obviously cares deeply about first nations representation told our group that she and her family would be voting against the referendum. Her statement was concise and to the point: “How can a single indigenous voice to parliament represent hundreds of groups who do not agree with one another?”
Obviously she is caught up in the aforementioned ongoing disputes, but I dare say after the heartbreaking presentation about generational trauma inflicted by white settlers trying to solve indigenous issues, she made almost 100 no voters right there.
To be perfectly honest I am completely disgusted by the way this proposal was handled from start to finish. IMO the Labor party has taken the olive branch offered by the Uluru Statement from the Heart and stomped it into the ground for attempted political gain.
They grabbed a divisive wedge issue and took it to a referendum with no real plan for how it was going to work. They failed to illustrate a workable framework or demonstrate what was going to be put in place to compensate private landholders for restrictions placed on development of the land they have purchased.
It feels as though we just set reconciliation back about 40 years, picked the scab from every wound imaginable…and for what? My heart breaks for indigenous Australians right now. They’ve just been told by the entire country that we don’t care about them. That hurts, because there’s simply no way that is the case. Again, our first Australians have been let down by a tone deaf white government that believes so hard that ‘they know best’ that they were prepared to put indigenous people on the gallows with a smile and forced the Australian people to pull the lever by keeping them in the dark and not presenting the full legal framework that would draw from that constitutional change.
It’s fucking gross.
Yeah there’s nothing in there anywhere about land rights, it was purely about recognition. I have no idea how the issue got conflated by that nonsense, all I know is it’s being peddled by a bunch of racists. You do seem to genuinely care but imo it just makes this all sadder. I do agree Labour did a horrible job with all this but I still see no good reason for anyone to vote no. It’s all written in the information, and no you don’t need to answer every question before hand, it says in the information that parliament gets to decide the functions, composition and procedures. It had absolutely nothing to do with land rights, there was so much disinformation spread about this and I hate everyone who couldn’t just read it and instead trusted whatever some moron on sky news or facebook said.
It got conflated because there are multiple global examples to where the constitutional change that passed was equally broad and has created a situation where you cannot sneeze in your back garden without first asking a first nations corporation for permission and paying the tithe. I’m not saying that some form of financial reparations should be ruled out, but landing it on the heads of people who purely through accident of birth grow up in a former colony is not going to fly. It ends up in a circular argument every single time. Perhaps the British crown should own their crimes and shoulder the financial burden of making things right? Certainly no questioning the lineage of those responsible there.
No, it’s not broad. Please for the love of christ read: In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia:
there shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice;
the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;
the Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.
Nothing anywhere that would have any say in land rights, it’s a completely separate issue.
That’s reason to vote against it because it’s pointless. It achieves nothing positive, and likely leads to decades more of inaction because “but we put you guys in the constitution and gave you a voice, what more can we do?!”.
I’m not voting to change our constitution for something this pathetic. It’s not a shopping list.
If you’re not willing to vote for the bare minimum you’re not going to vote for anything. The status quo got us into this mess and you’re expecting it to get us out, pathetic.
100% incorrect.
I would have voted yes if we were guaranteeing something to indigenous people that would actually be guaranteed to help, like 10 senate seats or something. A new indigenous government agency that gives indigenous people money and say over all indigenous things.
You know what would also really help? Details about the thing I’m voting on, not a vague “just leave the details to us, the government, who have shown we’re not to be trusted over and over again”.
Voting for the voice as it was was essentially maintaining the status quo while being able to pat ourselves on the back and tell ourselves we saved the indigenous people.
Could it not have been a start? Now it looks like you’ve all said no to the bare minimum, so there’s no point in continuing with anything at all. And have you seen the reaction from the indigenous community? That doesn’t seem like they felt it was useless. They’ve just been ignored again.
I’m on the outside looking in, btw. From Ireland it looks like you’ve all been played by the No campaign.
All the details were on the sheet you wrote No on. Looking forward to all the helpful progressive policies getting passed now that you’ve voted no, what a champ.
Do you really believe that most “actually progressive” people voted no?
Do you think this is the springboard from which meaningful change will flow?
Lol all the woke voters in -checks notes- Maranoa and North QLD. Melbourne is actually super conservative then I guess.
Clearly a lot did, yes. 60% of people voted for gay marriage. That’s a far more “progressive” and divisive issue and it won.
Also seems the results are showing that a lot of massive indigenous population areas voted overwhelmingly no.
to say it plainly, you’re clearly not very bright. that you actually believe attack advertisements and social media spin, while still maintaining a stream of ‘considered’ opinions really lays out the massive problem Australia faces with wilful, proud, ignorance. that you’re actually daft enough to claim that this will be somehow revisited? jfc…
One of the most stagnant democracies in the west.
We’d rather spend time talking about franking credits than lend an ear to the suffering.
Some of the people receiving the franking credits believe they’re suffering… somehow.
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Yeah, I hear you. With an election the country is choosing between two different paths. In this case we’re either choosing progress or… not.
One of Dutton’s talking points over the last few weeks was that he would propose some alternatives after the referendum. I imagine that will be part of the forthcoming “Albo is out of touch” campaign.
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Yeah. Forgive me for saying so but this outcome is more or less a mandate to not do anything.
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Almost everything I’ve seen last night and this morning was about how this wasn’t a result to do nothing and ignore it, it was a result that said go back and rethink because what you suggested wasn’t going to help.
I’m surprised you would so easily believe what was said.
They can’t exactly say “yes well this proves there’s no appetite to address inequality and that Australians are happy with the status quo.”
Instead of course you get these placating which allow everyone to feel as though they’ve done the right thing while actually doing nothing at all.
Your last paragraph describes most of the reason why people would vote yes on such a toothless virtue signalling change.
This wasn’t “progress or not” though, that’s ridiculous and sore loser talk. Another toothless advisory panel that will be ignored isn’t “progress”.
Real progress would be something like guaranteeing some new seats at the senate to go with the “voice”. Give them an actual voice that gets to decide on things that affect their community. Giving them a “voice” that can and will be ignored will change nothing for the better.
It’s not another toothless advisory panel.
It would’ve been a constitutionally supported advisory, with demonstrated will of the Australian people. That wouldn’t be so easily ignored.
It literally would be another toothless advisory panel because it was not going to have any power. Being constitutionally supported just means it has to exist in some unspecified form. There was no “demonstrated will of the Australian people” in it.
You know what does have the demonstrated will of the Australian people? That the proposed voice was a bad idea. That shouldn’t be ignored.
Come on mate, obviously there would have been demonstrated will if the referendum was upheld.
I feel like anyone who seriously thought a No vote would lead to a better outcome are going to be disappointed when indigenous rights are not revisited until 2050.
More importantly, Dutton or other LNP government can use this result to justify cuts to funding and whatnot.
Awful time to be an Australian. How utterly embarrassing.
Did anyone really deep down think that “no” was a better outcome for the indigenous tough?
There was someone actively campaigning that in the Megathread, they argued that it would be seen as an excuse to not do anything
Yeah in the world news thread there’s multiple links to the guy from Black Peoples Union doing an interview.
It’s infuriating to watch for many reasons. IMO very flawed logic, and ulterior motives.
It’s a false dichotomy that you need to choose between the voice “or” something better.
The voice would have paved to road to something better.
Albanese’s defeat speach fell flat and was weak. Just more dithering and deflection. For a self proclaimed conviction politician he sure can’t muster any fire in his rhetoric.
Dutton’s speach was solid, hit all the talking points and will likely see an approval rating rise. Yet it was full of lies, promises of action on housing and cost of living issues which his government created. Promises to improve defence which rotted under Liberal leadership.
Promises for funds to communities in need, the same communities the Liberals stripped $500 million in funding from.
I was happy to hear a journalist call out Dutton’s claim that an audit into where the money is spent, as Liberals were in power for a long time and should know exactly where it went!
Imagine if Albo had decided to make his PM’s legacy in to being the one that started fixing wealth inequality and the housing crisis. Instead economically they are sticking with the shit-party-lite approach. Housing being pushed further out of reach for those without due to added demand.
His failure to read the room on the voice will mean his legacy is this failed referendum and fact that it poured more fuel on the division fire.
im sad for those that is would have actually mattered, its a shame the ‘tyranny of majority’ can decide things that apply to minorities. I refuse to go to any cooker pages tonight, no doubt there will be a lot of gloating
So disappointing that the government spent hundreds of millions of dollars on this referendum only for the majority of people to vote no (well if the ABC have called it right). I’m interested in seeing what the government does next.
Why the fuck do mining companies get a voice in parliament but the oldest living culture in Australia does not?!
The money was actually well spent because the will of Australian electors was ratified. It’s a snarky point yes, but one worth making.
I think if they passed the legislation first as a trial and then if it went well put it through a referendum there would be more support.
I’m not saying he would but he could just force it through legislation now, with the greens support and independents support, Pocock is in ACT who was the only place to vote yes, I think they have enough to pass.
Sure it will go against the results of the referendum, or “the will of the people” but it will be a legal way to do it. I think if it went through legislation it would become like GST, deeply unpopular at the time but it just becomes fait accompli and noone would dare reverse it. Because once in noone wants the optics of being “the racist in the parliament” besides maybe ONP.
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And with how vague the voice constitutional change was, it would be able to be dismantled in every meaningful way another 11 times in the future. It would just have to exist, but it could have been comprised of a 19 year old white intern who supported anti-indigenous things.
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Says the person saying how frequently they’re disbanded 😂. You’re literally arguing against yourself.
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I don’t say it would be abolished, just that it could and likely would essentially be completely gutted many times over because like I said, the only thing that’s protected is the thing existing.
I don’t say it would be abolished, just that it could and likely would essentially be completely gutted many times over because like I said, the only thing that’s protected is the thing existing.
Legislation first would have been the winner for the Yes campaign. Their weakness was in the lack of detail. As soon as they launched “If you don’t know, vote No” It was sunk.
Because giving voice to mining companies is oligarchy and giving special treatment to any race is racism. Both disgusting but first one much less.
Sorry man, but that’s not racism. That’s equity. Some kinds of people need certain kinds of privileges, because they’ve been disenfranchised by a racist system for years and years and years. Giving them a leg up is a reasonable and empathetic thing to do.
“Giving some race a privilege” is definition of racism. As long as we continue to mention race in any contents it is racism. We are australian and all australian should be treated equally. Yes they need help but not because their race but because they need help. Just ask yourself why do you consider chinese descendants are second class citizens? They are second members of second oldest cultural tradition in this country.
Races of people exist in our society. Observing that, or mentioning race in any contents, isn’t racism. I totally agree though – all Australians should be treated equally. Unfortunately, since colonisation, Indigenous people have not been treated as equal to the settlers. In fact, they’ve been treated like shit. The system they live under is incentivised to treat them like shit, because it gives other people money and power and land. Crafting special solutions for them, based on their race in a racist system, their culture, their individual needs – that’s the only effective way to help. Every other way is blind. This goes for any group of people. We can give separate, necessary privileges to both Indigenous and Chinese people. It’s not a zero sum game.
That’s not the definition of racism.
Giving people in a wheelchair a ramp onto the train is not ableism.
Giving children a booster seat in a car is not ageism.
Bigtory is about discriminating against people based on an attribute. So you’d need to argue that the rest of Australia is having their government representation taken away by the voice.
The entire point of the voice is try and treat people equally by addressing the intergenerational issues caused by systemic racism.
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Of to a very “no” leaning start.
If it’s a “no” outcome I’m gonna have to avoid any Australia related news. Couldn’t bare to see Dutton congratulating himself.
Passing referendums is very difficult in Australia. People are easily scared away from change with emotional arguments unless there is a very clear message and benefit and I think the voice proposal was lacking. The only reason I voted Yes was to show solidarity with indigenous Australians and to oppose some of the ugly characters and lies coming from the No campaign. Try as I could reading the Uluru statement and other supporting arguments I couldn’t get excited about it and I can understand why people on the fence would reject constitutional change.
The government should put as much as they can into legislation and be satisfied and I think we should move on.
Unfortunately I think this result has huge lessons for the republican cause. I suspect there won’t be a republican referendum this decade now.
I think as long as Chuck or his sons don’t come over here expecting some big royal event, there is no real impulse for change our system of government.
A key difference in the campaigns would be the fact that the Voice referendum didn’t include the element ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. Everybody agrees theres a gap between First Nations people and the rest of Aus, (We don’t agree on the cause). A Rebublican proposal is trying to change a system that, when comparing to other systems around the world, is working quite well.
Indigenous disadvantage is a huge issue and I don’t want to trivialize it by comparison to less important topics but as far as these constitutional referendums are concerned there is some commonality. Both seek to add recognition and self-determination for Australians that are far more appropriate for current and future Australia than was anticipated in a document written near the height of the British Empire.
Parliament can legislate indigenous consultation and although it isn’t as resilient as a constitutional change it can achieve much the same outcome for now. We have gone as far as we can legislatively to become an independent sovereign nation and the replacement of the head of state with an Australian citizen is the last obstacle to assert our full nationhood.
Realistically both were going to be lost outside the inner cities. Neither are going to give a No voter cheaper beer and smokes. As long as we have a regional divide in economic status and education, conservatives have an almost insurmountable advantage. Racism might have played a role in the Voice outccome but it is just one of many buttons for a disinformation campaign to exploit.
Yeah, theres certainly some commonality, between the two. Its a general needs problem with the Republic idea getting up in Australia though:
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We are to all intents and purposes an independent nation. I would cite the fact that we are far more dependent on the US than the UK as a sign of our independence from our notional parent state (the UK). So there is no improvement, perceived or real, in driving further separation.
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Unlike other countries who approach the question of independence we have peaceful and extremely friendly relations with the UK. Not to mention close family ties between the country’s.
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The idea of Republics around the world are sufferring from a reputation problem. The abuse of the concept by all manner of abhorrent ‘leaders’ over the 20th century and continuing in this century has diminished the idea of freedom through the creation of a Republic. A key issue is Presidents have seemed to be able to gain and retain too much power, then if they’re able to get the military on side, well, at what point do we stop calling it a Republic? Again i only mean it has a reputational problem, not that, that would happen in Australia.
Your right about the City/Country divide.
I think this referendum was also a reiteration of the importance of having regard to people’s self interest. The Yes camp didn’t connect the Voice to how it will benefit everyone in the nation. While the No camp had no qualms about heaping theoretical loss at the doors of all self interested Australians. (I do not mean greedy btw, i only mean self interested).
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this comment is a good example of how profoundly ill-informed Australians are with regard to our politics; our constitution is a colonialist relic with no inalienable rights and colossal centralisation of power, and people act like it’s actually somehow modern or progressive.
by and large Australians are unsophisticated, easily manipulated, political idiots.
anyone with half a brain would look at our system and laugh at the corruption it encourages, here sadly, we don’t have half a brain between us.
I wouldn’t call the constitution a relic, it is, albeit imperfectly, a functioning document, that maintains a certain cohesion in this country. Calling it a relic somewhat undermines that important use to the nation. I don’t argue with the characterisation of Colonialist. It very much was set in these terms.
Colossal centralisation of power is an odd thing to claim, and possibly ill-informed.
- The primacy of Parliaments, made up of many people, over Governors, single people, is very much established in this country but even the Governors retain some power away from Parliament in limited circumstances, think of GG’s power of dismissal,
- The system of exclusive powers to the federals with the states retaining all other powers is an extremely important partition of power,
- Each state retained their own Courts, Parliaments, and Governors and much of the public service supporting those remits separately from the Federal government, who also gained the full set of those positions to represent the country as one.
The country took lots of opportunities to ensure the dilution of power. And much of that is contained within the Constitution. So i would say it protects the devolvement of powers from any one body.
‘Inalienable rights’ has been considered by many in Australia. I think the closer you get to the detail the less atractive that proposition becomes. People have a responsibilty when they speak, ‘inalienable rights’ has proven to lead to a reduction in peoples calculation of their own responsibilties when speaking. The provisions for this in the US have been an example where such a rigid code can lead to poorer outcomes. The calculation here is, our system gets protection of speech about the same as places with the explicit right, but without some of the adverse consequences, because the protection remains somewhat fungible. Fungibilty is important to courts where they may wish to distinguish from precedent for legitimate reasons.
‘Modern’ should be left as a concept of the Post WW2 period. We are, as a whole, more like our ancestors than the word ‘modern’ allows. Modern has become a hopeful term that things are ‘better today than yesterday’, and thats not always true. Modern clouds the nuance. This isn’t a bad or good thing, only an observation that the term ‘modern’ or ‘life today’, etc, is a mental separation from history that has proven unhelpful.
I never said the constitution or the nation is progressive, nor should it be assumed that is the goal. There are people who aren’t progressive in this nation, just as there are progressive people. A well functioning founding document should seek to balance the views of the many without trampling the rights of the few. Thats not a progressive sentiment, thats a utilitarian sentiment. This is a strategy to stop endless cycles of violence/repression, allowing people to live in reasonable liberty. A strength of the Constitution is that it isn’t particularly prescriptive.
ABC just called it as defeated, all over before WA even got to start counting…
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It’s only 5:30 here in WA. Results have been known for over an hour. Polls are still open for another half an hour.
I get why people are voting: they have to or will get a fine. What I don’t understand is why people are still handing out ‘Vote Yes/No’ flyers. What is the point in that?
The outcome still has potential to sway politicians I suppose. If it’s closer than they expect, some will have to tread more carefully and make some concessions, or risk losing their seat next election.
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Antony Green was calling 2 states No at 7:01pm AEDT, and that meant only 1 more No state was required.
He called SA as No at 7:24pm. Not even close…
Needs both majority of states and population, so if its defeated in the east, it’s too late.
I think they called the election wrong pretty early as well, it’s probably just automated, but I don’t have high hopes
ABC has live results here, the percentage counted is rising pretty quickly.
The next time someone tries to tell you that most Aboriginal people didn’t want The Voice:
https://twitter.com/AntonyGreenElec/status/1713353768706928912
Antony Green:
Results for Remote Mobile Teams in the NT electorate of Lingiari. Number columns are first % Yes, then % No and total votes. #auspol #referendum2023
This is really interesting in many ways.
6 months ago, if you had have told me that these communities would be less than 90% yes I would’ve been surprised.
What a shit show.
Don’t forget these remote sites will still include non-indigenous Australians who were in the area too. So it may be still a little imprecise, but highly indicative nonetheless.
Yeah, but I had thought the non-indigenous living in those communities would still be yes voters.
Stands to reason, for sure.
The result isn’t being covered very well internationally, looking at the post on lemmy.world, I wonder what ramifications this will have in the pacific
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Yeah I noticed that everyone has jumped on the “Australia is racist” bandwagon. I think there is that element but I’m optimistic that the referendum failed for other reasons and we can all move on.
I think had there been no advertising, no campaigning, no news coverage, just the alteration to the constitution with a small explanation of its implications and no social media posts we would have had a very different result, but unfortunately we do not live in a utopia
And I mean if you find yourself frequently susceptible to racist propoganda… Well, maybe…
I’ll pin this thread for discussing the referendum, the megathread will be closed in a minute
Albo’s looking like a one-term prime minister at the moment.
Yeah see this is the part that really grinds my gears. Labor has wasted a lot of political capital on this. They didn’t have much to start with. I’m not looking forward to a decade of Dutton.
I don’t understand how this became a party issue. There are practically no LNP members here in WA, so they don’t need to follow the national LNP directives.
The result is: the opposition leader here said she’s resigning and voting yes. Our two most well-known Libs (one the former deputy PM) are both publicly in the ‘yes’ camp.
Not that any of it matters.
Something I’d read/listened to recently suggested that it might have more of a detrimental affect on Dutton when it comes to the election - people will remember his campaigning during this, and be really turned off it when voting for a leader. On the other hand, Albanese has done some work towards keeping his leadership separate from the outcome of the result.
It’s interesting, I don’t know if Dutton will be able to win back the moderate seats they lost at the last election
Yeah the yes vote is crushing it in traditional Liberal seats, and they are going to remember this.
The swinging seats were largely the apolitical suburbs, who aren’t idealistic lefties but aren’t rusted-on megachurch culture-warriors either. They bend with the wind. Morrison was on the nose, so they swung to Labor; whether they stay with Labor or conclude, after surveying the famously impartial media, that we need a change is an open question.
Given he’s just pissed $450m up the wall for nothing, that seems appropriate
Hey, just a little nudge, if you’re keen to chat about the Voice to Parliament, we’ve got this corker of a megathread where we can all have a good chinwag in one spot. But if you’re not up for that, no worries, it’s business as usual. Gotta keep things fair dinkum!
Thanks Dale but that’s all done now
