Weekend miscellany: Voice and Queensland polls, Liberal Senate preselections (open thread)

Bad news for the Indigenous Voice and Queensland Labor from RedBridge Group, and three doses of Liberal Senate preselection news, including Marise Payne’s looming casual vacancy.

We should be due for the monthly Resolve Strategic poll next week, followed shortly by a New South Wales state result, and there’s no telling when something might pop up on the Indigenous Voice front. For the time being, there is the following news to relate:

• Two reports on RedBridge Group polls in the News Corp papers today, one showing the Indigenous Voice headed for a 61-39 defeat nationally after the exclusion of 15% persistently undecided, the other putting the LNP ahead 55-45 on state voting intention in Queensland. Primary votes in the latter case were LNP 41%, Labor 26% and Greens 14% (UPDATE: Further detail from the ABC). The former poll was conducted at some point following Anthony Albanese’s announcement of the October 14 date the Thursday before last, the latter was conducted August 26 to September 6 from a sample of 2012.

• New South Wales Liberal Senator Marise Payne has announced she will retire from parliament on September 30. Two names are dominating speculation about the vacancy: Nyunggai Warren Mundine, presently enjoying an elevated profile as a public face of the Indigenous Voice no campaign, and Andrew Constance, former state government minister and narrowly unsuccessful candidate for Gilmore at the May 2022 election. Liberal sources said Mundine would enjoy strong support from conservatives and Alex Hawke’s centre right, and would “even peel off moderate voices”. The Australian further reports Catholic Schools NSW chief executive Dallas McInerney could again be in a preselection mix, although some doubted he was “a realistic candidate, particularly given his affiliation to the ‘imploded’ Perrottet/Tudehope right faction”. Further possibilities named by the Sydney Morning Herald are “former RSL head James Brown and Jess Collins”.

• Liberal sources cited by Alexi Demetriadi of The Australian say it is now considered unlikely that Scott Morrison will vacate his seat of Cook before the next election. Cook is a notable exclusion from the list of seats where the New South Wales Liberals are proceeding to preselection, together with Mackellar, where it is speculated that the way is being left open for an attempted comeback by Jason Falinski. An imminent preselection would present an obstacle to Falinksi given his present role as state party president.

• Matthew Denholm of The Australian reports Clarence mayor Brendan Blomeley and Hobart alderman Simon Behrakis will seek preselection for the two winnable positions on the Tasmanian Liberal Senate ticket. This involves challenging incumbents Richard Colbeck and Claire Chandler, though Behrakis “is understood to be content with the No. 3 spot, should party preselectors prefer to favour the two incumbents”. Both prospective challengers are conservatives, but Behrakis is associated with Senator Jonathan Duniam and Blomeley with rival powerbroker Eric Abetz. The issue will be decided by the party’s 67-member preselection committee on November 25.

• Shane Wright of the Age/Herald made the case last week for an enlarged parliament, a subject that appears likely to be addressed when the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters completes its two-stage inquiry into the 2022 election. A motion carried at Labor’s recent national conference calling for the Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory to go from two Senators to six prompted opposition Senate leader Simon Birmingham to call for the government to rule out changes to the parliament or electoral system before the next election.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

664 comments on “Weekend miscellany: Voice and Queensland polls, Liberal Senate preselections (open thread)”

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  1. WA could offset VIC.

    Its a pretty split electorate, 33-37% don’t vote first pref for one of the majors. Not unlikely that less than 10 seats change hands.

  2. apart from his media chear squad lead buy nicki sava have not heard any averige liberal voter pushing for frydenberg to come back for a centerist he was part of the bullying of bridget archer and julia banks demanding she garintee confidence and suply as sonn as she defected plusattacked archer for voting for a icac pushing her to take a weeek of parliament to get rid of herhe was friends with husic

  3. Lars Von Trier says:
    Sunday, September 10, 2023 at 9:54 pm
    “WA could offset VIC.

    Its a pretty split electorate, 33-37% don’t vote first pref for one of the majors. Not unlikely that less than 10 seats change hands.”

    Ha ha ha!!

  4. laz maybi ithe religous right petter collier and goiran who admire court t how can you be lib king maker when your party is wiped out at state and federaly in wa and continue as if nothing happind plus aparently goodenough lost control of his branches so mnay have to retire

  5. Although, things will be clearer when the Vic Redistribution is done.

    Antony Green thinks the loss of a seat in Victoria will come from the west side of the Yarra, probably putting pressure on McEwen as it may lose its urban fringe booths.

    If Victoria loses a seat east of the Yarra… the consequences of that would be interesting.

  6. well a wa senater linda renalds term exbires next election if liberals were smart they would push for her to retire plus noticed marise payne is being discribed as a moderit apart from being our worst ever foreign minister when has she publickly stood up against the right for a progresive ishue she did over refugies in the howard years plus defence ishues she the only true moderit is bridget archer

  7. Lars Von Trier says:
    Sunday, September 10, 2023 at 9:54 pm

    WA could offset VIC.
    ________
    Only Tangney is really marginal. Looking at the pendulum the path for Dutton is pretty clear. He needs to win in Sydney, and the Sydney periphery seats. Plenty of marginals there. But can he?

  13. Redbridge is talking about a very large green vote in under 35yr old demographic – greater than the Libs which perversely translates to Greens picking up Labor seats.

  14. Lars Von Trier says:
    Sunday, September 10, 2023 at 10:16 pm

    nath, what about McNamara? Greens pick-up?
    __________
    Definitely a good chance. Redistribution could determine it.

  17. Lars Von Trier says:
    Sunday, September 10, 2023 at 10:23 pm

    nath & Scott on unity ticket?
    ______
    we may agree on nothing else until the End Times.

  18. Recorded 7s Spotlight tonight.
    Just finished watching. The CTE segment was a sad watch.
    But the update at the end was heartbreaking.
    Mario Fenech is so far gone he can no longer attend the facility that has been monitoring him. He basically can’t leave home.
    Rugby League people will know Mario, The Falcon.
    Very sad.

    🙁

  19. There’s a curse upon our land, and it’s called conservatism. They should go right back where they came from and leave all to our glorious aborigiones. A pox on them, bunch of wankers they are.

  20. @Chook 10.49pm

    Again, I agree! Conservatism is the curse on our land, and indeed our planet. A pox on them indeed. We are ad idem.

    But what, pray tell are Aborigiones?

    Dutton, wannabe Trump that he is, is indeed a right wing reactionary – and an existential threat to us all. I’m so glad you agree with me on this.

  21. If only the politicians, especially Thorpe, Price and Mundine, had stayed out of the debate, the referendum might have had a better chance of succeeding.

    If only the blacks had kept quiet

  22. “Former Senator Black sums up Albo’s culpability on the Voice in this extract of his article in the AFR :

    But Albanese, cursed with the first-term hubris of a Labor prime minister, took personal charge of the referendum process. First by anointing his more radical, preferred wording option, which eventually wedged Dutton, and second by abandoning the chance of broader community engagement by rejecting a constitutional convention in favour of a hand-picked working group. And third, Albanese locked in his advisory constitutional experts with his working group, thereby excluding effective public involvement.
    As Brennan lamented, no parliamentary committee was set up until April 4 this year. By that time, both the National and Liberal parties had committed themselves to a No vote.
    At this point, any chance of a deal with the Coalition involving Indigenous recognition in the Constitution and a compromise on the power and composition of the Voice itself was lost.”

    @Lars

    Crap. Peter Dutton was going to block it no matter which way Labor went about it. Dutton has opposed everything Labor has put up. Why wouldn’t he do this as well? It’s virtually Tony Abbott 2.0. My fear though is Dutton tactic like Abbott could work. Abbott becoming Prime Minister set this country back by 20 years.

    It’s kind of laughable in the article they suggest Anthony Albanese has ‘wedged’ Dutton. When it’s been completely the opposite. Noel Pearson mentioned today on Insiders that he tried his guts out to get bipartisanship meeting with Liberals and Nationals. But when it came to the crunch they were never going to support it.

  23. Once the polls start to stabilise for Labor again L’arse will vanish for a month and we will be free of his hand wringing. Happens every time.

  24. Elon Musk’s Starship grounded after explosion during debut launch

    Elon Musk’s SpaceX is facing a major setback as US federal regulators have grounded its Starship launch vehicle after investigating the explosion during its debut launch in April this year.

    https://indianexpress-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/indianexpress.com/article/technology/science/elon-musk-spacex-starship-rocket-grounded-8931690/lite/?amp_gsa=1&amp_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQGsAEggAID#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16943540104674&csi=0&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Findianexpress.com%2Farticle%2Ftechnology%2Fscience%2Felon-musk-spacex-starship-rocket-grounded-8931690%2F

    Elon Musk’s SpaceX faces a major setback as the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered the company to ground Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, until it takes many corrective actions. The launch vehicle’s debut launch in April ended in an explosion.

    FAA announced Friday that it closed its investigation into the explosion and cited multiple causes that could have led to the mishap. SpaceX must now take 63 corrective actions to ensure that such an incident does not happen again. After making all the corrections, the company will have to apply for and receive a license modification from the federal regulation before it can attempt another launch.

  25. @MABWM 11.49pm
    A man after my own heart. It’s a typo too. Must be a curse from conservatives. Notice con in conservative. Sounds like convict. Trash they are. Nothing but low caste prisoners from Pommy Land. Go home cons. P#ss Off

  26. @OC, yesterday morning:

    “ But …was Albo really born into a family where the 3 faiths were the church, the party and the Rabbitohs.
    Born in Marrickville, i think his early life was as a Jet.”

    ___

    Also was born in Darlinghurst and raised in Camperdown, where he attended school until going to St Mary’s cathedral high school. So, his local team was probably always the rabbits, depending exactly where his family home was (but it could have been in part of the southern districts ceded to Newtown in 1918). Even if he did follow Newtown at some formative stage, he’d be a blue bag, not a Jet. Interestingly, the Jets and now a feeder team for the NRL Rabbitohs, and Albo has been photographed doing stuff out and about in his local hood in a Newtown team jumper before becoming PM.

  27. C@tmomma @ #475 Sunday, September 10th, 2023 – 3:34 pm

    meher baba @ 2.36pm,
    I agree with a lot of what you say, however, when the choice is between Trump and Biden, an Authoritarian Neo Fascist America and an American Democracy, give me the old man any day. Weekend at Bernies condition or otherwise!

    The weird thing is that both parties are in a position to sweep the next election by just standing any candidate who’s under 50 and sane. But there’s no interest in doing that. Democrats are too deferential towards Biden, and Republicans too interested in ‘owning the libs’ to get behind anyone who might enrage lefties even a fraction less than Trump.


  29. Watermelon says:
    Sunday, September 10, 2023 at 11:18 pm

    If only the politicians, especially Thorpe, Price and Mundine, had stayed out of the debate, the referendum might have had a better chance of succeeding.

    If only the blacks had kept quiet

    The FN NO campaigners may have been in a minorit0y, but they have been the most successful campaigners by far. I do wonder what their victory is going to bring them and the FN people.

  30. I couldn’t agree more with Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post. Polling has become like an abused child:

    You might have noticed that I studiously have avoided dissecting the avalanche of 2024 polls. I don’t plan on deviating from this approach — at least not until mid-2024. And you should consider ignoring the nonstop flood of polling and the rickety analysis dependent on it. Here are five reasons we should all go on a poll-free political diet for at least six months:

    First, the polling field is broken. Or, if you listen to pollsters’ complaints, it is consistently misapplied and misinterpreted. Polls didn’t come within shouting distance of the right result in either 2016 or 2020. And they misled voters about the fictitious red wave in 2022. Whatever the reasons — call blocking, excessive hang-ups, incorrect modeling of likely voters — even polls taken much closer to elections have consistently turned out to be far off base. The fixation on low-cost, horse-race coverage might satisfy the political media’s desire to project insider expertise or to appear neutral (hey, it’s the voters who say these things!), but there is no excuse to recycle highly suspect information from sources known to be flawed.

    Second, voters tell us utterly contradictory things. Around 60 percent tell pollsters that four-time-indicted former president Donald Trump should drop out. But then nearly half say they’ll vote for him. Which is it? There is a hefty amount of research that what voters say they want doesn’t align with how they vote. Whether it is gas prices or the war in Ukraine or the candidates themselves, respondents often give contradictory answers, suggesting they either don’t understand the question, don’t really know what they think or respond based on tribal loyalty.

    Third, even if you think polling is somewhat reliable, there’s no evidence that polling more than a year (or even eight months) before a presidential election is accurate. Democratic consultant Simon Rosenberg (one of the few to debunk the red wave in advance of the 2022 midterms) recently wrote: “At the end of the day polling is only a snapshot into a moment, and cannot predict anything. Things change all the time in politics — change is the constant.”

    Obviously, there is much that has yet to happen with regard to the economy, Trump’s indictments, the war in Ukraine and more. (And how people imagine they will react is a far cry from how they actually respond.) At this stage, we know little about voter intensity and turnout. So what is the point of filling newscasts and newspapers with what amounts to white noise?

    Fourth, polling seems designed to make a point. Asking voters whether they want an imaginary, younger Democratic candidate when the only candidate who will get the nomination is Joe Biden is effectively asking people to underscore the point that the president is old. (Oddly, Republicans aren’t often asked whether they’d rather have someone not accused of 91 crimes.) It tells us nothing about what voters will do when presented with a choice between an 80-year-old, sane and accomplished incumbent running against an only slightly younger, unhinged, accused felon. (Apparently, because Trump has an indictment problem, “balance” means treating age as an equal liability for Biden.)

    The most important reason, however, to minimize attention to polling has to do with the mission and credibility of journalism at a critical time in our democracy. What voters know might be wrong — objectively wrong. They tell pollsters we are in a recession. They tell us Biden was involved in his son’s business ventures. These beliefs are unsupported by evidence. This surely indicates that the media could try harder to explain what is going on. (Maybe more reporting on the changes happening around the country would be in order.)

    Certainly, respectable media outlets cannot control where voters get their information, but evidence of such widespread confusion and ignorance indicates that we have a deficit of accurate, reliable information in the electorate. If the truth is getting lost in the shuffle, maybe parroting Republicans’ false claims (for the sake of “balance”) or fixating on polls is counterproductive.

    Polling obsession might feed the desire, as media critic Jay Rosen said, to turn politics into “a savvy analysis of who was up, who was down, who’s winning or likely to win, the horse race, the spin, the strategy — all of that,” but it does not provide information with which voters can seriously, critically evaluate what is going on and what is at issue in the election. (Rosen expounded on this issue at length in a recent interview on my weekly podcast.) Surely, more time could be spent providing voters with a basic understanding of the charges, the court process and the implications of electing an indicted candidate.

    When the stakes are so high, and the fate of democracy hangs in the balance, continuing to gamify politics with meaningless polls does little to improve journalists’ reputation or inform voters. As Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch aptly put it: “The news media needs to stop with the horse race coverage of this modern-day March on Rome, stop digging incessantly for proof that both sides are guilty of the same sins, and stop thinking that a war for the imperiled survival of the American Experiment is some kind of inexplicable ‘tribalism.’ ”

    We all would do far better to apply our energy to stemming the tide of disinformation and facing hard truths about a MAGA movement that manages to bamboozle millions of Americans — and remains the greatest domestic threat to democracy we’ve seen.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/09/10/pollings-unrealistic-coverage/?wpisrc=nl-jenniferrubin

  34. Approval figures for Albo – 40% doing a good job 47% doing a poor job 13% have no idea

    Approval figures for Dutton – 35% doing a good job 43% doing a poor job

    PPM – Albo 43% Dutton 28% No pref 29%

    Honeymoon over?

  35. B.S. Fairman says:
    Monday, September 11, 2023 at 6:11 am
    Resolve Poll is out.

    https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/voters-continue-to-turn-against-the-voice-and-albanese-along-with-it-20230910-p5e3fy.html

    YES 43%/No 57%

    Primary vote Alp 36% LNP 34% Greens 12%
    ————————-
    It showing the referendum having no political advantage for the lib/nats or Dutton

    according to this opinion poll Lib/nats are polling below their 36% average

    2022 federal election Lib/nats combined primary vote 35.7%
    Lib/nats (34%) losing ground swing against them is -1.7%

    Labor primary vote 32.6%
    Labor (36%) gaining ground swing to 3.4%

    It showing the referendum having no political advantage for the lib/nats or Dutton

  36. B.S. Fairman says:
    Monday, September 11, 2023 at 6:22 am
    Approval figures for Albo – 40% doing a good job 47% doing a poor job 13% have no idea

    Approval figures for Dutton – 35% doing a good job 43% doing a poor job

    PPM – Albo 43% Dutton 28% No pref 29%

    Honeymoon over?
    ———————————
    There is no such poll on election day for the prime minister
    Depends on how you measure it ,

    Albanese still in front of Dutton in all stats

  37. The current stagflation is burning the prime minister’s approval. Whether the burn would be as bad if there was not a corresponding Referendum issue going on in at the same time is debatable. The case could be put that it is seen as a distraction and adding to the government’s pains. There has not been a massive vote change as yet and one wonders if and when that occurs.

    I think that a lot of Government MPs will be happy to see the end of “the Voice” campaigning in a month as it will allow them to focus on Bread and margarine issues.

  38. For the honey moon to be over for Labor /Albanese

    The lib/nats to be in front of Labor in2 pp , Labor primary vote in opinion polling to be averaging below 32.6%

  39. The Australian Taxation Office has ramped up debt recovery, focusing on company directors using the ATO as a “low-interest loan facility”, as it seeks to collect billions of dollars accrued during the Covid pandemic.
    ATO deputy commissioner, lodge and pay, Vivek Chaudhary told the recent Tax Institute 2023 Tax Summit that rising debts owed by companies and individuals were “concerning, and unsustainable”, with small business the main culprit.
    Fuelled by the pandemic, the amount of tax owed to the ATO has risen by 89 per cent over the past four years to $50.2bn in June 2023, with business making up 90 per cent of that figure.
    Of the $45bn of collectable debt owed by all businesses, small businesses continues to be over-represented, owing more than $33bn.
    Mr Chaudhary said there remained more than $5bn owed by companies that met the criteria for the delivery of director penalty notices (DPN).
    “All signs point to this amount continuing to increase,” he said.
    “It’s not fair for businesses with large outstanding debts to continue to use the ATO as a low-interest loan facility and it’s clear that disclosing business tax debts provides strong incentives for engagement with the ATO regarding these debts.”
    If a company’s tax debt involves staff PAYG deductions, superannuation or GST, then the ATO can make those amounts the director’s personal debt. Another avenue open for the ATO is naming and shaming directors through the disclosure of business tax debt to registered credit reporting bureaus.
    Mr Chaudhary said the use of DPNs and the opportunity to disclose business tax debts had already shifted the business landscape in relation to ATO debt recovery. There were 23,246 DPNs issued in 2022-23, compared to 18,500 for the 2022 calendar year. Sixty DPNs were being issued each day on average, compared to 30 in May 2022. Overall 2500 businesses are expected to be reported to credit agencies in the current financial year, up from 867 last calendar year.
    Last year the ATO issued warning letters. This year, the serious recovery notices are the warning letters and DPNs and statutory demands give company directors just 21 days to pay their debt or voluntarily enter an insolvency appointment. According to the Australian Securities & Investments Commission, in the 12 months to June 20, 2023, 7942 companies entered an insolvency appointment, up 62 per cent from 4912 the year before.
    https://www.theaustralian.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=TAWEB_WRE170_a&dest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theaustralian.com.au%2Fbusiness%2Fcompanies%2Fato-targets-company-directors-with-penalty-notices-to-recoup-5bn-in-tax-owed%2Fnews-story%2F2ad6978afbd33f2ac672caad715894f9&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium&v21=dynamic-low-test-score&V21spcbehaviour=append

  40. Some might want to think about whether they really want Australia to become the new international kicking boy, like South Africa was pre 1994.

    Like it or not, if YES doesn’t get up, we’re gonna look a right pack of arseholes down here.

    You can deny it, but you know it’s true

  41. “https://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2023/09/voice-referendum-polling-how-low-can.html
    Voice Referendum Polling: How Low Can Yes Go?
    Yes trails 42.3-57.7 in aggregated polling and is behind in every state.”

    Excellent article by KB which sums up the current state of play well. However, I would suggest that he has slightly misinterpreted and also underplayed the importance of a sleeper issue which is having a significant effect, particularly among non-Anglo non-Indigenous voters. You can find under his slightly misleading heading “Soft Racism”, where he states

    “The argument about the Voice as a method to help closing outcome gaps rests on the idea that gaps in health and other outcomes (which governments have not known how to address) are a result of historic dispossession and ongoing discrimination. So if Indigenous Australians are given more influence on policy there will be a major improvement. But lots of voters who don’t express overtly racist/paranoid views probably still don’t buy this and instead buy into a racialised version of the same idea as that underlining the “dole bludger” myth – that if people are in bad circumstances it must be partly their fault, and that enshrining the Voice is not going to fix it.”

    Perhaps there is racism embodied in this thinking, but it’s also a pretty inevitable reaction to what people see in the media. Leaving aside sportspeople, the strongest impression most non-Indigenous people have of Indigenous Australians is of an interest group that has a lot of complaints and which generally clothes itself with in the mantle of perennial victimhood. And a lot of non-Indigenous people, particularly those who might have had their own struggles in life, are often inclined to respond to this sort of narrative with thoughts of “why don’t you stop complaining for a minute and start trying to do something yourselves to fix your problems?”

    But I reckon that the Voice concept could actually be sold to people who feel like this through a grand narrative of reconcilation and “mutual obligation” in which Indigenous peoples will be given a significant role within our political system and, in time, a lucrative treaty arrangement, with the expectation that they will try to lift themselves out of their perennial victimhood and take a greater responsibility for improving their own lives.

    Rather than try to sell this sort of concept – which was intrinsic to the Hawke Government’s strategy around ATSIC – Albanese and his government have chosen to run with a whole lot of spin:
    “don’t worry, it’s only an advisory body, it won’t have any power, it’s just a matter of common courtesy to consult people on issues that affect them.” And, perhaps worst of all, “it’s what they asked for” (which of course people are going to support as an appropriate government response when an interest group lobbies hard for something. Not.)

    As I have posted before, and as KB also seems to have concluded, the Governent’s spin doctors seem to have chosen this approach as a sort of small target strategy, driven by a fear of a repetition of the problems faced by Yes campaign during the Republic referendum in 1999, which was derailed partly through a relentless poking of holes in detailed aspects of the proposed model. But, if the polling is right, then the Voice is going to attract a significantly lower vote even than the Republic.

    I think Noel Pearson is the best possible spokesperson for the Voice over the remaining weeks before October 14. He gets the idea of selling it as a grand process of reconciliation and mutual obligation. He might be a bit abrasive for some listeners, but when he talks, people have to pay attention, and he makes the Voice sound like something important and powerful, rather than “just a matter of common courtesy.” But I fear that the swing against the Voice has swung and nothing will reverse it now. Perhaps Albo will see reason at the last minute and pull the plug. It will more or less have to happen today.

  42. The writs are being issued today – The thing can’t be pulled.

    Politically it would far more damaging to cancel the referendum before it happens than to lose it. The time to cancel (or at least pause) was months ago.

  43. As a footnote, I realise that some will perceive me as being a “concern troll.”

    I guess there’s something in that: I’m voting Yes, but would have preferred the proposal to have been significantly different. I hope that I am at least a transparent and honest troll.

    Perhaps the greatest ever concern troll was Cassandra, the Trojan high priestess of Apollo, who was cursed with the gift of being able to predict the future with 100% accuracy and always to be ignored. A role model for all of us concern trolls.

  44. Unlike some, I’m not giving up on the referendum. People really should read the Jennifer Rubin article I posted, rather than spending their time writing eloquent treatises to its failure.

  45. Lefty_e: “Like it or not, if YES doesn’t get up, we’re gonna look a right pack of arseholes down here.
    You can deny it, but you know it’s true.”

    The one defence that we will be able to cling to is that the Indigenous community was itself divided about the referendum.

    But you argument is sound, and another good reason for pulling the plug on the referendum today, if it it’s still possible.

  47. Today’s ‘The Conversation’ editorial:

    Given Australia’s last referendum was in 1999, many of us were not able to take part in it, and most of us have forgotten what it was like.

    That could be one reason things have been getting so heated, and misinformation has been rife.

    Today, legal expert Joe McIntyre offers some helpful tips for how we should take part in a referendum. He reminds us it’s understandable if we find the debate confusing, that our Constitution is not set in stone and it’s fine to change it if that’s what the nation wants, and that no-one has the right(eous) answer.

    And if you don’t know, he says, learn. There are plenty of resources around, including The Conversation’s explanatory content, written by experts.

    His seven tips aim to make this debate a more respectful, engaged and informed one. As citizens, he writes, we have an obligation to ensure we’re informed about the key ideas and issues before we enter the ballot box. Otherwise, what was this all for?

    Alexandra Hansen

    Deputy Editor and Chief of Staff

  50. The one defence that we will be able to cling to is that the Indigenous community was itself divided about the referendum.

    The Indigenous community is not divided about the referendum. The majority of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people want a constitutionally enshrined voice.

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