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.
@Ven: “I think the recent immigrants doesn’t care much about the result one way or the other. But for people who are born here and longtime immigrants it will be a bitter pill to swallow”
Has anyone seen a demographic breakdown of the Yes/No polling that includes heritage?
Anecdotally besides the Deep Yobbo section from the deepest Coalition-voting silos in the country, it is immigrants who are most likely to either not get or actively dislike the Voice. It’s a combo of it reinforcing to them that they are seen like interlopers compared to these “true Australians” and a feeling that they also experience racism and disadvantage but Indigenous people are getting special treatment and they aren’t.
But that’s anecdotal from people I’ve talked to, not polling.
Arky;
https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/polling-migrants-young-people-most-likely-to-support-voice/#:~:text=Migrants%20are%20more%20likely%20to,17%25%20don't%20know.
MOROCCO EARTHQUAKE – Major 6.8 magnitude quake around 45 miles (70 Kilometers) from Marrakesh
– Reports that multiple buildings collapsed near the epicenter, footage shared of building rubble
– Felt across much of the country but damage so far appears limited to near the epicenter
Distinction should probably be made to older/‘longer here’ migrants. My anecdotal nose senses the longer a migrant is in Australia, they switch to very conservative. Some become anti-immigration for eg. Last one in, shut the gate.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-09/ozempic-maker-novo-nordisk-becomes-biggest-company-in-europe/102812584
I have a prescription for Ozempic for type 2 diabetes but can’t get it filled.
Is it Peter Dutton’s fault that Albo played out such a woeful Voice Ref Stratergery?
_________________________________
Depends whether you have moral principles or whether you simply take any opportunity for a perceived political victory, no matter how much collateral damage.
Also this….
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/over-100-migrant-and-cultural-organisations-support-yes-campaign-for-voice-to-parliament-referendum/sq8p0r2yq
Alright. Enough from me. Time to cut some brush and plant some plants.
Russian sham ‘elections’ in areas of Ukraine they illegally occupy have been disrupted by explosions:
1. “The Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) is responsible for the explosions in the territory of the Berdiansk City Municipal Lyceum where the Russians located one of their “polling stations”.
… Two explosions sounded in the territory of the municipal lyceum in the city of Berdiansk in Zaporizhzhia Oblast on the night of 8 September. One of the occupiers’ “polling stations” for fake elections was located there. The so-called “elections” were supposed to start on 8 September, but this station did not open.
Quote by a source: “Now the occupiers are hysterical and trying to decide how to protect themselves from new strikes by the Security Service of Ukraine. There is an audio recording in which one of the leaders of the occupying ‘Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia’ in Zaporizhzhia Oblast is instructing his subordinates how not to fall into the trap of a second explosion.”
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/09/8/7419032/
2. “The headquarters of the political party “United Russia” located in the occupied city of Polohy, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, were destroyed on Sept. 8, Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov reported via Telegram.
Fedorov said local residents confirmed the destruction of the party headquarters.
Earlier in the day, Fedorov posted an announcement saying there was a rumor the party headquarters had been hit during the “hellish pseudo-elections” in occupied Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
A few hours later, Fedorov said the attack was confirmed, and that residents described the Russian occupiers as “burned out” of the headquarters.
No details were given about how the building was destroyed or any casualties. However, Fedorov alluded to some casualties among the occupying Russian authorities.
“Some went to the hospital, and some went straight to the morgue,” Fedorov said.
The announcement comes as Russian proxy authorities begin to hold sham elections in occupied territories of Ukraine.
United Russia is the conservative political party of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.”
https://kyivindependent.com/official-united-russia-hq-destroyed-in-zaporizhzhia-oblast-amid-sham-elections/
If Russians think they can commit the atrocities they have been over the past 18 months in Ukraine, and then just quietly enjoy their ill-gotten spoils afterwards as if they had done nothing wrong, they are in for a rude awakening.
In 2001 the Western Australian government and the WA State Council of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission signed the Statement of Commitment to a New and Just Relationship which set out guiding principles and a framework for working together on policies affecting Aboriginal Western Australians.*
In 2002 Noongar Magistrate Sue Gordon chaired an inquiry into government responses to complaints of family violence and child abuse in Aboriginal communities in Western Australia.** This inquiry was called after the coroner delivered an open finding in relation to the death of a teenage girl at the Swan Valley Nyoongar Community in 2001.
Under the Statement of Commitment framework, from 2001 onwards ATSIC and the State government worked together with their respective State and Commonwealth agencies to develop new approaches to complaint responses and child protection. It was during this period that Western Australia first adopted the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle.
Compare this to the Northern Territory.
There, a similar inquiry report was delivered in 2006, two years after ATSIC had been abolished.
The Commonwealth’s response was to suspend the Racial Discrimination Act and send in the army.
There was no institutionalised voice to represent the interests of those communities. Perhaps it wouldn’t have mattered, perhaps Howard would still have done it.
ATSIC was not perfect. There were individuals involved who feathered their own nests and who accumulated power in devious ways.
Has anyone ever contemplated abolishing the New South Wales parliament as a consequence of the nefarious activities of the large number of individuals who have corrupted representative democracy in that State? Or in Queensland because of Joh?
In my view, having worked in and around Aboriginal affairs for over twenty years, our country has suffered for not having ATSIC. At best it has not achieved the progress that would have been possible. In some areas it has gone backwards.
*https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20050105012022/http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/46829/20050105-0000/www.dia.wa.gov.au/policies/stateStrategy/Files/StatementOfCommitment.pdf
**https://www.indigenousjustice.gov.au/resources/putting-the-picture-together-inquiry-into-response-by-government-agencies-to-complaints-of-family-violence-and-child-abuse-in-aboriginal-communities/
Rewi,
You touch on the atsic history – isn’t the case that many of the people who ran atsic where Uluṟu statement signatories?
Lars Von Trier
I would imagine that many were, yes, though I haven’t thoroughly checked.
So far as I know, though, none of them were people against whom allegations were made at the time Latham announced Labor would abolish ATSIC if elected or which formed the basis for the justification for its abolition by Howard once Latham gave him the all clear.
Certainly, it is this experience which forms the rationale for ensuring a Voice is enshrined in the constitution: Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islanders have living memory of the capriciousness of Australian governments.
Confessions says:
Saturday, September 9, 2023 at 6:50 am
That is a very good article by Megalogenis by the way.
How are Australians going to feel on October 15?
———————
Fess
I’ll be out of the country, thankfully. I’m wondering what, if any, the reaction will be overseas.
Rewi says:
In my view, having worked in and around Aboriginal affairs for over twenty years, our country has suffered for not having ATSIC.
__________
I agree. ATSIC was the best experience we have had of self determination. Latham and Howard are equally complicit in its destruction.
QLD now out to 55-45 and the LNP with a lead of 15 on the primary vote. Hope you enjoyed your holiday Anna.
VCT Et3e says Saturday, September 9, 2023 at 6:00 am
If next year is even slightly cooler, Andrew Bolt will call it evidence that warming has stopped and we are experiencing global cooling.
Geoff Clarke was certainly a signatory to the Uluru statement.
Team Katich – that polling also had Yes leading 52-33 overall, forgive me for not buying into it as a reflection of the current state of affairs. I would be interested to see that kind of polling breakdown from a more recent poll.
Actually, it would help make sense of the shift that these are the sort of voters who felt OK about the Voice as a low information, “recognising Indigenous people” step, and have swung hard no in response to learning about it and the idea that the Voice is advantaging one minority over the others.
Despite the truism from the Yes side that people will vote Yes if only they learned about the Voice, the evidence is that the swing has gone the other way, and maybe we give No too much credit for saying that’s because of misinformation. Again, anecdotal, but I have come to think there was a significant amount of the population who were Yes because they knew nothing much of the Voice other than it would be nice to acknowledge the Indigenous population in the Constitution, and have swung hard not because they know nothing but because now they know truthfully there’s more to it and they don’t like that.
James Spigelman’s view on the Voice (ex NSW CJ)
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/as-a-former-chief-justice-i-find-legal-scaremongering-on-the-voice-offensive-20230906-p5e2f0.html
I am surprised and pleased that he draws comparisons with S101 “There shall be an Interstate Commission”. I posted on this a few months ago, but not being a constitutional lawyer, felt it was bullshit/cooker stuff.
Spigelman’s argument then confuses me. Just like the Interstate Commission, the words “There shall be” do not imply compulsion. Any government may annul the legislation and not replace the Voice. This would be constitutional and the High Court would so hold.
This raises the big question – why bother with the constitutional change?
@Oakeshott: “This raises the big question – why bother with the constitutional change?”
Symbolism and because it was asked for.
Legally and politically it never ever made sense.
But it would kind of defeat the purpose to begin the Voice on a foundation of ignoring what Indigenous people had asked for, practical though it would have been.
Ukraine is not going to let go of Elon Musk’s presumption in playing God with the lives of Ukrainian civilians:
“A senior Ukrainian official has accused Elon Musk of “committing evil” after a new biography revealed details about how the business magnate ordered his Starlink satellite communications network to be turned off
near the Crimean coast last year to hobble a Ukrainian drone attack on Russian warships.
In a statement on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, which Musk owns, the Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak wrote that Musk’s interference led to the deaths of civilians, calling them “the price of a cocktail of ignorance and big ego”.
“By not allowing Ukrainian drones to destroy part of the Russian fleet via Starlink interference, @elonmusk allowed this fleet to fire Kalibr missiles at Ukrainian cities. As a result, civilians, and children are being killed,” Podolyak wrote.
“Why do some people so desperately want to defend war criminals and their desire to commit murder? And do they now realise that they are committing evil and encouraging evil?”
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/08/elon-musk-committed-evil-starlink-order-ukraine
US says India is disappointed Xi and Putin aren’t attending G-20, but Biden sees it as an opportunity
https://amp-cnn-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/09/08/politics/g20-summit-india-friday/index.html?amp_gsa=1&_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQGsAEggAID#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16942125881916&csi=0&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2023%2F09%2F08%2Fpolitics%2Fg20-summit-india-friday%2Findex.html
Arky’s point is exactly the line which will be run post the election. Wasn’t us – it’s what they asked for.
The ref framed the debate about the constitution not about what Australia’s relationship with its indigenous population should be.
We are where we are I guess – sad that any sort of change will probably depend on the millennial generation displacing Gen X and Y.
Team Katich – that polling also had Yes leading 52-33 overall, forgive me for not buying into it….
————————————
Polling doesn’t ask you to buy into anything. You made the anecdotal observation that migrants were more likely to say No than others and I showed you a poll breakdown (which you asked for – you are welcome) that said the opposite. Sure, the yes vote has dropped since then but it is a big assumption that migrants have disproportionally changed their minds in comparison to others since that poll.
Personally, I’d stick with the older poll over small sample anecdotes or gut feel on this. Or better still, go looking for a newer poll with large sample demographic breakdowns and post it here – I would be most grateful.
Where do the Yes campaign go from here? Surely they have to alter their advertising strategy and their messaging. That Farnham ad won’t do the trick, it is just preaching to the rusted on Yes voters.
How do you bring on board the soft Nos, and plenty of them?
The other danger for the Yes side – the largesse from corporate Australia will start drying up(big business doesn’t like backing losers), the volunteer numbers will stagnate, and the enthusiasm level on the yes side will decline substantially.
This comes back to Albanese and his lack of political judgement in this instance!
He should have created some sort of consensus across middle Australia before embarking on a referendum, instead he’s turned it into a political exercise, as Dutton obviously has too in response.
I leave the blog to go to a local Spring Fair and Even is preaching about the failure of the ‘Yes’ campaign, and I come back and the first post I see is Evan pissing on the ‘Yes’ campaign and the Voice ad.
It’s tiresome, Evan. Give the dog a bone. We get it. 😐
Or is it your aim to bring everyone down?
michael @ #64 Saturday, September 9th, 2023 – 10:22 am
Funny, I don’t remember you criticising ScuMo when he went to Hawaii with the family while the country he was supposed to be running burned down around our ears. 😐
The Voice is also about recognition.
Enough Already,
I don’t know if you saw this last night but here is The Washington Post story about Elon Musk and Starlink:
https://wapo.st/3P7FAUw
(Free to read)
Confessions @ #77 Saturday, September 9th, 2023 – 11:50 am
Some people are so easily dismissive about such an important thing.
As JFK famously said Victory has a thousand fathers, defeat is an orphan. I predict no one in the ALP will be a yes supporter after the ref or We had our misgivings but we went along with what they wanted – some variant of same.
Morrison made a bad decision and it cost him dearly. Of course Labor leaders don’t make mistakes.
Michael: the inability of some in here to ever admit that Albanese isn’t perfect, he makes mistakes too.
I don’t think people here say Albo doesn’t make mistakes. I think they rightly point out the purpose of doing the voice was to listen to indigenous people and what they asked for. Changing it up to suit party political winds wasn’t ever going to be a good option. The real test will be in the reset post the defeat and what the ALP decides is the next step in reconciliation from a government perspective. Very much doubt that’ll be disowning the voice, it’ll be “we tried and it didn’t succeed, we respect that and will continue on a different path”.
I agree Evan. I was expecting Albo to be a lot smarter on the voice. Missteps
Everywhere.
Michael says:
Saturday, September 9, 2023 at 11:54 am
Morrison made a bad decision and it cost him dearly. Of course Labor leaders don’t make mistakes.
———-
Unlike Morrison who did not keep his word on the federal anti-corruption commission
Albanese kept his promise of not only federal anti-corruption commission but the voice referendum in Labor’s first term of government
Dutton broke the bipartisanship of the referendum after agreeing to the questions , which why Dutton and the lib/nats are not getting any political advantage
The public was expecting Dutton to be politically non intelligent on the referenedum , because the lib/nats are controlled by foreign interest
OC
Good to know. I haven’t been able to easily find a list of all the attendees.
Enough Already @ #70 Saturday, September 9th, 2023 – 11:14 am
Good talk about Elon at 11:05 in today’s update:
https://youtu.be/3NdSgDAkrOU?t=665
“A Russian missile slammed into a police building in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih on Friday, killing a policeman and injuring many more people, the interior minister said. The administrative building was destroyed and rescue workers pulled several people out of the rubble after the attack on Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s home town, Ihor Klymenko said on Telegram. Regional governor Serhiy Lysak said about 40 people had been injured.
A Russian airstrike killed three people and injured four others in the village of Odradokamianka in Kherson, southern Ukraine, on Friday, Klymenko said.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/09/russia-ukraine-war-at-a-glance-what-we-know-on-day-563-of-the-invasion
These Russian missiles have sometimes been Kalibrs, fired from Russian Black Sea Fleet vessels such as those which Ukraine wanted to take out, but Elon Musk in his wisdom blocked. Civilian deaths like these are on Musk’s head.
And we now know for sure that Russia was always bluffing when it threatened nuclear retaliation for any Ukrainian strike on Ukrainian territory it considers its own (ie, Crimea, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk), or indeed on territory the whole world recognises is Russian. How many such strikes have there been now – even in Moscow itself! The spectre of ‘WW3’ as a consequence of Ukrainian/NATO ‘escalation’ is a children’s bogeyman we can all put to bed for good now, I hope.
Evan
He should have created some sort of consensus across middle Australia before embarking on a referendum, instead he’s turned it into a political exercise, as Dutton obviously has too in response.
How does one goes about “creating some form of consensus”? Looking forward to hearing your ideas.
The PM tried to do the right thing. At the 2022 election, Labor promised to hold a referendum to constitutionally enshrine a Voice to Parliament in its first term. PM Albanese is sticking to that promise.
There are many armchair generals who do not like the government’s strategy. But I suspect the failure of the referendum has a great deal to do with entrenched cultural values and demographics.
The Yes campaign is about optimism and progress. The No campaign is relentlessly negative, by promoting and exacerbating doubts and fears about change. So the No side has an innate advantage.
Perhaps Musk should shut down Starlink over all conflict areas. Best to stay out of it.
BREAKING: Morocco earthquake death toll rises to at least 296
The only addition to the advertising I’d like to see is something like…
A compare the pair type ad…
“Mr Dutton has two positions on the same outcome.”
The one in the morning says recognition and a voice body to be established by parliament in the constitution will divide us.
The one in the afternoon says constitutional recognition and a parliament created body will unite us.
It’s not going to affect your life so why hurt others? Mr Dutton divides us, you the Australian voter can unite us. Vote Yes for a step ahead in recognition and reconciliation.
It’s time for some serious heat to be applied to Dutton on his illogically incoherent position.
Will someone from the Yes campaign or the ALP wakeup and realise that attack ads on ‘No’ are needed?
The positive ad’s are great but in any campaign you have to explain why ‘the other guy’ is wrong. And on this they are so wrong they need to be hit and hit hard and get people’s attention.
Fess @ 11:50
The Voice is also about recognition
There’s the rub: many argue that a recognition clause would receive overwhelming support but the voice clause seems destined to fail.
From the headline of the article, I think Spigleman raised the argument that the Voice can be abolished by legislation to downplay it’s significance. However, this just adds to the ambiguity of the Yes case – is this a major change or isn’t it?
From William’s introduction: “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…”
How much longer does Morrison intend to remain on the public payroll doing no useful work in parliament? Obviously he cannot obtain a job outside parliament either here or overseas. At least he could volunteer for some unpaid charity work but that might be beneath him, having been chosen by the Almighty to be a great leader and all that.
nath @ #92 Saturday, September 9th, 2023 – 12:23 pm
Perhaps the US government should just Defense Production Act the entire thing. They really don’t mess around when it comes to playing billionaire cowboy with the security of the nation or its allies.
There’s the rub: many argue that a recognition clause would receive overwhelming support but the voice clause seems destined to fail.
_______________________________________
The problem is that a meaningless and trite recognition clause is wanted by nobody indigenous – not even Price and Mundine!
Yet another non-indigenous imposition on indigenous Australians by people who think they know better than the indigenous people who asked for a Voice.
C@tmomma @ #79 Saturday, September 9th, 2023 – 11:52 am
My last job in Canberra was at Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. In our Library was the archives of ATSIC. We were continuing to add to collection as we found relevant and suitable material. All very sad in many ways.
Musk’s immediate instinct to help Ukraine on Feb 22 last year was correct. Then the fucking Russians got in his ear. Now, he’s talking drivel. The end.