I’ve never voted National in my life — after all, you need to have a big hat and a farm to do that, right? On the other hand, I’ve lived in the country most of my life.
(By way of explanation for BFD readers, the Nationals in Australia shouldn’t be confused with National in NZ. The National Party of Australia, once known as the Country Party, are agrarian conservatives who traditionally represent rural voters.)
But, suddenly, the Nationals have given a great, big reason to cast my vote their way.
Anthony Albanese’s hopes of securing bipartisan support for a constitutionally enshrined Indigenous voice to parliament have been dashed after the Nationals said they would oppose the proposal in a country-wide vote.
“Bipartisan support”, of course, really means “the elites colluding to stiff the plebs”. Australians are notoriously averse to passing referendums in the first place. Without “bipartisan support”, the “Voice” referendum is in serious trouble.
There is widespread distrust of the whole affair, which hasn’t been helped by the Albanese strategy of not telling us what we’ll actually be voting for. “Just vote and trust us — we’re politicians!” is hardly calculated to win Australians over. So, while most Australians are naturally inclined, no matter the left-media’s incessant shrieking of “racism!”, to wish a fair go for Aboriginal Australia, there is a smell hanging over the whole “Voice” malarkey.
At least one of the major parties taking a firm “No” stand is all that it may take to crystallise Australians’ innate reluctance to fiddle with the Constitution.
More importantly, the Nationals are adding to the pressure on their Coalition partners, the Liberals, to actually take a stand, for once.
The decision comes after The Australian revealed the Queensland Liberal National Party backed a resolution calling on the federal Coalition to oppose the voice, putting pressure on Peter Dutton to force MPs to comply with a binding no position rather than allow a conscience vote.
The issue is expected to be raised at the joint Coalition partyroom meeting on Tuesday but the Liberals are unlikely to come to a formal position until next year.
This could be a defining moment for the contemporary Liberals, as well as the referendum. For most of the last decade, the party has been white-anted from within by “moderates” who are really just dripping wet lefties with expensive suits. Think Malcolm Turnbull, Tim Wilson or Trent Zimmerman. This sort of limp-wristed, “us too!” non-opposition is what doomed the party in the Victorian and federal elections.
Now, Peter Dutton has a chance to reclaim some conservative credibility. If he has the guts, that is: so far, the Liberals’ shadow Indigenous Australians spokesman has “declined to comment”.
The Australian has spoken to several Liberal MPs who will advocate the party take a united stand against the voice while moderate MPs including NSW senator Andrew Bragg are pushing for the party to adopt no formal position. The position proposed by Senator Bragg would allow Liberal MPs to campaign however they chose.
Liberal MPs on both sides of the debate said the vast majority of the partyroom was opposed to the voice.
Liberal senator Alex Antic said he would oppose the voice and was “very hopeful the Liberal Party will do the same”.
In the meantime, the voice campaign is proving to be a massive fillip to a rising star of conservative politics.
Country Liberal Party senator Jacinta Price, who sits in the Nationals partyroom, said it was “not right” and “racist” to say all Indigenous Australians supported the voice.
“It’s not racist to disagree with a proposal … that lacks detail and divides us on the lines of race. There are Indigenous Australians who do not agree with this,” she said.
“Minister (Linda) Burney might be able to take a private jet out to a remote community, dripping in Gucci, and tell people in the dirt what’s good for them but they are in the dark and they have been in the dark.”
But the best news in all this is that the Nationals may have done Australia an immense favour by crippling a referendum designed to write racial separatism into the Constitution.
Constitutional law expert George Williams said no referendum had ever passed without bipartisan support.
“Some have failed even where they had bipartisan support due to another group mounting a committed and strong ‘No’ case,” he told The Australian. “The opposition of the Nationals will make it harder for the (voice) referendum to succeed.
“The more groups to come out in opposition, the more difficult it will be to convince the community to vote yes.”
The Australian
Unlike in NZ, the elite have made the mistake of allowing Australians to vote on entrenching racist separatism in the nation’s legal foundations. Hopefully, their condescending attempt to pay lip-service to democracy will blow up in their faces.
All it may have taken is at least one major political party to speak for Menzies’ silent Australians.
