Speaker 1: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Speaker 1: Bunjelung Calcottin woman from Gadighal Country. The Daily oz acknowledges
Speaker 1: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Speaker 1: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
Speaker 1: Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the
Speaker 1: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Speaker 2: Good morning, Anne, Welcome to the Daily os It's Monday,
Speaker 2: the sixteenth of October. I'm Sam, I'm Zara.
Speaker 3: Good evening.
Speaker 2: We have breaking news tonight.
Speaker 4: The referendum for the Voice to Parliament has been defeated.
Speaker 2: Australia has overwhelmingly said no to the prospect of a
Speaker 2: constitutionally enshrined Indigenous voice to Parliament. It's a historic moment
Speaker 2: which some are celebrating.
Speaker 5: The referendum has not been successful and I think that's
Speaker 5: good for our country.
Speaker 2: This was a bad proposal and some are grieving.
Speaker 3: For many, today is a day of sadness. When you
Speaker 3: aim high, sometimes you for sure.
Speaker 2: In today's Deep Dive, Tom and Zara are going to
Speaker 2: discuss what led to this result and what it means
Speaker 2: going forward. But first the headlines.
Speaker 4: Israel's military is preparing for what it describes as the
Speaker 4: next stages of its war with Hummas, which will likely
Speaker 4: include a ground invasion of northern parts of Gaza. Israel
Speaker 4: declared war after Hummas's October seven surprise attacks that have
Speaker 4: since killed one thousand, three hundred Israelis, wounding at least
Speaker 4: another three thousand. More than two two hundred people have
Speaker 4: been killed in Gaza and eight thousand injured. Meanwhile, Foreign
Speaker 4: Minister Penny Wong has announced rescheduled repatriation flights for Australians
Speaker 4: after they were originally canceled due to safety concerns. There
Speaker 4: are one thousand, two hundred and thirty four Australians seeking repatriation.
Speaker 4: We will be bringing you a deep dive on this
Speaker 4: topic tomorrow.
Speaker 2: The center right National Party, in coalition with fellow right
Speaker 2: wing Hardy Act, is set to take power in New
Speaker 2: Zealand following the weekend's election. The parties have been in
Speaker 2: opposition since twenty seventeen, and former and New Zealand CEO
Speaker 2: Christopher Luxen will become the next Prime minister.
Speaker 4: The European Union has asked social media platform x to
Speaker 4: provide information about how it's complying with rules that it
Speaker 4: must not allow the spreading of dis and misinformation and
Speaker 4: hate speech. The request reportedly comes in the wake of
Speaker 4: the Israel Garza conflict. X must respond to the request
Speaker 4: by the eighteenth of October, and the response could lead
Speaker 4: to a broader investigation.
Speaker 2: And today's good news, the University of Texas has made
Speaker 2: a breakthrough in breast cancer research. Scientists discovered the specific
Speaker 2: enzyme found in breast cancer believed to cause cancer associated mutations,
Speaker 2: that has the potential to also be used in new
Speaker 2: therapies to target and kill cancer cells. That is good news.
Speaker 4: For today's deep dive, we're going to be unpacking all
Speaker 4: of the results of this weekend's referendum, and it was
Speaker 4: a massive weekend at that. To help understand what happened,
Speaker 4: I'm joined by tda's political journalist Tom Crowley. Tom, Welcome
Speaker 4: back to the podcast.
Speaker 6: Good Mornings are There's a lot to unpack, the.
Speaker 4: Sure is, so I think that the best place to
Speaker 4: start today is by understanding exactly what happened over the
Speaker 4: weekend and just unpacking. I guess as a starting point
Speaker 4: what the results were.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So the result, as I'm sure many people have
Speaker 6: already heard was a resounding rejection of an indigenous voice
Speaker 6: to Parliament in Australia's constitution. So the referendum failed. It
Speaker 6: failed in every state. So my recall that for a
Speaker 6: referendum to succeed it needs a majority nationwide and a
Speaker 6: majority in at least four states. Well, it didn't get
Speaker 6: a majority in any state. Got closest in Victoria. It
Speaker 6: also won in the Act, but generally speaking it was
Speaker 6: roundly rejected across the country. I think in terms of
Speaker 6: the voting patterns that we saw, it was the strongest
Speaker 6: yes vote in inner city areas, and then it got
Speaker 6: weaker as you moved to outer suburban areas and was
Speaker 6: particularly weak in rural areas, but then it was strong
Speaker 6: again in remote areas. So the strongest yes vote was
Speaker 6: in Melbourne, really all across suburban Melbourne. In Sydney there
Speaker 6: was a bit of an east west divide. There were
Speaker 6: some areas of inner Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Canberra where
Speaker 6: there was yes vote, and as I mentioned, some remote
Speaker 6: communities in wa of Northern Territory in Queensland in particular,
Speaker 6: where there were strong yes votes in sections of the
Speaker 6: community with a high proportion of First Nations voters, but
Speaker 6: apart from that, it was a very comprehensive story. We're
Speaker 6: looking roughly at a sixty to forty split in favor
Speaker 6: of No across the country, so a fairly comprehensive defeat
Speaker 6: for the referendum.
Speaker 4: Many of us have never voted in a referendum before
Speaker 4: and thus would have woken up on Sunday morning not
Speaker 4: really knowing what happens now. You know, there's no playbook
Speaker 4: for how this plays out. So what happens next in
Speaker 4: terms of the voice where to from here?
Speaker 6: Well, it doesn't happen, is the simple answer, and that's
Speaker 6: the way the Prime Minister certainly is talking about it.
Speaker 6: So certainly there is no constitutional change. Obviously, because the
Speaker 6: referendum has been rejected. The Constitution stays exactly as it was.
Speaker 6: It will not be changed to recognize First Nations people,
Speaker 6: and it won't be changed to add a voice. Parliament
Speaker 6: could and Parliament's always had the ability to legislate a
Speaker 6: voice in normal laws, something that could be added and
Speaker 6: removed at any time. But that's certainly something Parliament could do.
Speaker 6: It doesn't seem that will happen. The Prime Minister's been
Speaker 6: very clear. He spoke on Saturday night and said that
Speaker 6: the Australian people have rejected the idea of a voice
Speaker 6: and that he's not going to seek to pass it
Speaker 6: under normal laws.
Speaker 3: It's now up to all of us to come together
Speaker 3: and find a different way to the same reconciled destination.
Speaker 6: So for now it's it seems that the idea of
Speaker 6: the voice ended on the weekend. In some way. Of course,
Speaker 6: the government has committed to continue to try to close
Speaker 6: the gap, to work on new ways to achieve First
Speaker 6: Nations policies. The Prime Minister said on Saturday night he
Speaker 6: would continue to try to listen in whatever way possible.
Speaker 3: Now government will continue to seek better outcomes for Indigenous
Speaker 3: Australians and their children and the generations to come.
Speaker 6: The Opposition leader Peter Dutton struck a similar tone.
Speaker 5: I will do my utmost to lead with courage and
Speaker 5: to do what is right to implement the practical solutions
Speaker 5: required to improve outcomes and close the gap.
Speaker 6: So I'm sure that in the coming years there will
Speaker 6: be perhaps even in the coming months, more conversation about
Speaker 6: new ways of achieving First Nations policies. But as far
Speaker 6: as a voice in our political system. That idea will
Speaker 6: go no further, I think than last weekend in terms
Speaker 6: of the way forward for First Nations people and First
Speaker 6: Nations leaders, I think that's a more complicated question. Of course.
Speaker 6: The idea of the voice came from First Nations leaders.
Speaker 6: As we said a lot in the last few weeks,
Speaker 6: this was an idea that came from a document called
Speaker 6: the ULARU Statement from the Heart, a statement made in
Speaker 6: twenty seventeen by about two hundred and fifty First Nations leaders.
Speaker 6: For the people who authored that statement and who have
Speaker 6: been pushing for a voice, this is clearly an extremely
Speaker 6: disappointing result, and I suspect for many a very personal rejection.
Speaker 6: And I'm sure there will be more conversations had in
Speaker 6: the First Nation's community to come about what the way
Speaker 6: forward looks like, what is the way to redress historic disadvantage,
Speaker 6: what is the way to achieve justice to close the gaps.
Speaker 6: Those conversations will, no doubt happen, But for now, the
Speaker 6: First Nations people who have been leading the charge for
Speaker 6: a voice have declared a week of mourning, and they've
Speaker 6: said that they won't talk for a week about why
Speaker 6: this result happened, what it meant, what comes next? That
Speaker 6: they will be flying Aboriginal and tires straight island of
Speaker 6: flags half masts and encouraging other people to do the same,
Speaker 6: and taking that time to mourn the result and reflect
Speaker 6: on what was clearly a very significant disappointment for people
Speaker 6: who spent many years campaigning for a voice, and no
Speaker 6: doubt for many people in the first nation's community, taken
Speaker 6: as a personal rejection and a very sad moment Tom.
Speaker 4: In the minutes after the referendum was declared as having failed,
Speaker 4: there was already a raft of analysis that was published
Speaker 4: by every media commentator in the country. What are some
Speaker 4: of these views about why the No campaign succeeded in
Speaker 4: the way that it did.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's a really big question, Sarah, and I think
Speaker 6: it's one that we're going to be discussing and debating
Speaker 6: for a very long time, and we'll probably never agree
Speaker 6: on exactly why the result was the way that it was,
Speaker 6: and we'll also never know, right. I think that's important
Speaker 6: to say here. We ask Australians to go into the
Speaker 6: booth and write the words yes or no. We don't
Speaker 6: ask them to write a paragraph explaining their reasoning We
Speaker 6: will never know for sure why the public made the
Speaker 6: decision that it did, and so we need to take
Speaker 6: any sort of interpretation with a grain of salt. The
Speaker 6: first thing to say, though, is that the no case
Speaker 6: usually wins.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 6: Referendums usually fail. We've had forty five now in our history,
Speaker 6: and eight have succeeded. And in part I think that
Speaker 6: is because it is easier to run a no campaign
Speaker 6: than a yes campaign. Just sort of structurally, I think
Speaker 6: of it almost a bit like a courtroom. In a courtroom,
Speaker 6: you have the prosecution trying to prove that someone is guilty.
Speaker 6: The defense doesn't have to prove that they are innocent.
Speaker 6: They just have to create doubt. They just have to
Speaker 6: create doubt and guilt. It's the same thing with a
Speaker 6: yes and a no campaign, right. The ES campaign has
Speaker 6: to convince you to support an idea. The no campaign
Speaker 6: doesn't need you to support them. They just need to
Speaker 6: create doubt about the idea. And in a sense, that
Speaker 6: is an easier task, and it's one that the no
Speaker 6: campaign I think did very effectively. To me, probably the
Speaker 6: most effective line in the entire referendum debate was this
Speaker 6: line about detail, and it was something that Peter Dutton
Speaker 6: said for really for eighteen months he said it really consistently.
Speaker 6: You know, there's not enough detail, we don't know how
Speaker 6: this thing's going to work, and you know, offering no
Speaker 6: comment about the merits of the line. But it was
Speaker 6: a very effective bit of political messaging because it was simple,
Speaker 6: it was sharp. People heard it. It created again that
Speaker 6: doubt and confusion and I think then by contrast, the
Speaker 6: Prime Minister's answer to that question was a bit of
Speaker 6: a mouthful. The Prime Minister was saying, well, a lot
Speaker 6: of the details will be worked out in legislation. We
Speaker 6: don't have a full version of it. We do have
Speaker 6: these principles.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: It was a longer answer and I think it wasn't
Speaker 6: again just in terms of political messaging and understanding that
Speaker 6: a lot of voters will only hear, you know, the
Speaker 6: very high level messages from the ES and the No
Speaker 6: campaigns about what this is about. I think that that
Speaker 6: was very effective from a long way back and creating
Speaker 6: confusion and you could see that in the opinion polls,
Speaker 6: and that's where I think is the most important place
Speaker 6: to look, because if you go back a year ago,
Speaker 6: sixty four percent of Australians said that they were planning
Speaker 6: to support a voice that's well and truly enough for
Speaker 6: this referendum to have succeeded. And I think the best
Speaker 6: place to look to see this is the opinion polls,
Speaker 6: right because a year ago you had sixty four percent
Speaker 6: of Australians saying yes, I planned to support a voice
Speaker 6: and we've ended up at about forty And so the
Speaker 6: question of how was the referendum lost is how we
Speaker 6: got from sixty four for yes to forty fo yes.
Speaker 6: And I think that was a story of confusion and
Speaker 6: detail that was it was about the time that Peter
Speaker 6: Dutton started talking in that way and started moving towards
Speaker 6: a no campaign that those numbers started to shift. And
Speaker 6: so I think that that's why I view that as
Speaker 6: the key factor. There are there are a lot of
Speaker 6: factors here, clearly also, you know there were It's worth
Speaker 6: acknowledging this really directly that there were elements of really
Speaker 6: horrible racism in the campaign. As tda's Daniel Oserto reported
Speaker 6: last week, calls from First Nations people to the national
Speaker 6: hotline that deals with issues of racism and abuse and
Speaker 6: trauma doubled this year. There was clearly a very significant
Speaker 6: spike in racism, and that is obviously a part of
Speaker 6: this debate that's going to be I think the most
Speaker 6: troubling to many people and a really difficult thing to
Speaker 6: come to terms with. But again, I think when you
Speaker 6: look at the fact that sixty four percent of people
Speaker 6: a year ago said they were willing to support this thing,
Speaker 6: were willing to support this sort of general gesture towards
Speaker 6: a voice for First Nations people, but then were convinced
Speaker 6: in the political fray to change their minds. To me,
Speaker 6: that's really where the referendum was one and lost.
Speaker 4: And of course we know that no referendum has ever
Speaker 4: been one without bipartisan support. So the minute that we
Speaker 4: saw the opposition come out and support the no case,
Speaker 4: the task for Anthony Albanesi became significantly harder. Absolutely so, Tom,
Speaker 4: if we take a step back, what does the result
Speaker 4: mean for the future of this country.
Speaker 6: I think it's going to take us time to be
Speaker 6: able to answer that question properly. Zara, I think clearly,
Speaker 6: in the short term for the large number of First
Speaker 6: Nations people who have spent years advocating for a voice,
Speaker 6: this is very painful setback that that language of the
Speaker 6: Week of Mourning that we heard on the weekend suggests,
Speaker 6: you know how painful this is for people who've put
Speaker 6: their hearts into pushing this idea, who've seen it as
Speaker 6: a way to begin to close the gaps and address
Speaker 6: Indigenous disadvantage. This will feel a very personal rejection and
Speaker 6: a very personal loss for a lot of First Nations people,
Speaker 6: and it's going to take some time for all of us,
Speaker 6: I think, to grapple with that over the longer term, though.
Speaker 6: I think this is one thing the Prime Minister said
Speaker 6: a bit was that at least we have spent a
Speaker 6: year or more than a year talking about Indigenous disadvantage,
Speaker 6: talking about the status quo. And this is something that
Speaker 6: I've said a lot as well in our reporting, that
Speaker 6: everybody agrees that the status quo is broken. They might
Speaker 6: have different ways to emphasize it or different ways of
Speaker 6: talking about it, but pretty much everybody agrees that when
Speaker 6: it comes to outcomes for First Nations people in this country,
Speaker 6: something's got to change. That momentum, I don't think will
Speaker 6: go anywhere, and I think anybody who cares about these
Speaker 6: issues wants to see change that is going to continue,
Speaker 6: and it's going to continue with new generations coming through
Speaker 6: into leadership as well, and I think at TDA we're
Speaker 6: often we're talking mostly to young people. Were very aware
Speaker 6: of how young people think. This is another one of
Speaker 6: those many examples that we can point to in our
Speaker 6: politics at the moment where the views of young people,
Speaker 6: who all evidence suggests very clearly voted yes on the weekend.
Speaker 6: The views of young people don't necessarily align with the
Speaker 6: rest of the views of the rest of Australia, and
Speaker 6: that might mean that we don't get the change that
Speaker 6: young people might have voted for now well, but it
Speaker 6: doesn't mean that it's over because you know, ultimately young
Speaker 6: people win the battle of time, and as this generation
Speaker 6: I think gets older, gets into positions of leadership, these
Speaker 6: conversations won't go away. These issues will be returned to
Speaker 6: and the level of enthusiasm that we saw from you know,
Speaker 6: I mean forty sixty is a resounding result, but it's
Speaker 6: still millions of people voting either way, and so I
Speaker 6: think it's and millions of people I think on both
Speaker 6: sides who agreed that the status quo when it comes
Speaker 6: to first nation's issues needs to change. So you know,
Speaker 6: at some point clearly First Nations leaders at the moment,
Speaker 6: you will need that time to mourn, and I don't
Speaker 6: think we can expect them to be immediately offering us
Speaker 6: answers for where to go next. I think in a
Speaker 6: sense that's up to all of us. But these issues
Speaker 6: won't go away. We'll be back here again, and I
Speaker 6: think we'll keep talking about these gaps until they close.
Speaker 4: Tom thank you so much for jumping on today and
Speaker 4: indeed for your excellent reporting over the last couple of weeks.
Speaker 4: We are very lucky to have you.
Speaker 6: Thanks Sarah.
Speaker 4: If you need support with any of the themes raised
Speaker 4: in this episode, you can call one three Yarn. They
Speaker 4: can connect you with an Aboriginal or Torus Straight Islander
Speaker 4: Crisis supporter twenty four hours a day.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to this episode of The Daily OS
Speaker 2: and for listening to our Special Voice series over the
Speaker 2: last week. If you learn something from this episode and
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Speaker 2: have a good start to the week,