It’s an issue that’s dividing Australians and, whatever the outcome of the referendum, about half the country is going to be unhappy. Especially now that hopes of a bipartisan approach appear to have been dashed.
A “yes” vote would mean changing the constitution to give the Indigenous population a voice, meaning they’ll be able to advise the Australian Parliament and Government on laws and policies that affect their wellbeing.
It won’t deliver anything in the way of tangible benefits, such as new services or funding. And it won’t lead to any laws being invalidated. It would simply enshrine two fundamental principles, recognition and consultation.
It doesn’t seem a lot to ask on behalf of one of the oldest living cultures on Earth.
Yet the referendum subject is controversial and creating deep splits. Not surprisingly, it’s one of the five biggest news stories of 2023, as measured by the number of hours a story spends on the homepages of major Australian news sites.
The politics of the issue are intriguing. Since winning last year’s election, the Labor PM Anthony Albanese has been urging Australians to seize the moment. His catchcry is, “if not now, when?” The polls suggest he’s on a winner, though the gap has narrowed slightly in the past month.
Meanwhile, the Opposition and Liberal leader, Peter Dutton, has decided to champion the “no” case. He argues the referendum is divisive and won’t materially help First Nations people, many of whom continue to live in appalling conditions. Instead of a people’s vote, he wants regional and local voices established by legislation.
The sniping has gone up a level since Dutton made his call, as I observed on an Easter visit to Australia.
He’s been tagged a “heartless Judas” and accused of fuelling a culture war campaign. There are howls of outrage about race-based constitutional change. A Liberal grandee has denounced the “yes” camp for trying to denigrate and humiliate opponents. And the exercise has been described — you probably guessed it — as “wokeness”, a promotion of identity politics.
Dutton’s strategy sure feels risky.
He’s managed to alienate some of his own party. His shadow minister for Indigenous Australians has resigned the role, and the Liberals’ deputy leader and several other frontbenchers are refusing to say how they’ll campaign ahead of the vote. Most worryingly, a shade under 40per cent of Liberal voters back the “yes” case, either strongly or partly, according to Newspoll.
Yet despite that latter statistic, his sagging popularity, and the fact the Liberals lost a March by-election — the Government won an Opposition seat in a by-election for the first time in 100 years — Dutton is going for broke and making the referendum a partisan political issue. Aussie commentators have had plenty to say about whether that’s a wise idea.
If the referendum fails — and many are pointing out that no referendum in Australia has succeeded without bipartisan support — some warn of sorrowful times ahead. And Dutton will inevitably be blamed for that.
That’s the thing with polarising issues that attract labels such as culture war and wokeness. There is seldom, if ever, any upside for politicians who wade in, but there can be downside, as we have seen here recently.
We tend to remember only the blunders, like Greens co-leader Marama Davidson blaming violence on “white cis men”, and National’s Simon O’Connor boorishly responding, on the day after a US school shooting, that the shooter didn’t fit that description.
We are getting used to New Zealand opposition politicians trying to capture and exploit the public mood on issues where there’s a marked polarity of opinion.
Co-governance, hate speech laws, transgender rights and the use of Te Reo Māori have offered them plenty of material.
Co-governance is probably the foremost example.
Whether the public unease about it is a consequence of the issue being poorly communicated, or just the Government being tone deaf on where the political centre is, the upshot is that it has presented an opportunity for the doomsayers.
So Christopher Luxon demands an end to co-governance in public services because the conversation about it is “immature and divisive”. David Seymour derides it as a culture war that must be resolved by a referendum. And Winston Peters mentions co-governance when lamenting the “seeds of apartheid being sprinkled around New Zealand”.
By whipping up a squall of drama, they hope to position themselves on what they see as the right side of the divide over the issue, and if there’s votes in taking that position, so much the better.
British academic Matthew Goodwin, a specialist in populist politics, has written of the “lingering divides over values, voice and virtue” that are emerging in the UK, and the political risks for parties that amplify those divisions.
In New Zealand, where the dark shadow of high inflation and rising borrowing costs means the upcoming election will be overwhelmingly about the economy, it’s difficult to see how such culture-war divisions will change many votes.
But that won’t stop some politicians from trying.
- Mike Munro is a former chief of staff for Jacinda Ardern and was chief press secretary for Helen Clark.
