The Voice: Revolt of the Real Oppressed By James Reed

Alex Antic, who did great work opposing the Voice referendum, writes in a recent Spectator Australia piece, that the defeat of the Voice is a victory for the “Quiet Australians” who work hard each day to provide for their families against the largely Leftist inner city New Class elites. These New Class now dominate the nerve centres of modern society, the long march having begun ion the 1960s, to reach domination position today.

The Voice, was based upon the Uluru Statement from the Heart, which is a radical identity document asserting that modern Australia was “stolen,” and hence is illegitimate. The people never got to hear what this statement was about as the prime minister said that it was only one page long, which a Freedom of Information request showed to be false.

The ordinary people did know that they were struggling with cost-of-living increases, such as rapidly rising energy costs, but they were being told that the Voice would solve all the problems that remote indigenous communities faced, even though untold billions spent on past bureaucracies did not solve these problems. And at the end of the day, wisdom prevailed, and a No vote was delivered.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/10/the-voice-of-the-quiet-australians/

The so-called ‘progressive left’s’ presumption of moral superiority often leads it to assertively present the views of activists as ‘mainstream’ while ignoring the worldview of everyday Australians. It is hard to imagine how the proponents of the ‘Yes’ campaign could have got it so wrong. That is unless you understand the psyche of these people. They start their daily routine with the ABC’s morning RN broadcast, followed by a perusal of the Guardian over breakfast. They have a quick poke through their Twitter feed, followed by a chat with their ‘progressive’ workmates around the watercooler, and finish with an evening of Q & A before bed. The echo chamber lifestyle is unrivalled. Their assumption is that everyone is as ‘virtuous’ and ‘enlightened’ as they are and as a result, this referendum could never have failed. The weekend’s referendum results were, however, as pleasing as any I have experienced in my political life. This isn’t only because I publicly opposed the Voice before it was announced, it is also because the ‘Yes’ campaign was nothing more than an indulgent guilt trip complete with name-calling, finger-wagging, and even tears (mostly from our Prime Page 2 of 17 Minister). The ‘Yes’ narrative lacked coherent arguments but excelled in emotional blackmail. It leads me to wonder why the Australian Labor Party always takes the Australian people for mugs… Australians are interested in working hard, raising children, volunteering in our communities, and earning a living. We are, as Sir Robert Menzies said, ‘The middle class who, properly regarded, represent the backbone of this country.’ We are people who prefer the government to facilitate the conditions for social and economic prosperity by trimming its bureaucratic fat. We like to see the private sector incentivised, as they are the true creators of wealth and employment, rather than burdening employers with endless red tape while Labor impose their Utopian vision of social justice. When I was out in the community during the referendum, the overwhelming impression was that people didn’t know what the Voice was because they hadn’t been told. All they were told was that it was racist to vote ‘No’. They viewed the Voice as a massive indulgence in identity politics at a time when electricity prices had increased by 15.7 per cent, gas prices by 14 per cent, milk and bread prices by 10 per cent, and when interest rates had doubled. The Quiet Australians knew that the Voice wouldn’t make any difference to the poverty, incarceration, violence, unemployment, and early deaths of Indigenous people in remote parts of the country. If all the other bureaucracies created to ‘close the gap’ had failed, then what made this one any different other than the fact that was to be permanent? If the answer is that only Indigenous people would be allowed on the Voice, I’m still waiting for Labor to explain how a candidate’s Indigenous status would be determined. What solutions would they devise that could not be immediately implemented without this referendum (a process costing taxpayers $364 million)? We didn’t hear any practical suggestions. If there were any, there would have been no point creating the Voice because we could already do those things without wasting everyone’s time and money. We Quiet Australians, believe it or not, enjoy being Australian and we are not ashamed of our heritage. We believe that all Australians, whatever our ancestry, should be considered as such while retaining our unique cultural heritages and traditions if we wish. However, the Uluru Statement from the Heart asserts that the arrival of the First Fleet marked the beginning of an ‘invasion’ and that colonisation is still responsible for the difficulties Indigenous people face. This is not the view of mainstream Australia, and that is becoming more apparent now that the referendum has been held. Australians have politely endured the gross mischaracterisations by professional activists for some time but now we have said enough is enough. We are tired of the one-sided shaming of our history. To us, the Voice felt like a constitutional embedding of this wrongheaded victimhood mindset that undermines our history and unnecessarily divides us. We made our voices heard on October 14. The outcome of this referendum was something of a Brexit moment for Australia – a moment in which everyday people, so often ignored by the corporate sector and other self-appointed apostles of social justice, have their say. A major blow has been dealt to those who wag their fingers at us. Labor and their mates in the ‘progressive left’ would do well to understand that we are sick of their fast-talking, Page 3 of 17 shaming agenda. They would be wise to understand the importance of what happened last weekend. This wasn’t just a referendum on the Voice this was a referendum on wokeness itself and the wokesters lost.’