Feel more informed, more likely to vote "no" to "The Voice"

New TL;DR

(Edit: overall, I'm happyish with this post, but I felt I could do a better summary:)

I am only concerned with how I vote, and on that front, I am only concerned with what the referendum says, though I'm taking in people's opinions about what it says.

I made a bunch of mistakes in my first post, I wrote it in one sitting which is very rare for me these days. I can defend that post though, if I had my time again, I would have spent less words on the design principles for the Voice. My interpretation of what the referendum says now boils down to:

"The Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia shall have the power to decide who and what the constitutionally recognized voice of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are and is. The Parliament will have ultimate say on what matters concern Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders."

Or even briefer: The Aboriginal Voice to Parliament, belongs to Parliament.

It's this interpretation of the referendum, that I predominantly will vote no to. I cannot in good conscience deprive the Indigenous people, whose sovereignty I already recognize, of that sovereignty. There then is a secondary reason, and that is that due to poor wording, our constitution will be open to interpretation as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders having ceded their sovereignty as "the First People of Australia" that wording is too risky to sit right with me.

The common theme of every reason to vote yes that I have found and been exposed to, can I feel be fairly characterised as an "intentional fallacy"

the insistence that the ultimate meaning of an expression must be consistent with the intention of the person from whom the communication originated (e.g. a work of fiction that is widely received as a blatant allegory must necessarily not be regarded as such if the author intended it not to be so). ~ Wikipedia summary, full explanation here.

It is my opinion that while the High Court of Australia is likely to consider the context in which the new law was written, ultimately will consider what the words say, if a future government legislates the Voice to be made up of political appointees.

My gut instinct from my first reading of the referendum, that this was a package deal, stands - recognition will fail because it comes bundled with the voice body. I have changed my opinion on whether a body for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders should be enshrined in the constitution at all. I can't see a feasible way to do it without enshrining Parliament and the Commonwealth's power over it.

Tony Benn's 5 questions for power I find a useful framework for evaluating the contents of the referendum. That is why I think an ultimate autopsy of this referendum needs to go back to the Uluru Statement of the Hearts call for a "First Nations Voice to be enshrined in the constitution" an Australia with buyers remorse will not be able to undo the Voice without a referendum, and the Voice is how the Australian Constitution recognises First Nations people (without sovereignty) meaning we would need a question to scrap the voice, and a question to recognize the Indigenous in some other way, making for complicated "yes, no" campaigns, "no, yes" campaigns, "yes, yes" campaigns and "no, no" campaigns.

Paling in relevance to the content of referendum, between my first post and this, I read the Uluru Statement from the Heart - which close to fully explained to me how we got here. I think we got here to the wording of this referendum with something Frankie Boyle referred to as Co-Pilot syndrome on BBC light-entertainment show "Taskmaster", that is, though I can't read minds - the draft wording of the referendum came out and was endorsed, despite being scrubbed of all suggestion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sovereignty, because so much had been invested just to get there. A phrase mentioned repeatedly to me was "it's not ideal" my interpretation remains that the proposed law is "bad".

TL;DR

I did further research in an attempt to inform myself, and have significantly updated what I think the referendum says/means. 

I'm also grateful that I had friends present their reasons for voting yes. Down the bottom of this post, I go on a bit of a rant about my frustrations with the politics of the times, and I want to say, none of my friends closely resemble the "fools and fanatics" I am ranting about, though they may incidentally align.

Speaking candidly, I am as yet, to come across a good reason to vote yes in the referendum, and I make my case below as to why I haven't. The yes campaign is the only campaign that actually need to furnish a reason to vote for them.

There's time remaining, and if I find that good argument, I will commit myself now to sharing it, but as yet, I don't have it. 

I am less confident now than four days ago, that the good argument exists. My present impression is the Yes campaign is based entirely upon everything but the content of the referendum.

Preramble to the Update on the State of the Sentiment of the Lay Voter on the Referendum to Amend the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia.

I have been unable to source the artist & writer that created this image, due to the sloppiness and callousness of those who shared it before me.

The past, I don't know, at least 3 days have been a mixed bag for me. My mind has certainly been occupied by the central question of Australia's forthcoming referendum: "Am I an asshole?"

It would be nice if it were as simple as many people make out. For example this situation from 1994:

Image sourced from here.

If in 1994 you were the kind of person who was all like "Um, that's not the official Australian flag, and she is representing Australia in an official capacity hnnnnnnnnnnnnn..." then you are an arsehole for denying someone self expression and a host of other reasons. Simple, and clear cut. 

Unfortunately, there's another kind of arsehole that has one standard for the above situation, and another for things like statues of Christopher Columbus, the Confederate Flag etc. the situation becomes more complicated, and you can be a different kind of arsehole that is incidentally correct on the easiest cases of self expression - those cases that you happen to like.

"We hardly find any persons of good sense save those who agree with us." ~ Francois de La Rouchefoucauld McFancyPants describing another kind of arsehole.

Unfortunately, with this referendum it's not as simple as if you vote "no" you are an arsehole, though it's likely a bunch of people will think you are.

There's at least two types of arsehole's out there. There's a "fuck you" kind of arsehole, and a "okay you asked for it" arsehole. After hearing some arguments for voting yes, and bending my mind like a pretzel looking at the contents of the referendum for sufficient reason to vote yes, I am still inclined to believe that this referendum carries a greater risk of "okay you asked for it" by voting yes, than a "fuck you" by voting no.

Where the left has degraded itself, in my opinion, has been its embrace of double standards and rejection of universalism. That is the most common theme of bad ideas originating from left-wing identifying people I come across. Bad ideas like ad hominem fallacies, slippery slope fallacies, all-or-nothing thinking, affirming the consequent, appeals to emotion, conspiracy theories, revelation as sound epistemology and an abundant overconfidence in their abilities to read people's minds. etc. 

I had a brief exchange of messages with my sister who hasn't followed along, and she shared with me her impression on the ground, that the referendum was most likely going to fail, but for none of the reasons I was leaning towards no. "The discourse" isn't apparently, thinking like I do.

Australian Referendums make Thomas-Fucking-Jeffersons of Us All.

The amendment process crafted during the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention was, according to The Federalist No. 43, designed to establish a balance between pliancy and rigidity ~ from wikipedia. IMO Australia's process is imbalanced toward rigidity.

I've seen Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" that depicts the Lincoln Administrations campaign to pass the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery in the United States. While it is no trivial thing to amend the US constitution, it seems a lot easier than Australia's referendum process - which requires a vote that only passes with a "double majority" which is a majority of the states and territories need to get a majority "yes" vote.

Contrasting the two systems for changing a nation state's constitution, I'm now increasingly of the opinion that Australia needs a referendum to change the process by which we alter our constitution.

Under the US system, amendments to the constitution can be made entirely by members of legislative bodies. Career politicians and legislators with staff with expertise to read proposed amendments and hash out what it means. The US system is much closer to deliberative democracy than Australia's referendum process. Granted, there are characters in US politics like Margery Taylor Green who think the moon is made out of cheese and it's coming for your guns and your babies and your babies guns or whatever.

But the Australian system makes a fucking founding father out of me when they call a referendum. 

I do not take that civic duty lightly. 

They also make a founding father out of my anti-vax friend, my young-earth creationist friends, my crypto-bro friends, my antifa friends, they make a founding father out of the people who went panic buying-hording toilet paper, pasta and lentils.

I care about the content of this referendum, and its lasting repercussions. Caring about that, I really just care how I vote, because I have to live with my own conscious.

Recognizing how small my vote is, even how small my influence is that my reasoning could persuade others to vote contrary to me, my ability to say "don't blame me, I voted for Kodos." is of tremendous import, in any vote I can participate in, because I have to live with myself.

I'm not a legislator with access to constitutional legal scholars to inform me. Unlike a deliberative democracy process, it's on me to try and inform my own vote. There's no judge and no legal counsel. Just a million arseholes each with their own opinions. 

I elect, except when absent, people to represent me in the legislative branch. Fortunately, I don't have to accurately anticipate future legal challenges to the amended constitution and the likely High Court of Australia's opinions on them, to cast a vote that I can live with.

Some Simplifiers

Because of the Australian referendum system, requiring a double majority of lay voters to approve a change to the constitution, it needs must be incumbent upon whoever words a referendum that it be both clear and precise. The simplest way to cast a vote in good conscious, is to read the content of the referendum and gauge your confidence that you understand what it says. 

If you read the words, and couldn't explain to a six year old what they mean with any justified confidence. You vote no. For any Australian referendum. Ever. I basically covered this in my last post on the subject, so just remember - tie goes to the status quo/if in doubt don't.

A second simplifying rule is to actually draw upon the hive mind. By this, the foundational rule is: "people generally lead with their best argument." A prosecutor doesn't begin their case in a murder trial be presenting the defendants cryptic fb post "omg, I feel sick" as exhibit A, when they have footage of the defendant murdering someone, followed by their prints on the murder weapon.

A very big data set that I believe replicates the rule, is 15+ years of call in show "The Atheist Experience" (ASX) where mostly theists call in to present their reasons for believing in a god, usually the Christian god, frequently Allah, occasionally the Pantheist god or some other wishy washy content.

What never fucking happens, is someone calling in and the hosts of the week asking "okay tell us why you believe in god?" and the caller says "Because the bible says..." and the hosts interrupt with "why should we care what the bible says" and here's the part that never happens the caller says "oh right, well that's my weakest reason, let me make a cosmological argument..." that. never. happens. What happens is the caller usually says with confusion "but the bible is the word of God?" and if you feel callers who are general members of the public with no particular qualifications beyond expertise on what they think, the same is true of professional debates between Atheist Sceptics and Theologians and members of the priest class. You generally don't have to listen beyond the opening statements to determine if the side with the burden of proof (Theists) have any good arguments at all.

Relevant to Australia's referendum debate, is that if you haven't heard a good argument from the yes campaign (who for me, carries the burden of proving I should vote yes) yet, then I can adjust my confidence upward, that a good and sufficient reason to vote yes does not exist.

I'll share my thoughts on the arguments I've heard thus far, just as a simple example here's an op-ed piece by Geoffrey Robertson:

Headline: If the No wins, the world will think we’re racist anyway

Excerpt: It will also open Australia up to charges of hypocrisy when its government complains of China’s discrimination against Uyghurs.

This is a bad-terrible reason to vote yes, made by a highly intelligent, highly qualified public figure. That reassures me, that the Yes campaign do not have a compelling reason I should vote yes. Like why the fuck would you argue something as tenuous as "think of the Uyghurs" as if Xi is going to say "yabba dabba doo" and crank up his oppression if this referendum fails.

but first let's talk about things I fucked up early on:

Uninformed, Misinformed, Stupid - I made mistakes.

Least impactful first. When I read the contents of the referendum, which I didn't like in terms of the language employed, I placed the blame on botching what could have been a referendum that recognized Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders and passed - something I wish to see happen - squarely on the ALP, the presiding government.

A friend made the argument that Indigenous Australians had asked for this referendum, and this is what they want, and that is why I should vote yes. I committed myself in my response to inform myself of the consultation process.

My impression of events has now completely changed and I feel even if only to myself, by being uninformed, I embarrassingly misrepresented who was responsible for this referendum. I was completely ignorant as to the contents of the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart which called for enshrinement of the First Nations Voice in the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia. 

PM Anthony Albanese is still responsible for translating this call to the referendum we have, but he is ultimately responsible for his commitment to listen to the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

Coming to understand this, has no real impact on my decision making process, but it relieved all my frustration and even anger at the ALP as I now understand why we are having a referendum and why pretty much the only detail it specifies is what the body is to be called. Much of my own negative emotions dissipated. because understanding what happened made sense out of how we got here.

The more impactful thing I have come to understand through informing myself, is the contents of the referendum and why acknowledging Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders comes packaged with "The Voice". 

My initial take was skewed by memories of the '99 referendum, which had two questions, only the question regarding the constitutional preamble was relevant to recognizing Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders, and on my initial read of this coming referendum I really didn't understand why it was a package deal.

The key for me, was scrutinizing the word "in" as in "in recognition" and even the punctuation ":" initially I had thought that the first sentence of the proposed law was the recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders as pre-existing the Commonwealth of Australia, and then there were 3 (iii) lines that detailed the creation of "the Voice" body, which I treated almost as a non-sequitur.

I was wrong in my initial reading, and only picked it up by reading the Uluru Statement of The Heart, which was only a result of having friends engage me. 

The Voice is the recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders, this change to the constitution does not simply recognize the indigenous peoples, it specifies how they are recognized. Like "we recognize Steve is coming to dinner by the place we set at the table for him."

Taking the referendum in isolation, it was hard for me to parse that it says "We recognize them through the provision of this body."

It's most impactful, because for me this packaging would be ground zero for conducting the autopsy on a failed referendum, and more to the point failure to recognize Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders in the first 122+ years of the Commonwealth of Australia. I'm currently of the opinion that this process most likely failed at the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart, I'll get to that later.

Scrubbed of any suggestion of sovereignty.

Hearing reasons from friends to vote yes, focused my attention on the acknowledgement aspect, previously and I assume it comes through in my last post, most of my attention was on the words contained in i, ii, iii.

My first sticking point was capital "A" "Australia" because I'm a fucking unbearable stickler, and I was concerned the words "First Peoples of Australia" was treating Australia the nation as synonymous with Terra Australis the land mass, or "Country" as my interest in Aboriginal philosophy and religion understands it, such that it would be open to interpretation as a backdoor way to steal sovereignty for the Commonwealth and make subjects of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.

I invite you to notice the language used in the Uluru Statement from the Heart, which is an excellent document, and also the Welcome to Country as compared to the contents of the Referendum.

Anyway, long tedious story short, I'm 100% confident that given the definitions in 2B of the constitution that "Australia" in the referendum refers to geography, not the Commonwealth of Australia, and this is a mere example of how the wording is "not ideal" rather than bad - in this example only.

This also had me scrutinize the above mentioned "in" and ":" to actually for the first time understand overall what the law is saying...and I got curious as to "First Peoples" as in, why is that capitalized? What's the significance.

Because there's two big changes to the language in the long process leading up to this referendum that near as I can determine came quite late in the process. "First Nations" becomes "First Peoples" and "First Nations Voice" becomes the only specific detail in the referendum: "The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice"

This had me go and inform myself of the referendum's timeline - where did it come from and what is the significance? 

Well, I couldn't quite figure out how the wording came to be, Albo announced the draft wording of the referendum on 30th of July, 2022 and that wording has not changed in any significant way from what's on the referendum. The wording has been endorsed by the referendum committee so, there is that. (*edit, I should also mention that the two polls conducted by Ipsos and Yougov that are the basis for 80% of indigenous voters support... were conducted after the draft words were released. Which checks out, however the core of my position that only the contents of the referendum matter, belabour me to make the point it is more accurate to say polls indicate 80% support what they think the referendum says. Like 80% of Democrat voters in 2008 approved of what they think "Change we can believe in" means. Then discovered over the next 8 years what that meant and switched their vote to Bernie Sanders or Trump.)

But that near as I can tell, is where all the names appear for the first time. The Uluru Statement from the Heart for example states:

We call for the establishment of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution.

Now it is called "The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice" no "The First Nations Voice" for which I am speculating, they got some advice that the High Court would have too much fun, if the constitution acknowledged sovereign nations and sovereign people prior to the foundation of the British Colonies that then became the Commonwealth of Australia. 

Similarly, we get this change from recognizing "First Nations" to "First Peoples" which explains the capitalization, again, it probably being advised that our constitution acknowledge no sovereignty of these people, but I am left unsure as to what "First Peoples" capitalized, means. It's certainly a-historical to suggest that they were the first people to be recognized by the Commonwealth of Australia. My impression of history is that Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders were among the last to be recognized by the Commonwealth.

Grammatically, the capitalization means "First Peoples" reads as a brand, like "Qantas" or "Channel Seven" or "The Grand Old Party" which the Republican party of the US call themselves, even though the Democratic Party is older. It certainly implies, just as the historical method tells us, that Aboriginals and Torres Straight Islanders were in Terra Australis first, but falls short of actually stating that, being grammatically akin to "In Recognition of The Republican Party of the United States is also known as The Grand Old Party:" near as I can determine.

This though is just the tip of the iceberg.

For me - The All Important "May/Shall" distinction

When I noticed none of my friends were addressing my concerns with the content of the referendum, dealing exclusively with peripheral arguments, I inspired myself to do further due diligence and try and search google for anything that indicated that the language was actually clear and precise and that I am subsequently, just a doofus.

Nothing has changed with words like "representations" usually in a legal context, it appears "representation" refers to something like a legal council, it remains unclear what does and doesn't constitute a "representation" though.

But pretty much everything is moot, because of the word "may" as distinct from "shall". That I did get clarity from a google search. "May" in contracts generally means it is discretionary. 

I think the intention of the wording is to emphasise that the Voice's "representations" are non-binding, as in they don't have veto right, or legislative power on matters that concern Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders. 

As it is worded in the referendum, it reads as the Australian Parliament and Executive Government are not constitutionally bound to receive those "representations", they don't have to answer the phone or return calls, open mail, let Voice members on the premises, or allow them to make submissions in policy discussions. 

For me, I've been following via email updates from Adrian Burragubba, Wangan and Jagalingou peoples opposition to the Adani Coalmine, the precise kind of issue a body like the Voice is intended to be could make a big impact. I'm not 100% on the details despite the email updates I receive, but my impression is that the opposition lost their legal challenges to overturn Adani's approval to build a mine and other necessary infrastructure, and the strategy changed to peaceful protests obstructing Adani's attempts to build the coalmine, like unending ceremonies on crucial bits of land and stuff.

That's all to say, that even though I'm aligned with resisting Adani's coalmine, and generally any further investment in coal that is not directly reducing the environmental impact of burning coal, AND that I would vote yes to a referendum question that the constitution stipulate "We shall not touch a company as shady as Adani with a 500km pole" in a heartbeat, I was actually thinking if the wording of the referendum allows a new body an effective filibuster option because it would allow, for example a 365 day long ceremony to take place on the floor of the lower house.

In other words, does the discretionary "may" go both ways, where delegates of the Voice staging disruptive protests can appeal to "the constitution says we may make representations." And my estimation is "no" they could be ejected, or refused entrance because iii pretty UNclearly stipulates: 

the Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to  matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.

Incidentally, my overall impression of arguments for the "yes" vote, are all based on what they think (iii) says and not what it actually says. (iii) is the big blotch, nobody seems to want to talk about.

I think, the words "subject to this Constitution" means nothing can override i and ii, which is that they can't rename the Voice without another referendum, and they can't change the powers of the Voice so they can make binding "representations" or guarantee their representations will be acknowledged. The discretion as to whether "representations" are received at all, lie with the Parliament.

Unintended Consequences and the Future Hypothetical Voice of a Coalition Majority Government

The short term consequences of passing this referendum, are inconsequential to the point of being almost unworthy of consideration. I'll expand on that later. Suffice to say, the government of the day will most likely pass legislation implementing the Voice as intended by the long consultation process you can look at an info graphic here.

On yes campaign website Yes23.com.au/vote_yes one of their arguments reads as:

Protecting the Voice from politics and bureaucrats by putting it in the constitution, giving it the security it needs to provide meaningful and honest advice.

And by my lay, determination. This is straight up about as opposite of what the referendum does as it gets. 

My lay opinion of what the referendum actually says in plain language is:

i) There will be a body that must at all times be called THE Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. (THE Voice)

ii) They can speak, but Parliament and the Executive Government doesn't ever have to listen. ("may")

iii) Parliament gets to say what THE Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice IS.

Again, I must emphasize DON'T TAKE IT FROM ME read the referendum for yourself, preferably before you get to the booth.

What I cannot see excluded from this wording, is a future Coalition government getting the political clout to change the legislation such that the Voice's budget is gutted and it is composed of political appointees. Such a body, would be constitutionally recognized as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. 

The Voice will always be vulnerable to being unpopular with the Australian public. This is somewhat of a protection against a likely outcome, for any public institution, of becoming ideologically captured or otherwise corrupted. Like, if the Voice somehow becomes tedious raging flat-earthers, Parliament could unanimously decide to end the term of the current incumbent representatives and replace them with white academic appointees or even lobbyists from the mining industry who would then be the constitutionally recognized voice of Indigenous Australia.

I had people argue that I need to largely consider the symbolic value of this bureaucratic body, and largely ignore what this bureaucratic body is. To which I say, I am. And by my honest attempts to understand, I can see it backfiring in a major way to enshrine this in the constitution.

Nothing in the constitution prevents Parliament from dispossessing the Voice of its assets and replacing it with a single underfunded political appointee who can afford to hold the position by virtue of the generous wages he receives from his main employer - the Australian Economic Group for the Promotion of Agriculture and Mining, who will be able to say, by enshrinement of the constitution that as The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice "fuck the reef."

How likely this extreme outcome is, I would put at very unlikely. More likely is some other way to undermine the Voice that can be legislated quietly. For example, the 2007 Northern Territory Emergency Act was legislated loudly, and one of the situations a well designed and protected Voice could have I'm sure, improved, whereas the 2012 Stronger Futures Policy was legislated relatively quietly. 

Given that this FUCKING REFERENDUM struggles to get more attention in the media than sports and property sales, I think a future Coalition government would be able to gut the Voice under this referendum with nothing more than a few deluded intelligencia writing duelling op-eds for page ten of the local newspapers.

A lay guy's tier list for the Yes Campaign Arguments

Yes23.com.au/vote_yes lists the following broad bullet point reasons for voting yes.

• Recognising
• Listening
• Protecting
• Over 80%

That last one refers to the broad consensus and is a reiteration, or quality control statement of the "Listening" argument, it's the websites words not mine. Let me see if it complies with "strongest argument first" heuristic. I'm going to rank them on a power-level tier list, and should they conform to a fallacy I'll, as a lay sceptic, denote the fallacy.

ALWAYS KEEP IN MIND THE FALLACY FALLACY, JUST BECAUSE AN ARGUMENT IS MADE BADLY, DOESN'T MAKE THE CONCLUSION INCORRECT.

Recognising and respecting 65,000 years of Indigenous culture for the first time in Australia’s 122-year-old constitution. 

I rank this argument C-tier, it's hard to diagnose, because it is for example a true dilemma that "yes" will be the first time in 122 years. The referendum says nothing about respect however, that part is a false dilemma if you are arguing that a failed referendum therefore means the public don't recognise and don't respect 65,000 years of Indigenous culture. There are more ways to do this than just voting "yes" on the referendum. I rank this as high as C-tier because recognising and respecting Indigenous culture is a good thing to want to do. The question is, does this referendum actually accomplish that? For which this actually isn't an argument at all. Just an assertion. It deserves it's C rating because it accurately reflects the likely short term interpretation of the significance of the referendum. For reference, compare the perceived significance of Obama's election in 2008 relative to it's perceived significance in 2015, 2020 etc. Or a more recent example, the perceived significance of the Matilda's advancing past the group stage in the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup, and the perceived significance of the Matilda's performance in the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup after being eliminated by the Lionesses.

Listening to advice from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people about matters that affect their lives, so governments make better decisions. 

I rank this D-tier, it would be a good argument, if this was what the referendum said. I actually don't know what the fallacy is, when the premises of the argument are just wrong. Upon consideration, this D-tier argument is definitely an intentional fallacy and a straw man fallacy, it is "refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion, while not recognizing or acknowledging the distinction." This is an argument for the Voice the ALP plans to legislate should the referendum pass, as distinct from what is actually under discussion, which is the content of the referendum people will vote yes or no on.

People need to fucking understand that the High Court won't be able to call Anthony Albanese to testify "what he meant" when the constitution says "on matters relating to..." nor should they, because they actually need to read the minds of millions of voters and try and figure out what they meant when they voted yes to the wording of the referendum. Only the words will be enshrined in the constitution, not what the authors intended them to mean.

Protecting the Voice from politics and bureaucrats by putting it in the constitution, giving it the security it needs to provide meaningful and honest advice.

F-tier, and if there was a lower tier, it would go there. This is absolutely a straw man, because the referendum, if anything at all, stipulates the opposite. This is misinformation, the wording of the referendum all stinks of stripping the Voice of all security bar its existence and name. It's ability to provide meaningful and honest advice is undermined by "may" and the entirety of iii gives Parliament the right to define it's powers composition etc.

Over 80% of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community support this proposal. It has been designed and agreed on by Indigenous leaders over many decades. 

F-tier again, but actually not as bad as the previous reason. It is, at least, likely factually correct, I certainly have no reason to disbelieve the claims. It is however a bad reason. It is an  Argumentum Ad Popularim, it also reads as a Fait Accompli and I do think it explains the present situation as an escalation of commitment. 

It does support an argument for listening...if the gap between what is and what was intended were not an issue. It is certainly necessary for me to vote yes, that somebody wants the change to take place, but it is not a sufficient reason to vote yes, because in general, we don't just give people what they want.

This last one also is potentially a straw man fallacy because for me at least it is indeterminate whether at some point in the process the content of the referendum went from the proposal 80% support to something else. I will assume it's 80% support the final wording of the referendum and not everything up to the draft wording of the referendum. (*edit, this assumption appears correct.)

Precise language for me demands the reason says "...community support what they think this proposal is." That somewhere in the crucial 20% that don't support might be all of the respondents that scrutinized the wording and thought about it, rather than assuming it basically says what the Uluru Statement from the Heart called for.

All The Yes Campaign Arguments Are Bad Arguments

When we listen to people about the decisions that affect them, we get better results. For the past 250 years, we haven’t properly listened to the people who have been here for 65,000. It’s time we did. ~ Yes23.

I can agree with everything above, and vote no. A lack of listening will also likely be why this referendum fails. 

I'm agnostic as to whether a good reason to vote yes exists and I just haven't heard it yet. I fully acknowledge that people are and can be persuaded by bad arguments. I'm not confident in my ability to interpret legalese, I am confident in my ability to spot the bad arguments I know, and crucially the no campaign has no burden to provide arguments at all. 

What I will say, is that from one speaker for the "no" position I read, though I disagreed with much she said, had better arguments than any I have seen for "yes" and I am looking actively, for a reason to vote yes, because it would be nice to recognise the Indigenous people of Terra Australis in Australia's constitution. 

So here's some more that aren't on Yes23's short list:

There are already lobby groups that can make representations to Parliament and the Executive Government, and they are privately funded, often by economic rents so where's the harm in creating a permanent publicly funded lobby for Indigenous voices?

I rate this C-tier, because I made it to myself. It falls down on two-wrongs making a right. It's a very cynical argument that doesn't get me over the line. It is bad that lobbying undermines democracy and promotes oligarchy. From all the research I've seen, cashed up lobbyists can have more impact on policy without a vote than voters do.

The thing is, enshrining what may in practice be, a lobby group in the constitution creates a permanent condition. To be swayed by this argument, one has to be a pessimist that an Indigenous Voice will never become redundant, never fulfil its mission. That it is still necessary even when there are elected Indigenous People serving in Parliament, that it will still be necessary after a Truth and Treaty process, that it will be necessary even with other indigenous bodies making representations. This argument can, but shouldn't persuade anyone.

It's not about you or what you want.

This is just a reiteration of 80% of the community supports..., and there's been a lot of consultation. All the iterations I've heard are F-tier. I know, people making it have double standards, like if I were to ask them if they found Justice Bryan Kavanaugh's testimony that he was really really upset that an investigation into allegations of sexual assault might jeopardize his confirmation to SCOTUS compelling, they would of course say that that's different because "power" AND an unflattering comparison and I understand why these concepts are hard to parse.

Too many people agree with the statement: "The only remedy for past discrimination is present discrimination." I disagree, discrimination of the kind intended, needs to just stop.

The people who want this, for the most part, have their own vote. It is the unfortunate reality of the Australian process that if you want something put in the constitution, until such time as I die, you've involved me. What I'm hearing, is that the Indigenous Community want something in the constitution and subsequently they need a referendum and they need people like me to vote yes.

What I feel I am witnessing, is a large scale demonstration of Francois de La Rocheafoucald's Maxim:

"One must listen if one wishes to be listened to." ~ A No Doubt Infuriating French Noble to Cite.

When the Uluru Statement of the Heart called for a First Nations Voice to be enshrined in the constitution, at that point an 80% consultation of 3.5% of the population becomes insufficient to accomplishing the goal stated. I would look at that and say "okay, that requires a double majority to vote yes to pass. The Indigenous vote won't carry by itself."

In my own experience, I was told "just vote yes" and "you're overthinking it" and "I read your piece but it’s still unclear to me what difference a Yes vote will make to your life, as a White Australian living overseas." I don't think there's malicious intent. There is definite hypocrisy in people advocating that I listen to others, being told what to do, being dismissed and being minimised through an argument from personal incredulity.

The stakeholders in a referendum, are all people present and future subject to the constitution. Where this campaign went wrong, was conceiving the stakeholders as only the people calling for the change.

As an Australian, I want more than anything, a treaty. I view Australia as a nation projected on top of an older largely unrecognized one. Having said that, I can imagine numerous treaties that could never be agreed to.

If someone wants me to recognize they have a PhD. in Anthropology, and they do, it is on me to acknowledge the fact. If they insist that the only acceptable recognition of their PhD. is that I refer to them with the title "Dr." when I don't refer to my doctors as "Dr." nor do I use titles in general, and my refusal to do so upsets them, that is on them.

Nobody would buy the idea that the only way to respect other people's belief in Catholicism, is by abstaining from red meat on Fridays, and the media doesn't not publish images of the Prophet out of respect for the tenants of Islam, it's out of fear that they can't protect people they have a duty of care to.

This F-tier argument that I should deny my own agency, acknowledging that I am not being asked to vote, I am being asked to vote yes is asking me to take responsibility for the feelings and beliefs of others, which I cannot do.

A failed referendum is not proof that society rejects you, all it proves is that society is not at your service. If your conclusion from having the Prime Minister, leader of the elected government of the Commonwealth of Australia resolve to support in entirety the Uluru Statement from the Heart, stating that he wants something "Done with, not done to" and puts forward a referendum to vote on a proposal based on what you asked for and approved in consultation with your representatives, that you don't have a voice and you don't have power, that is a denial of the facts.

We have a chance to vote on it.

This argument is D-tier, "it" being the subject of debate. It is arguing that opportunities are scarce to actually get this done, therefore hold your nose and vote yes.

It's the second time in 25 years Australian's have had an opportunity to recognize the Indigenous in the constitution, the other being the referendum on the '99 preamble, of which recognition were the few words contained to commend it.

It's D-tier, because again, it's shifting the blame. Those who proposed this referendum did not take seriously the gravity of getting the words and the timing and the process right, but I have to overlook this and be thankful for crumbs swept off the table. Okay, the wording might not be that bad, but it is not good enough to vote for.

The ALP/Albo have staked a huge amount of political capital on this. / punishing the government will punish indigenous people. / It will be a win for evil potato head.

This argument in my opinion, is so bad, that I urge people to stop making it. It is Machiavellian, and I reject this as someone who respects The Prince (and Frederick II's Anti-Machiavelli response pamphlet published by Voltaire). You should only make it to people who neither care about nor respect indigenous issues, and just care about the 2025 election.

This argument asks me to take responsibility for that which I can't. Well, I can respond, and am therefore responsible, I can do so with my vote. If it is the case, that the National Convention that produced the Uluru Statement, and all subsequent consultants and the ALP government fucked this referendum straight out the gates, to vote yes would be to not respond, and abrogate my responsibilities, instead rewarding bad and irresponsible behaviour.  

If you do genuinely think that this is a good reason to vote yes, then take responsibility and defeat my objections to the content of the referendum. Deal with the words "First People" "Australia" "may" "make representations" "matters concerning" "including its composition, functions, powers and procedures."

My overall impression of yes voters, is that they do not want to talk about the contents of the referendum, suggesting they do not possess a valid argument to vote yes, and that it is not an unfair characterization of the yes campaign to describe it as "vote for the vibe."

one of the most extensive consultative processes they've ever undertaken

 As distinct from "80% of the community" this point, or sub argument, I take is meant to mean quality assurance is bad because it is ultimately irrelevant. Yes, it boosts my confidence that indeed this is what the Indigenous people of Australia want. It doesn't validate those wants in totality, but I have to vote in totality because I only get yes/no. 

Now, there is just the content of the referendum, and if anything defeats it or passes it, it should be literacy. 

In the finance world, there is a thing called "Efficient Market Hypothesis" which basically regards the market as a hyper-efficient super computer calculating the value of things. I somewhat believe in this theory in so far as it is largely pointless to try and gain advantage in the market by reading the Wall Street Journal etc. It would be a massive fallacy to think that EMH guarantees that LTCM, Enron, The GFC, the Bitcoin collapse, the second Bitcoin collapse couldn't happen so they didn't. 

Big data sets get things wrong all the time. I am generally pro consultation, but I am also very wary of consultants. In the systems engineering world, there's a principle "Garbage in, garbage out" and many consulting processes I've participated in, in my life have had us break up into groups and do craft activities and brainstorm ideas with pens on big sheets of paper and report back to the group. 

I don't know what the consultation looked like. I just know that while it's something to say it was long and extensive, that gets me nowhere near where I need to be. I just need to be confident I understand what the referendum actually says, and I'm not, and I'm not convinced anyone is.

The Political Fashions of the Time are Lime Polyester Flares, Wide Collar Mustard Shirts and Corduroy Ties.

You can quit now, because I'm moving away from addressing the content of the referendum. One of my friends wrote me:

That it is susceptible to "fashion of the day" politics is a red herring in my view. That's an argument for waning into obscurity just as much as becoming a bureaucratic drag on legislation (which could be changed with the fashion).

To which I think I agree. However, in my defence, I was responding to arguments to vote yes that were short term peripheral red herrings themselves. The same friend made the ALP have staked political capital argument in the same post.

How I initially read it though, was that I was coming across as making a bad argument against the proposed first incarnation of the voice, that it reflected the fashions of the moment, and I would make that argument again in a different moment, permanently objecting on the grounds that everything was too "now".

I just want to clarify the fashion analogy, as there are generally recognized good periods of fashion - the 60s, the 80s, the 90s for example, and generally recognized bad periods of fashion - the 70s, the 00s, the 10s and now.

The political fashions of the times, even if the boomers retain an ironclad grip on power, amongst the lay public are some of the worst I can even imagine. It's a time in which I don't trust anyone to do anything regarding civil rights, because bad ideas abound.

Identity politics functionally is "ad hominem is okay", Greg Lukianoff and Johnathon Haidt have done valuable work documenting how cognitive distortions have gone main stream. The left are all about all-or-nothing thinking, catastrophising, mind-reading. We are going through a dark age, akin to the pamphleteering era that produced "the protocols of the Elders of Zion" and "The Witches Hammer" 

Speaking of Haidt, he has a great rule, regarding where the fashion is to block people, protest their platforming etc:

If you want to know who's wrong, look at who shoots their dissidents.

People are taken seriously, who have picked up "On Liberty" by John Stuart Mill, looked at the impact attempting to put it into practice has had on the plight of marginalised people everywhere and said "nope." Then picked up "Das Capital" by Karl Marx, looked at the impact attempting to put it into practice has had on the plight of marginalised people everywhere and said "let's give this another crack." Those people are taken seriously, and they should never be until they answer their case.

Winston Churchill said:

'Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm'

And I have watched the left go from one unmitigated catastrophe to another unmitigated catastrophe with no loss of enthusiasm and tragically for us all, have succeeded. They've been remarkable at spreading bad ideas and before you know it, people are calling Martin Luther King someone with internalized white supremacy.

Fashionable ideas that are impervious to feedback that they are wildly unpopular. While the people that adopt them tank their own mental health and diminish the mental health of others.

There's a quiet day coming, I don't know when when so many nice people who just want things to be nice ask themselves "wait a minute, are we the baddies?" and will I think, quietly forget that they used to be cheering for retrograde racist, sexist and oppressive ideas because they didn't think about it and they didn't want to discuss it because life is supposed to be simple, not complicated.

If it's difficult to accomplish things, why wouldn't we just give up?

The Inherent Risk of Arguing Badly

“The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments.”

― Friedrich Nietzsche

[roll eyes] "Quoting Nietzsche? The Nazi Philosopher?" [checks out] 

The short, one line play above^ is an example of the "ad hominem" fallacy. Just as I'm aware that Nietzsche has for many a disqualifying reputation, I'm aware of the bad reputation enjoyed by "keyboard warriors" who just point out fallacies on twitter/X threads.

See my thing about fallacies, is that they are demonstrable. It's easy. Stalin says "2+2=4" Stalin is bad, therefore 2+2 does not = 4. That's clearly false, and it's false because 2+2=4 no matter who says it. Just as 2+2=5 is incorrect no matter who says it. Anybody who tries to operate a business on the premise that 2+2 does not = 4 is going to get exploited.

In an as yet unpublished piece I wrote, I defined "Activism" as "encouraging people of no particular qualification to be active in a cause."

To be clear, I am not anti-activist per se. An example I can go to, is the activism that recently brought to an end Vic Forrest, who have been illegally logging old-growth forests and ignoring environmental regulations for years. (At least that's my understanding).

Those are perfect circumstances for activism. The law says this business shouldn't be operating, and you don't need anyone of particular qualification to disrupt their operation. You can get a 23 year old barista willing to chain themselves to a bulldozer or sit in a tree to stop works until a barrister secures a stop-work order from a judge until the legality of the logging can be determined. 

I may not be up on all the facts, but Vic Forests attributed their collapse to all the legal actions causing delays which caused them to have to pay massive penalties for not fulfilling their client's orders and they are done. It could be because they could only sue some 23 year old barista for legal damages, and they were actually compliant with environmental regulations. I don't know. But I feel confident that it's more that they lost almost all legal action because they tried their hardest not to find any Greater Gliders.

My opposition, or rather suspicion is that the attitudes of the day seem to think Activism is just an unqualified good. People can't comprehend that through action, they could harm causes they care about. Particularly incompetent action, galvanizing people against them.

People seem to think Activism is like Michelle Wolfe's parody of a good-guy-with-a-gun. Where so long as there's goodness in your heart, you will only hit the bad guys when you fire.

There's nothing I can do to convince people I am arguing in good faith. The best I can manage is to use the time remaining to find a way to vote yes, and keep doing my research and trying to inform myself.

The Dunning-Kruger effect keeps me up at nights, and in any disagreement, it will always be opaque as to whether you disagree with me, because you haven't considered something I have, or whether I disagree with you because I haven't considered something you have.

Most likely, it's both. Hence the importance of listening. 

Yes. One way to persuade me to change my vote, is to ignore my reasons for voting no and try and present me with a reason to vote yes that outweighs that reason. 

Some of my initial arguments were bad. All the yes arguments I've been exposed to, and found, are bad. In doing so, people who want this referendum to pass, have hurt their cause, because I am left with the impression that they will be voting not for what the referendum says, but what they think it says and they think it says what it was intended to say.