Transcript of AE 1234 - The Goss: The Voice. Are You Voting YES or NO?

Dad, how's it going?

Good. Pete, how are you?

Good. Giving them an overdose of Goss episodes recently.

Oh, really? An overdose of Goss. There has to be a word for that, but I'm not sure what it is.

Goss-dose.

Hang on. Sorry about- apologies in advance. There we go.

It's a Pepsi, guys. Don't worry.

Close to the microphone. Look at your cat.

Oh, is this Peaches sitting up the..

.. statue cat.

I know.

Very impressive.

So, sorry. A good story for radio, as they say. It's an entirely visual gag.

Yeah, I'm trying to find the person who requested it. Medina. So it was Medina who said "Do you reckon you could do an episode explaining the simple direct terms, explaining in simple and direct terms the referendum happening in in a month or so." So it's happening in I think ten days, right? 11 days? No.

Ten days.

Is it the 13th?

14th.

14th? Saturday? The 14th. Yeah. So the Voice referendum.

Yes.

You're much more versed in this. I haven't really been.

I can hear the bus backing up now.

I haven't been too deep into it. Besides sort of determining that I want to vote "Yes", you know, I'll put my cards on the table straight away.

Did I?

I think I kind of initially was a bit umming and aahing, but then when I did do my sort of basic level research, which was effectively looking at different news, trying to get the conservative and the, the what, having a brain fart today, what is it, the progressive side of the, the news landscape's view on things and then sort of determining my, my opinion of it.

But initially my, my first reaction was like, nah, screw that. Just based on the, the propaganda that I was hearing. Because yeah, I guess when you hear negative propaganda where they are allowed to effectively just make up whatever they want, lie, of course you freak out. But but that's the hard part of being a sort of responsible voter is trying to sift through the BS..

And unfortunately now. And look, we'll get back to describing The Voice in a few minutes. But unfortunately, now the political landscape in many Western countries is the same, and that is the media, who ideally are responsible for reporting the news. If at risk, and in many cases they do take sides. But mostly they're they're not wanting to risk the perception that they are taking sides. So they give what they claim is a balanced viewpoint. And that is, if there is anything that is controversial, they will want to have both sides of the argument expressed. And the trouble with that is that on many things, there is no other side. The controversy is simply made up by the people who don't like what is going to be proposed or happening and so on. And so you get these stories in the media where you're constantly getting his.

In the case of the The Voice referendum, here's the 'yes' version, and here's the 'no' version. But the story is about the 'yes' version, because we've got somebody saying, this is what we think are going to happen. And in order to balance it, they have some idiot making crap up on the other side and giving that equal weight where there is no equal weight!

I think that that's the most frustrating aspect to it, because, you know, when you do look into the no campaign for The Voice, there are people who are genuinely, I wouldn't say concerned but have genuine, genuine grievances based on actual facts. Right? But then it seems like with a lot of these things, whether it's about evolution or climate change, that the the against side generally, then start making up stuff in order to try and win the debate and actually aren't doing it based on proper terms, proper issues. And that's that's the part that frustrates me to no end. It's like I have no problem having the debate or discussing these things, but can we actually just talk about what is actually going on and what it really means? And instead of making up crap, that is just a waste of our time.

And when, and this is happening unlike- and you mentioned climate change or evolution, which are fairly non-controversial scientific terms in the scientific world, but people who don't want to believe them can come up, and you can have a legitimate debate about that, because people will tell you why they believe one thing and why they believe, and others will tell you why they believe something else.

But when politics are involved, as this is because this is a political thing, then typically the unless it's a very trivial thing and there's bipartisan as in both major sides of the of politics will will support it..

Because this is no reflection on our ability to get voted in in the next election.

Exactly! But as soon as there's a partisanship in it, it will fall down party lines as to where the arguments go and the trouble we have in this case. And we will talk about The Voice, and it keeps getting called The Voice. The idea of having a voice to Parliament for Indigenous people has come from indigenous people for decades. They have always said that as the first people of this country, they should have. And well, I go back a step. They've had nearly 250 years of being treated very badly and then people will go, oh no, they haven't, blah, blah, blah. Well, you know, they, they live now in a modern, wealthy Western world, so they're better off than they would have been. That's all a different argument. What they're, what they're saying is that we were the original people on this country when- they're not saying we want a voice to to everything that goes on in the country.

What they're saying is, when there are issues that involve Indigenous people, we should be asked our opinion.

Yeah.

We should be able to ask our opinion when something is important to us, or if we've got something that's important to us, we should have a voice to Parliament where we can put a submission and do those things. Now you can do that anyway. Any person in Australia can submit an idea or a question. Oh, you wrote to our local member and the Minister for energy a while ago about an issue with solar energy. So any person can do that.

But what they're saying is that the indigenous people of Australia need a single voice, rather than just disparate groups doing things. So that's the essence of what they're asking for. And that's what the referendum is. And a referendum for those people who don't understand the the way that our political system works is that our Constitution, which was originally written in the late 19th century, we became a country in 1900. Our Constitution is basically saying this is how the country operates. It contains very little detail. It's really just the framework or the concepts that the legislation, the rules and the laws in the country will work under. In order to change that constitution, you actually have to have a national vote on on it. So if you want to delete something or you want to add something, you have to have a vote on the changing the wording in the Constitution.

And that's what this is. It's the first one we've had in 25 years.

Yeah.

And and so this one is simply wanting to add those lines. To say that we recognise as a country, we recognise the indigenous people and that they should have a voice to Parliament, not a voice to the government. And that's the question that comes up. They're not telling the government what to do..

And they don't have veto power.

And they have no veto power. There's no- they don't have the 'We're going to do this. What do you think?' might be the question, but what you think might influence us. But you don't have the right to say yes or no. So it's it, it's effectively a way of giving them a literally a voice in what happens, with no power.

That's it. So the, the referendums on October the 14th, on Saturday and the law to vote on is, I think I quote, a proposed law to alter the Constitution to recognise the first peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice. Do you approve this proposed alteration? Right? Yes or no is what you'll see.

Yes.

On the..

So basically you get handed a piece of paper. So typically with an election you get handed a piece of paper with the people who are running in your local electorate. And you get to the way our electoral system works is that you get to put in your order of preference one, two, three, four, five, six, down to whatever number.

This is just a single box.

This is a single question. And you write yes or no.

And so yeah, I was watching one of these sort of what would you say info videos on this stuff. And they were saying what's the voice? An independent advisory body making representations to Parliament, so not to the government on issues directly affecting First Nations people. Members would be chosen by First Nations communities from each of the states and territories and Torres Strait Islands. And so what can it do? Provide advice and guidance. What can it do? Make laws, manage funding, veto parliament decisions? That's what it cannot do.

Yes, exactly.

And so yeah, it's, the Yes campaign argues recognising Indigenous Australians in the Constitution would create unity and giving them a direct say on laws affecting them would lead to better outcomes in areas such as jobs, health, education and justice.

And the No campaign argues that the proposal risks legal challenges, delays and dysfunctional government, claiming it would divide the nation by race and would be a permanent change. One of the well, I guess it is. It is a permanent change.

No it's not, and that's the point. So none of those things is actually true.

Okay. And that when you break them down you..

That's what they argue.

That is their argument. And that's the problem that we have, is that when you have a social, emotional or political motivation to vote against something, but you actually have no reason to do it, then you make stuff up.

And so all of the No campaign is based around, and this is obviously a political bias that I have, because I will be voting yes, have not voted yet because we do have early voting allowed. But all of the things that the no campaign bring up fall into three categories. Either they are just outright lies. Or they are straw man arguments in a sense that they are, they're putting up another argument that might sound like it is related and arguing this. That might be true, but it's actually irrelevant to the real story, or it's political opportunism.

And there are small number of indigenous people who have been loud proponents of of voting no, but they don't come up with any reason not to.

Well, I think the best, the best one I've heard is that it's a trivial thing that's not actually going to make any difference. Which again..

No harm, no foul.

Exactly. Yeah.

This is one of these ones of- and I remember..

We should at least try.

I probably shouldn't put words into Professor Pearson's into his into his mouth. Noel Pearson, who is one of our well established indigenous leaders. He I'm sure he was the first one who said 'This is not a No vote, that they are talking about. This is a yes and, or a yes plus.'

The Yes does not negate the things that they want to do. In fact, it's a step towards them. And that's why I'm saying it's political opportunism. This is taking the opportunity of creating controversy over something that shouldn't be controversial by saying no when you really support it, but you want more. And so you're not going to get the voice, small voice, you're not going to get the, the focus of the media on you under normal circumstances when you're asking for these things.

But if you say no, then it's immediately controversial. And that way people keep asking you and there's 2 or 3 indigenous leaders in this country, and I use the term leadership loosely, at least loud people who are well known, who are making these outrageous statements all the time. They never get challenged by the media on whether they're factual or not. They just keep getting propped up as, oh, here's the balance, here's the no vote. And that's what irritates me is. Far as I'm concerned, the media should be out there saying, well, and I won't name any of these people when one of them comes along and says, this is this is what may happen, you know, or they're just lying, like, this is a permanent change. No it's not. We're changing the constitution now in a referendum. That's what we're voting for. At any time in the future. We could have another referendum to change it back again or to change the wording of it if it didn't work, and so on. And that's the problem is, it is nothing is permanent. And they know that and it's a lie. And the media let them get away with it.

Well, I think that's one of the most frustrating things when you know that politicians in particular, who definitely know how the Constitution works, they do.

And if they don't, they shouldn't be doing that job!

Yeah, propping up those kinds of falsehoods.

Yeah. And then..

That's where I get confused because I'm like, it's a change to it. That's, when I think permanent. I'm like, you've changed the thing. But yeah, we can vote to to effectively reverse it or add something else in in the future.

Yeah. And the other one that is driving me crazy with it is and this is the straw, the classic straw man argument that they keep coming up with is 'we need to see more detail'. And it's a straw man argument because.

.. can say that every time..

Of course, you can, of course you can. But it's a straw man argument in a sense that they know it's not correct. Because the Constitution, in its very definition, does not define how things operate. They just say, this is what should happen. This is this thing should exist. How it will actually work is up to the Parliament. And ironically, many of the politicians who are voting no are members of Parliament.

They will be the ones that get a say in how it will actually operate. They know that and yet they're going. The detail will never be in the Constitution. They know the detail will never be in there. But they're saying we can't vote yes until we know. And somebody said it the other day, here's a here's a copy of the Australian Constitution. Go and look up Prime Minister in there. It doesn't exist. You know, the details of how our Parliament operates is not written into the Constitution.

The Constitution just says there will be a parliament that will be elected by the people. And this is how the elections will happen. It doesn't say there will be a prime minister and there will be a leader of the opposition, and there'll be a minister for underwater basket weaving. It actually just says, you know, it's the big picture stuff.

And that's the irritating thing again, is that the No vote is constantly coming up with this rubbish because it's about fear and misdirection. And when you've got no reason to do something, the only thing you can fall back on is the emotions of people. So make them frightened of something that isn't going to happen, but let them believe it.

You wonder what they have to get out of it, right? Like the liberals who are effectively championing championing this. It's kind of like really, they just need to take the opposing view so that they can shore up their voter base.

Right. It's they don't want to see the Labour Party, the Labour government have a win.

Yeah. And that's, that's the side of politics in general that just irritates me when it's kind of like you're just opposed because you have to be, in order to differentiate yourself and maintain your vote. Because, yeah, if you just agree with them and say, you know what, they're doing the right thing, well then everyone's going to be like, 'Well, why would we vote for you?'.

I know, but again, there's but if if they looked a little bit deeper, and I keep saying they. If in this case Peter Dutton, who is the leader of the opposition, the head of the Liberal Party. If he and his Liberal Party cronies, who are the ones that are out mostly spouting for the No vote, and interestingly, you almost never hear him say why. He's he's he he knows that all the arguments for No are either lies, political opportunism or straw man arguments.

So he won't say them, but he keeps saying, 'I don't want this to happen.' Yeah, I'll have my own referendum to recognise indigenous people. Well, they're already recognised in the Constitution that happened in 1967. But that so the reason he does it is because he doesn't want the Labour Party to have a win. The stupid thing is that if he instantly, when this referendum had been called or spoken about, if he'd just come out and just said, 'Yep, this is bipartisan, we think it's a great idea.'

Almost everybody who is a Liberal supporter would have gone, 'Yes, thank you for saying that. We'll keep supporting you.' But it's this divisive thing of we have to divide ourselves from the Labour Party to be seen to be different. Therefore we vote for us. People don't vote for you because you're different. They vote for you because you're right. And that's...

I think that's the cynical side of it too, where they say, you know, one of those big arguments is it's going to divide the nation on race and it's like, feels much more like it's politics than it's dividing us by.

Where's all the division here? The division is coming from the people who are voting No saying 'This will divide the country!'

Yeah.

The other side yes is saying 'No, it's not, it's not going to divide the country. It will actually join us together by allowing us to listen.'.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, so why add it to the Constitution? The request for a voice to be enshrined in the nation's founding document came from Indigenous Australians in the proposal, known as the Uluru Statement from the heart. And the reason that Albanese is bringing this referendum forward is because he promised to do so at the election.

He did.

So. He's respecting their wishes because that's what he said he was going to do. The no campaign says there should be recognition, but not in the Constitution. So to succeed, it needs a majority nationally, and it also needs a majority in a majority. Four of the six states. And territories don't count.

Don't count.

Suck, then ACT.

Well, they don't have enough population to count. So.

And it's compulsory to vote. So yeah.

Yes. Or at least as I as I have to technicality. Yeah. And this is the I have this argument with.

The donkey vote.

By American and British family and friends and in America and Britain and in fact, most countries in the world that don't have mandatory voting.

Does Britain not have it?

No.

Oh, wow.

And so we have mandatory voting in this country. But it essentially what it is, is compulsory turning up. So you have to get your name crossed off at a polling booth or an electoral commission office to say you turned up to vote. You can simply throw your election paper away or you can write on it. My father, who is British. He sort of objected morally to to mandatory voting, being forced to vote. Yeah. So he used to turn up and write. None of the applicants is suitable. Wow.

And so, you know, to to be transparent, I did that in the last, I think, local election just because I really had no idea about any of the applicants. And so like and again, I kind of felt like, look..

Local elections, you don't even have to turn up because they post, they post the stuff to whatever state like it was.

Maybe it was the state election then, but I showed up and just had my name ticked off and she was like, here are your papers. And I'm like, it's okay, throw them out. And just walked away. And she was like, what? But that was, you know, no fun for me.

But as long as you got your name crossed off, you're fine.

Exactly. Yeah. So anything else worth find worth mentioning?

Vote yes.

The voice? Yeah, we need to do more topics that Dad's so passionate about and gets riled up over.

Yeah, well, there aren't many.

I wonder how many negative reviews the podcast is going to get now.

Yeah, well, look. And that's fine. I'm perfectly happy for people to disagree with me even when they are wrong. And- that's a fairly big tongue in cheek. But I am passionate about this for two- three reasons. One, because I honestly believe that as a country, since European colonisation, we have treated our Indigenous people worse than we have treated other people. Whether that be badly or not as well or whatever. It doesn't matter. They have been, they have been behind the..

.. Trying to do has not been working.

No. And that's and so, and that's the point is that we have spent billions of dollars over 200 years, pounds and dollars trying to fix what we perceive as problems. And I say we as, and I'm allowed to say this as a grumpy old white man. What we perceive as being the problem, what this does is give Indigenous people an opportunity to have a say in what goes on.

The second part of it that I am really passionate about is the the way that people who oppose things are allowed to get away with just lying and making things up by the media. And that irritates me so much. And it's and we you've talked about evolution and climate change.

It's like, let's at least..

Show me the evidence!

.. facts.

Yeah, show me the evidence.

At the end of the day..

Give me justifications. Don't just make stuff up.

It's just a waste of time. If everyone's fighting over straw men on both on..

The trouble is, it's more than a waste of time because I hand over my heart. I hope this gets up, but my head is saying that the no vote probably won't win, but they won't win in enough states.

Yeah.

The overall vote, I think will..

So we'll get the majority..

The majority, but we won't. I don't believe they'll get the four out of the six states.

What do you reckon? Which states if you were to put.

Well I think Victoria and New South Wales will probably vote Yes.

Yeah.

Tasmania might.

Oh Queensland is a race.

Queensland and Western Australia probably won't. If you read between the lines in what in what's going on there? South Australia may be the key state to fall over the line.

Yeah. Don't know.

Yeah. Well place your bets guys.

Place your bets.

But yeah I mean it's one of those things I was sort of like do I really want to get into this sort of quagmire of thing?

But it's answering a question.

Yeah, 100%.

.. asks the question.

100%, it's worth talking about. I'm going to be voting yes. At the end of the day, guys, if you are voting no, you know you don't have to try and cancel the Aussie English Podcast. You're allowed to still, you're allowed to still learn with my material and use it.

I've got I've got friends that I know are know proponents and will vote no. And they're still going to be my friends. I've been, I argue with them, but they're still going to be my friends. They know I'm going to argue with them.

Anyway, thanks for hanging out. Hopefully that's helped. I'm not sure if it was simple and indirect and simple terms, but we did our best.

Well, the trouble is it is a notionally a simple idea, but it is so complex because of the way it's all been wound out.

But hopefully it's helped you, I guess, learn a bit more about.

Was it Medina?

What's going on? What's that> Yeah, it was Medina.

Yeah. Thanks, Medina.

Good stuff. Anyway, see you later.

Bye.