Sounds of a silenced Voice

PAIN, NO GAIN

As of 4.23am AEDT, 60.6% of the country voted No to Indigenous recognition in the constitution (78% of votes have been counted), with the ACT the only state or territory voting Yes. Greens leader Adam Bandt’s seat of Melbourne had the most Yes voters, while Nationals leader David Littleproud’s Queensland seat of Maranoa had the most No voters, the ABC reports. Looking closely at the data, “the further they were from the city, the more likely voters were to vote No”, it adds. Meanwhile, Indigenous communities overwhelmingly voted Yes, including all but one community in Lingiari — a large NT electorate where 40% of people are Indigenous — the National Indigenous Times reports, with stats from 59.9% to 92.1%. In Darwin, Alice Springs and Katherine — “the more non-Indigenous urban centres” — people mostly voted No, NIT adds. You wouldn’t find that level of accuracy at Sky News Australia however, which is reporting Lingiari was majority No. The SMH ($) adds 59 of the 78 seats held by Labor MPs voted No, along with all but one of the Coalition seats. All seven teal seats won from the Liberals voted Yes, The West ($) adds.

What now? There is talk of a short-term policy advisory group that would give advice to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Guardian Australia reports, as federal cabinet meets today. Indigenous leaders have requested a week of silence to reflect on “the role of racism” in the No result, while more broadly Voice and Treaty conversations will continue on a state and territory level (SA already has a Voice to Parliament, and Victoria is on the path to Treaty, as is Queensland). And it’s on to other things, I guess. Parliament is back today when we can expect debate on workplace relations, and Albanese is headed to Washington DC next week. Will this spell the end of Albanese’s leadership at the next election? Not necessarily — many electorates voted differently from their Labor MPs on same-sex marriage in 2017 but voted for them in 2019, an anonymous Labor MP told the SMH ($)

LEAVE LEBANON NOW

Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong has urged Australians in Lebanon to leave the country unless their need to be there is “essential”, the SMH ($) reports, as Israeli forces clash with Lebanese militant group Hezbollah — a Hamas ally. It comes as only one Qantas flight has been able to leave Tel Aviv for London — a slew of others were cancelled on Saturday night. Instead, chartered and military flights were scheduled to leave Israel yesterday, though I can’t find confirmation whether it happened. Wong said there were 1,234 Australians seeking repatriation, with 19 of those in Gaza — she confirmed a plan to get them out via the Rafah border in southern Gaza had failed, but that she was determined to figure it out. Wong added that Australia would provide an “initial $10 million” of humanitarian aid to Gaza civilians affected by the conflict, to be distributed via UNICEF, the Red Cross and UN Operations in the field, The Australian ($) reports.

Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden spoke to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas about getting humanitarian assistance into Gaza, he tweeted, adding: “We must not lose sight of the fact that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians had nothing to do with Hamas’s appalling attacks, and are suffering as a result of them.” More than a quarter of the 2,200 people killed so far in Gaza were children, SBS reports. So far about 600,000 Gazans have moved south away from Gaza City ahead of a torrid military assault, Israel’s military spokesman said via the SMH ($), but it’s well short of the 1 million urged to move. “More than 2,670 Palestinians have been killed since the fighting began on October 7, while 1,400 Israelis have died,” the paper adds.

X MARKED

X, formerly known as Twitter, has been fined $610,500 for not meeting basic online safety standards, Guardian Australia reports, the first time we’ve fined a platform under Australia’s Online Safety Act. X ignored questions from the e-Safety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, who said it went “totally blank” when asked to elaborate on how it was cracking down on child sexual abuse material. A report found the detection of child abuse material fell from 90% to 75% after billionaire Elon Musk took over (and 80% of the company’s staff were sacked or left), The Age ($) adds. Google also got a legal notice and gave a bunch of generic answers in response. Google, this is a formal warning, Grant said in response.

Meanwhile, developer Jean Nassif has put $300,000 into his defamation case against Sydney radio station 2GB and its host Ray Hadley to make sure it continues, the SMH ($) reports. The Federal Court told Nassif (and two of his companies) to pay $300,000 a piece as security in case he lost, and it didn’t arrive until the day before deadline. We don’t know how he paid, however, as the court has heard his bank accounts had been closed and his business accounts had been frozen. Nassif is suing Hadley because the radio host allegedly implied he was a “shoddy developer”. It comes as the Queensland Police Service had to take back punishments for 300 officers — including sackings and demotions, Guardian Australia reports — because a court found its internal discipline was invalid, before the punishments were reinstated by the state government. The union is considering appeals, the paper says.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

When times are dark, sparks of bright hope can be found in the most unlikely places. Like from Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former bodybuilder turned actor turned politician turned “self-help guy”, as he calls himself now. Arnie actually knows the seven tools to life, and he’s kindly shared them with us in his new book Be Useful (not to be confused with Melania Trump’s syntactically confused Be Best campaign). Ever been encouraged to appreciate the little things in life? Ha! “Arnie laughs in the face of your puny dreams,” The Guardian’s Elle Hunt says. Consider Steven Spielberg, Arnie writes, whose dream was “big and broad, like it was for Tiger (golf), Venus and Serena (tennis) and me (America)”. Uhuh. Next, Arnie does not want to hear you say life is hard. “Do you know what’s harder? Living a life you hate. That’s hard.”. He continues that he “creates space for inspiration by taking a jacuzzi every night” which is where he got the idea to show a sword he had carried as Conan the Barbarian in a video following the Capitol Hill attack.

Next, he says, “calves are basically the biceps of the legs”. Wait, what? See, if you want to be great, you have to deal with the things that are hard, the things that you might avoid. Like leg day, it seems. He says he smiled through 600-pound squats, not because he “couldn’t breathe” and wanted to “puke”, but because he could feel “the pain of the work”. We must enjoy the journey, one might surmise? No, Arnie says, like “the person who is okay doing four sets of 10 shitty half-reps on the pulldown machine is more likely to sloppily change their baby’s diaper or forget their partner’s order”. Who we are in the gym is who we are in life, it seems. But there are moving moments, writer Hunt says, like when he says that life does not have to be seen as a zero-sum. “We can all grow together, get richer together, get stronger together. Everyone can win, in their own time, in their own way.”

Hoping you feel hopeful today.

SAY WHAT?

I think we probably need to look at the way the AEC, the [Northern Territory Electoral Commission], conduct themselves when it comes to remote polling at elections, at referendums. I think we should take away those who come in with their how-to-votes, unions that come in and overpower vulnerable Aboriginal communities.

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price

Claims of interference coming from the opposition spokeswoman on Indigenous Australians was rebuked by the AEC, which said: “The ability to campaign at any polling place, including in remote communities, was of course the same for everyone.”

CRIKEY RECAP

If No prevails, reserve your harshest judgment for the Coalition

MAEVE MCGREGOR

“The point is it’s hardly surprising that support for the Voice started to crack and crumble precisely when the No campaign intensified its fusillade of lies and appeals to racism in all its ugly permutations.

“And it’s hardly surprising that Dutton, who has proved himself utterly fixated with power and unequal to the demands of leadership, so readily embraced this goblet of deceit.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Afghanistan hit by third earthquake in a week (BBC)

A recession is no longer the consensus (The Wall Street Journal) ($)

Senior House Republican says GOP members ready to block [Rep. Jim Jordan’s path to the speakership] (CNN)

Why Canada is becoming the focus of India’s concerns about the Sikh separatist movement (CBC)

The moment Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke became our youngest ever MP at 21 (Stuff)

Putin to visit China to deepen ‘no limits’ partnership with Xi (Reuters)

France mobilises 7,000 troops and goes on high alert after school stabbings and mosque knife arrest (euronews)

THE COMMENTARIAT

Symbolism offered false hope of closing the gap — Anthony Dillon (The Australian) ($): “In the end, I think many Australians grew tired of the emotional blackmail tactics and celebrity/corporate endorsements. When people are repeatedly told what to do, they instinctively feel their own sense of autonomy being undermined. Jacinta Price and Warren Mundine, as the faces of the No team, provided many Australians with the much-needed confidence to vote no. These two great Australians gave others hope in a better alternative to the proposed voice. Despite the fundamental flaws of the proposed voice, the Yes camp did make some valid points. It told us a No vote would be more of the same. Consistent with the Yes team’s views, back in August I wrote that while I intended to vote no, unless there are substantive changes to how Indigenous issues are dealt with, I do not see a No outcome as a success. I reiterate that here: It’s a start, but not a success.

“Where I and many others disagreed with the Yes campaign was that the proposed voice was the required change the nation so desperately needed. The Yes team felt that at the very least, there was nothing to lose by voting yes. I always thought there was much to lose. While some Indigenous leaders would have their ‘I have a dream’ moment and be remembered by some as heroes, I felt too many Indigenous Australians would pay the price over the coming years. My biggest concern with a Yes victory was not that we’d be divided by race. While some leaders would squabble among themselves, I did not believe it would change race relations in any fundamental way for the average person on the street. In general, Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians get on very well.

There is a way forward to tackle Indigenous disadvantage after referendum defeat — Michelle Grattan (The Conversation): “For Albanese, Saturday’s defeat is a huge personal disappointment as well as a political setback, although not necessarily one with serious future electoral consequences. For most voters, the Voice was not a first-order priority, and they will be judging the government on other things come election time. But the issue has highlighted some of Albanese’s weaknesses. He was overconfident in his own ability to persuade people. We again saw he is not a great campaigner (evident at the election despite his victory). Not that even the best of campaigners could have won this one. These past few weeks have also suggested Albanese will need to manage his energy better if he is to perform well for the long haul. Obviously he wanted to do all he could in the final days of the campaign.

“But tearing around the country, when it was clear the vote was lost, was excessive and left him looking exhausted. He would have been wiser in the final week simply to have gone to Uluru and left it at that, especially given the government needed to have more attention than it did on the Israel-Gaza crisis. Albanese wants the government (and himself personally as prime minister) to be seen as never wasting a minute. But taken to the extreme, this can be counterproductive for achievement and messaging. Leaders are stronger and tougher than the rest of us. But they are not superhuman, and they need to pace themselves if they are not to wear out, lose focus, and become frazzled and tetchy. Albanese would have vivid memories of one Labor predecessor who ended up like that.”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)

• US economist Eric Hanushek will talk about Australia’s future prosperity and academic performance, at the Centre for Independent Studies.

Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)

• The Grata Fund’s Isabelle Reinecke and the University of Canberra’s Kim Rubenstein will talk about the former’s new book, Courting Power: Law, Democracy & the Public Interest in Australia, at the Kambri Cultural Centre.