Some interesting data analysis here. I’ll pose the same question as the author:
…by majority vote, Australians have made clear that a constitutionally enshrined Voice to Parliament is not how they want to respond to these crises.
An urgent question emerges — what is?
What about the, and I’m quoting a couple people I know, “I didn’t know what it was about, so I voted no” votes?
I guess that’s why education seems to have been a key variable. It seems to be not just education, but approach to learning/ knowledge evaluation in general.
My retort to that argument was always along the lines of “do you know the detail of every single policy that the party/candidate you vote for is running with?” And the answer is always invariably ‘no’. For some reason it’s fine to vote for our elected representatives without educating yourself, but not fine to vote for a referendum without educating yourself.
I wish everyone in this camp chose to cast an informal vote instead, there’s a chance the referendum might have eked out a Yes that way.
A family member recons “Don’t know/Unsure” should have been a 3rd option in the ballot, and not counted, as a way to deal with indifferent voters.
Either way I’m disappointed for the 80% indigenous communities that needed our support.
My advice to people who expressed confusion/uncertainty was to ask themselves the same two questions I asked myself on the same sex marriage plebiscite:
The answer (for someone with a conscience) is usually pretty straightforward.