Lost your Voice?

In the wake of the Voice referendums failure, what's next for the Australian left and right? [4 Minute Read]

On Saturday 14th of October 2023 Australia went to the polls and in landslide numbers voted ‘Yes’ to restoring Australian identity - they did so by writing a bold ‘NO’ in response to PM Albanese’s Voice to Parliament proposal.

We are already seeing voting data released from the electorates with the largest Aboriginal populations and to the shock and horror of university professors nationwide, White Australians who have to experience the disorder of Aboriginal communities voted strongly against giving the same community more power in the government. This is great news, I believe it is a concrete demonstration that the ‘No’ victory was an organic reaction by most Australians against their growing dispossession from the political process and the White-guilt narrative that has been shovelled down their throats for the better part of the last fifty years. In an upcoming article the National Observer team will give an in-depth analysis of the publicly-released voting data and debunk some of the myths being spread about it, but today I would like to take a look at what the Voice result means for the future.

Where to for the Left?

For Australia’s left, the referendum’s failure marks their first significant loss in many decades, but it would be a mistake to expect them to take it lying down. Multiculturalism, gun control, same-sex marriage, abortion, euthanasia - liberalism and her agents have not lost a signifiant cultural battle in decades. Over this time the Australian left has gathered strong momentum and as we are now witnessing with the announcement of state-wide Aboriginal advisory bodies in Queensland, NSW, Victoria and South Australia, the Voice’s failure is only a minor speed bump on the road to their imagined utopia.

Needless to say, a policy victory such as the introduction of state-wide ‘voice’ and ‘treaties’ will not be satisfactory to the left, much like Donald Trump’s 2016 election win in America and Brexit’s success in the UK, Australia’s 2023 No victory will to a degree act as a beacon in the sky to both side of politics. To the ideological left and their representatives in academia, media and politics the No victory is concrete proof that racism still runs rampant in the minds of a majority of Australians - an unconscionable scenario that demands immediate action.

One answer to the referendum loss we hear echoing from some public intellectuals is a call to radicalism. I am sceptical to the extent this call will be heeded, I highly doubt the threats we are hearing will meaningfully materialise - we have seen how estranged Lidia Thorpe has been from the broader left for her own ‘radical’ branding, I do not expect many to follow her lead.

Instead, the more effective counter-offensive is being led by Albanese with his spinning the No victory as a product of ‘mis/dis-information’ and using this as proof towards the necessity of his disinformation bill. This disinformation bill will prevent ordinary Australians from freely critiquing the government on social media by forcing social media companies to censor any posts the Australian government deems false. It is easy to envision a future in which this disinformation bill, if passed, will be used to manufacturing consent for future policies damaging to the Australian public’s best interest. Albanese is certainly wise to bring this bill to the forefront in a time when his own party is bitter about the voice’s failure, we will have to wait and see if the coalition will resist being browbeaten into submission.

Where to for the Right?

For Australia’s right, the No victory represents the first public affirmation of Australian identity since the end of the White Australia Policy fifty years ago, and though it would be ideal to carry this momentum forward into pursuing action on other pressing issues such as curbing mass-immigration, I believe this is a highly unlikely outcome.

Both the Yes and No campaigns were crafted, won and lost by the political establishment. Any influence members of the dissident-right possessed was only a function of our grafting ourselves onto the official No campaign. Without Liberal party endorsement the No vote never would have won, and to the Liberal party mass-immigration is hugely profitable. They have not offered any meaningful choice to Australian voters on immigration policy in a long time, they’re not about to start now.

Having recognised this fact, I can safely say that the substance of the No campaign was not the reason the Voice failed. By objective metrics the No campaign was outgunned in terms of spending, organisation as well as in terms of mainstream media and moral support.

The most promising reality of the No victory is that it demonstrates the ‘quiet Australians’ often alluded to by the Liberal party are very real, only (as we can see clearly from recent federal and state election results) it is not strongly attracted to the Liberal brand of milquetoast conservatism. In the lead-up to the election, I saw very few No campaign signs in public, while it was fairly common to sight Yes campaign signs ziptied to front gates and Yes23 bumper stickers on bumper bars. Simultaneously, local and international celebrities for the most part threw their support behind Yes while sometimes publicly condemning the No vote.
If one were to have predicted the referendum’s result judged purely by outspoken support by the general public, you would have come to the conclusion that a Yes victory was certain to win by a landslide. Instead, the landslide was delivered by ‘Quiet Australians’.

The No-voting silent majority are Australian nationalists, they just don’t know it yet. This voting block, much like Trump voters in the US and Brexit voters in the UK is the population the authentic right must work to win to our side. Australian nationalism must be catered towards winning over this population. As Albanese and the left-wing establishment works overtime to demonise No voters by accusing them of being ‘ignorant’ ‘racists’, guilty of believing ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ we can expect this majority to increasingly resent the left.

Another thing we now know is that a significant proportion of the Australian population possesses some degree of Australian identity or distrust in the political class, but is yet to be lured by any of the existing lacklustre right-wing minor party electoral menu options.

There are numerous possible reasons for this. The ‘alternative’ political offering on display at unofficial No rallies are honestly embarrassing. The same small cadre of grifting freedom-movement celebrities and failed politicians continue to rear their heads at any event that will host them. The very simple solution to this is quality control. With no major culture wars on the horizon I hope this clique will be starved of oxygen and a new, authentic right wing movement will emerge to challenge the establishment and attract the support of ordinary No voters.

Conclusion

To meet the threat of a newly energised left and politically militant Labor Party, Australian nationalists and the broader dissident-right must consolidate their influence and provide an authentic alternative to the major parties and the political establishment for the No-voting public. How this will be done remains to be seen.