The comments last week by Nationals frontbencher Barnaby Joyce likening the Voice proposal to a law enacted in Nazi Germany show what a difficult task it will be to get the Voice referendum passed.
Various polls show about 65 per cent support for it. However, large majority support for sensible and/or symbolic constitutional change in Australia often evaporates when it comes to putting a “yes” on a ballot paper.
All too often, the “no” case is mounted on many fronts. The reform does not go far enough; it goes too far; it has this or that imperfection; this or that group would prefer different words; the change would be a slippery slope into fascism, racism, socialism etc; if you are not sure or don’t know, vote “no”; and so on.
There are many ways to make a change with many details all of which can be argued over. So, some discord and division in the change camp is inevitable.
Against this, there is only a single way to keep things as they are.
In short, manifold and often contradictory reasons are put for the single result of keeping things as they are. The argument for change, however, has to be all-embracing. Moreover, it has to convince people – often people obsessed and attached to their own way of achieving a result – not to reject the good in the quest for what they see as the perfect, which is usually elusive anyway.
Read the article by Crispin Hull in The Canberra Times.