Why voting No will harm Australia’s Pacific diplomacy
In the region where anti-colonialist narratives are powerful and we are playing diplomatic catch-up, the referendum’s failure will be a gift to an expansionist China.
Recently, a friend told me she would be “mortified” to show her face abroad if Australia rejects an Indigenous Voice to parliament at next month’s referendum.
It raises an interesting point. Given constitutional change is a domestic matter, should Australians care what the world thinks? To torture an old saying, if a referendum falls Down Under, does it make a sound?
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Misha Zelinsky is a Fulbright Scholar, a former assistant national secretary Australian Workers' Union, and expert associate at the National Security College.
