James Morrow: Get ready for a massive tantrum of the elites if the Voice falls over

Those pushing the Voice will blame absolutely everyone but themselves if their referendum does not pass, writes James Morrow.

If the polls are correct and the No camp wins the day on October 14, Australians should brace themselves for an almighty tantrum of the elites.

Indeed, a quick read of the commentary from the Labor-Green progressive side of the fence indicates this is happening pre-emptively.

At least one commentator has warned that a No vote will be our Brexit or Trump (2016 vintage) moment that will split the country “in two”.

Others moan that a No win will be a victory for “populism”, as if a democratic poll of the electorate is somehow illegitimate if it goes the “wrong” way.

And if the referendum goes down we are told to will be the triumph of Peter Dutton’s role as “wrecker” of Australia’s chance to be a more united nation, holding hands and singing kumbaya forever.

Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, his wife Lucy Turnbull and Member for Wentworth Allegra Spender walking down the main street in Kings Cross handing out flyers to campaign for the Voice to Parliament in Sydney. Picture: NCA Newswire/ Gaye Gerard

Don’t believe a word of it. This sort of commentary is as predictable as it is wrong.

And it reflects the sensibility of an elite – a progressive political class defined less by its members’ bank balances than their attitudes – that is so convinced of its own correctness that the one thing it can never do is get a bad result and look in the mirror.

Peter Dutton speaking with volunteers at Feed Me’s Ocean Grove headquarters.

If the referendum fails, it will be entirely down to the confusion of Anthony Albanese and the Yes campaign, which simultaneously told us the Voice would change everything and change nothing, and that while it would be the first part of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, discussing anything else in the program was bad manners.

More importantly, if it does fail, the vote will be only the latest chapter in a much longer saga of an Australian and Western elite political class that is as self-assured as it is wrong.

Taking the wider view, the referendum is just a late and local attempt to tear down and remake society by people who never stop and reflect when they hit the wall, but rather keep on pushing.

Again, it does not matter if the project is to retool the culture and put race front and centre of society via the Uluru Statement, or to remake the economy through net zero, or to redefine millennia of understanding and make people say with a straight face, “yes, men can get pregnant.”

Uluru Dialogue co-chair Pat Anderson with Professor Megan Davis. Picture NCA NewsWire / Aaron Francis

If the revolution fails, it’s not the fault of the elites, but the people who let them down.

This is why democracy is redefined as populism.

And it is why we are also already seeing a push to rev up the war on “misinformation.”

The Greens now propose to remove exemptions for journalists, making Labor’s attempt to crack down on free speech by creating multiple classes of citizens with different rights to argue ideas, all the more sinister.

This comes after attempts by government and social media to shut down any discussion of the plain as day long form of the Uluru Statement – one acknowledged multiple times in multiple contexts by its co-author Megan Davis – and to bill it as “misinformation.”

Likewise, if No comes in with a majority vote, we will hear that Peter Dutton was on the “wrong side of history.”

Ironically, this attack on the democratic majority will be heard most loudly from those who spend their days writing op-eds and making podcasts shrieking that democracy is under threat.

But what we are likely to hear little of is blame for the elite media and political classes who put the nation through a tremendously divisive and distracting campaign just so they could feel a bit superior to their fellow Australians.

It looks like more people will be writing no than yes on October 14. Photographer: Ian Waldie/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Even if the referendum goes down, we will still be saddled with an education system that pushes politics over learning, and corporate executives whose highest calling is equity and inclusion rather than service and value.

There is a bigger and more sinister side to this phenomenon, too.

Broadly speaking, elites across the West have been chalking up an impressive list of failures that are becoming ever more dangerous.

When taken to the global stage, the problem becomes worse.

Henry Olsen, writing recently in the Spectator, pointed to 20 years of disasters including the financial crisis of 2008 and the doe-eyed belief that helping China get rich would also turn it into a democracy as evidence of the catastrophes that come from elite blindness.

One could easily go further and say that since the Vietnam War, Western elites have chalked up a distressing list of failures in foreign policy from failing to see everything from the looming disaster of the Iranian Revolution to the end of the Cold War to 9/11 and the disastrous “forever wars” which followed.

But remember, it’s the ordinary people who got it wrong.