Andrew Bolt: All through this debacle, Albanese wouldn’t compromise or mind his language

Anthony Albanese failed Australia in his campaign to divide us by race, but worse than that he smeared No voters as mean to Aboriginals.

Thank God Australians voted against this racist Voice, but the damage is still done and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese should resign.

He has failed Australia in his catastrophic campaign to divide us by race, to give one race extra political rights under our constitution.

It’s not just that Albanese wasted $365m of taxpayers’ money and months of his time, growing distracted and emotional, on a failed campaign that’s already set neighbour against neighbour.

And what a catastrophic failure. Early figures suggest the Voice will be thrashed in every state, and even in some towns with big Aboriginal populations.

Anthony Albanese wasted $365m of taxpayers’ money and months of his time. Picture: Tim Hunter.

Worse than this failure and waste is that Albanese kept smearing No voters as mean to Aboriginals.

I doubt he can ever unsay that poisonous message to our young, especially young Aboriginals, or fix the harm to our image.

Yes, he’ll now talk about coming together, but up to polling day he sold this referendum as a test of our niceness to Aboriginals. Of our racism.

We had to go “to the booth to improve the lives of ­Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander people”, Albanese insisted, implying No voters didn’t want to help.

Albanese sold this referendum as a test of our niceness to Aboriginals. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

“Thinking of others costs nothing,” he cried, implying No voters were selfish.

“We have an opportunity for Australians … to show respect for the First Australians,” he said, implying No voters had none.

His planned Voice was “a hand outstretched for us to grasp in friendship”, implying No voters wanted no Aboriginal friends. Didn’t Albanese realise the racial grievances he was stoking would fester long after the votes were counted?

Didn’t he realise he was also talking himself out of a job by claiming that without a Voice to advise him we’ll just get “the same failures”?

Well, he’ll get no Voice now, so should hand over to someone smart enough not to repeat “the same failures”.

Albanese implied No voters wanted no Aboriginal friends. Picture: NewsWire

But all through this debacle, Albanese wouldn’t compromise or mind his language.

A month ago the polls were so terrible for the Voice that I said it was dead.

That was Albanese’s last chance to put Australia above his ego, and change his message so defeat of the Voice wouldn’t be sold as proof Australians were racist.

Again he failed us.

That failure will cost because a second war over the Voice starts now: how to interpret this result. If the Yes campaign wins by blaming racism, the consequences will be devastating.

Albanese had a chance to put Australia above his ego but again he failed us. Picture: Tim Hunter

Even before the vote, Professor Marcia Langton, one of the Voice architects, vilified No voters as “racists” and warned of an “intifada” from some Aboriginals.

Professor Tom Calma, her Voice co-designer, likewise declared “the referendum process taps into a deep well of historical racism”, and the Financial Review published a cartoon likening No leaders Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Warren Mundine, plus Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, to Nazis. We can’t now let them turn their defeat into Australia’s shame, or even civil unrest.

Australians racist? Nonsense; they voted against racism.

Besides, no country spending twice per head on Aboriginals than on other Australians can fairly be called racist.

Nor did No campaigners want Aboriginals to have fewer rights than anyone else. Instead, Price and Mundine – both with Aboriginal ancestry – insisted Aboriginals have exactly the same rights as other Australians. It was the Yes campaigners who didn’t.

But most telling is that a year ago polls showed two thirds of Australians supported the Voice. So were they racist then, or did they suddenly become racist now?

Albanese blames “misinformation” for losing all that support, but how could the Yes campaign lose an information battle when it was backed by every government in this country, 13 of our biggest companies, every major sporting code, many universities, big faith groups, and a circus of celebrities?

It also had a war-chest estimated at more than $50m, so could run a blitz of TV ads in the last weeks that drowned out the nickel-and-dime No side.

No, the truth is the simplest explanation: the more people learnt about the Voice, the more they thought it wrong.

The polls agree on what changed their minds, too. The Voice divided us by race, and there was no detail on how it would work.

So ignore those self-serving excuses from Yes campaigners, who can’t admit Australians simply didn’t want the racial division of their country.

Be inspired that Australians just said No to racism, despite all the bullying and all the corporate cash, in one of the finest moments of our democracy.