Andrew Bolt: Australians who voted No aren’t d***heads

Those whinging about the Voice referendum’s thumping defeat and calling No voters dumb should instead be asking themselves how they lost, when the Yes campaign started with all the aces.

They still don’t get it. Even after this thrashing, Yes campaigners are still whining that Australians who voted no are just d--kheads, as journalist Ray Martin suggested at a Yes rally.

Even Prime Minister Anthony Albanese blamed silly voters for listening to what he claims is misinformation.

He attacked journalists at his graceless press conference: “We have had, including in outlets represented in this room, discussions about a range of things that were nothing to do with what was on the ballot paper tonight.”

This included “debates about the length of the Uluru Statement”, he said, “so for many people it became an issue in which they were receiving a range of information.”

Anthony Albanese with Yes Campaign co-chair Rachel Perkins and journalist Ray Martin. Picture: Max Mason-Hubers

Gosh. How dare voters get “a range of information” which so confused 60 per cent of Australians that they wrongly voted No.

But it wasn’t just Albanese who believed Australians voted No in confusion.

Yes23 campaign boss Dean Parkin also complained that his team couldn’t win against “the single largest misinformation campaign that this country has ever seen”.

Fellow campaigner Thomas Mayo, ambassador for the Uluru Statement, also blamed the No campaign for having “lied to the Australian people”.

Others blamed Opposition Leader Peter Dutton personally for hoodwinking gullible Australians.

Australian Council of Trade Unions president Michele O’Neil complained: “This loss belongs to Peter Dutton and the Liberal Party.”

Greens leader Adam Bandt moaned: “Peter Dutton ran a Trumpian campaign of misinformation and fear.”

But these excuse-makers should ask themselves how they managed to lose an information battle when they started the year with around 70 per cent support and holding all the aces.

Greens leader Adam Bandt has moaned that Peter Dutton “ran a Trumpian campaign”. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

Many media outlets, including the ABC, were on their side. So were many universities and celebrities, and every government. Big W stores even played Yes ad at their shoppers.

The Yes23 campaign also had a war chest estimated at $50 million, dwarfing the No campaign’s $15 million. In the last two weeks, TV stations were blitzed with so many Yes ads that I often had two in each break of my Sky News show. I couldn’t see one No ad, except on TikTok.

What’s more, Yes supporters were so abusive that few No supporters dared put up signs or hand out how-to-vote cards to spruik their information.

The No campaign was so starved of funds, volunteers, ads and posters that you wonder how high the No vote would have been in a fair debate. Maybe 70 per cent? Higher?

So Yes campaigners should consider the obvious reason for their defeat: what they were selling was a dud.

They should stop treating Australians like mugs, and instead credit them with the brains to have simply decided for excellent reasons that we shouldn’t change our constitution to give one race extra political rights.

That’s not misinformation at work. That’s just voters rejecting a dangerous and divisive idea for which the Yes campaign should apologise. What was dumb was not the voters but the Voice.