Peta Credlin: Australian public again demonstrated a steadiness, and an ability to think for itself

In rejecting Labor’s divisive Voice, ordinary everyday Australians found theirs and the Albanese Government should face up to the fact that the people got it right and it got it wrong, writes Peta Credlin.

In voting No to the Prime Minister’s Indigenous Voice to the parliament last weekend, Australians voted Yes to unity, Yes to equality and Yes to our constitution remaining colour blind.

And their vote was emphatic, with all states rejecting the Voice, even Victoria – even the electorate of Indigenous Affairs Minister Linda Burney.

In defying the government, big business, big sport, the union movement, many faith leaders and multicultural organisations, and the Big Tech companies that control our social media; and in being un-moved by saturation advertising and by moral pressure, the Australian public yet again demonstrated a steadiness, and an ability to think for itself, that I had started to worry we had lost.

But it wasn’t lost.

Or, if it was, we found it again last Saturday night, and in rejecting Labor’s divisive Voice, ordinary everyday Australians found theirs.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reacts to Australians having roundly rejected an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. Picture: David Gray/AFP

The deafening “No” to the Prime Minister’s Indigenous Voice wasn’t a vote for nothing to change.

Indeed, to show how real their commitment to change is, the Coalition used the parliament last week to try to establish a royal commission into child sexual abuse in remote Indigenous communities, but it was rejected twice by the Albanese Government.

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price tried to establish a royal commission into child sexual abuse in remote Indigenous communities, but it was rejected twice by the government. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Martin Ollman

For his part, the Prime Minister faced a grilling in question time over his refusal to dump his Makarrata Treaty Commission.

Given the overwhelming defeat of the Voice, voters could be forgiven for thinking that would mean Treaty and Truth were dead in the water too.

But not so.

Time and time again he dodged a straight answer and refused to rule out a treaty process. And, as I listened to him, I couldn’t believe the audacity and the hypocrisy.

Because, for months and months, Albanese told voters that the Voice had nothing to do with a treaty; he denied that federal treaties were even on the table.

But now he can’t bring himself to rule out a commitment to treaties that last week he said didn’t exist!

Pat Anderson, Noel Pearson and Megan Davis with The Uluru Statement from the Heart. Picture: Britta Campion/The Australian

This battle was always about the Indigenous separatist trifecta – all of it, Voice, Treaty and Truth.

When I revealed the true agenda of the full Uluru Statement from the Heart and that the demands of Indigenous leaders included reparations (based on a percentage of GDP) that would amount to hundreds of billions of dollars, the Prime Minister accused me of being a conspiracy theorist, but who has been proven right now?

The Albanese Government should face up to the fact that the people got it right and it got it wrong.

Instead, it still seems captured by the Aboriginal establishment that got it into this mess in the first place, the self-appointed leaders who authored the Uluru Statement and who will now want to get via the back door what they couldn’t get via a popular vote – namely more money and more separatism thanks to treaties between Aboriginal “First Nations” and the federal government.

So far, the Western Australian government has said that it has no plans for treaties, the Queensland government has dropped its plans for treaties (after the LNP opposition reversed its earlier support for them) and the NSW government is pushing on with consultation while not saying whether this includes treaties (although positively the NSW Liberals ruled them out).

Victoria’s Yoorrook Commission has doubled down on seeking so-called treaty and truth. Picture: Brianna Young/Yoorrook Justice Commission

The South Australian government is defending the Voice that it established last year, the broken Tasmanian Liberal government says that it’s in favour of treaties and, in Victoria, the state’s Yoorrook Commission that Daniel Andrews established (with Liberal support) has doubled down on seeking so-called treaty and truth.

And, as usual, the Victorian Liberals are too timid to stand apart from Labor and still support their treaty process.

Can’t these people read the room? Don’t they understand that the “Voice, Treaty, Truth” referendum has just been beaten by one of the most comprehensive margins in history – 61 per cent plus No, 39 per cent minus Yes, and not one state, not even woke Victoria, prepared to back the Voice?

The Prime Minister is in a world of pain, having done nothing much else this year apart from push the Voice.

If he now tries to bring in via parliament and executive action the separatist agenda the voters have rejected, he will be well on his way to being a one-term government.

And, if he persists, Peter Dutton should make the whole issue of treaties a frontline issue at the next election.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton should make the whole issue of treaties a frontline issue at the next election. Picture: Steve Pohlner

The other issue that this Voice campaign exposed was the billions and billions spent on Aboriginal people that has done little to close the gap.

Blind Freddie can see that if money leaves Canberra but nothing much changes on the ground, someone in the middle is creaming it off.

Jacinta Price wants every dollar of Indigenous spending to be subject to a rigorous audit.

That’s why so many of the power players in Indigenous politics want to silence her, because an audit threatens to expose the rackets in a system that is better at servicing disadvantage than ending it.

Apart from Senator Price, who has stamped herself as the rising star of Australian politics, the politician who’s emerged best from the referendum campaign is Opposition Leader Dutton.

He could easily have sat on the fence or given his party a free vote. Instead, at a time when the Voice still looked like an electoral winner, he opted to oppose it on principle, as contrary to constitutional equality, an impediment to good government, and a further inducement to victimhood and grievance.

With the Prime Minister’s authority badly damaged by this debacle-of-his-own-making, if Dutton can find two or three issues on which to argue a distinctly different policy (on energy, education, immigration, and housing, for instance) he could be well on the way to removing this out-of-touch government.

Watch Peta on Credlin on Sky News, weeknights at 6pm

Originally published as Peta Credlin: Australian public again demonstrated a steadiness, and an ability to think for itself