Rita Panahi: Voice debate reveals Liberals can win by standing up for their values

An important lesson conservatives can learn from the Voice debate is whatever the battle, they’re on solid ground when they stand up for core principles instead of trying to appease their ideological opponents.

Feckless faux-conservative politicians across the country have an important lesson to learn from the Voice debate. They can either listen exclusively to “progressive” media hacks telling them to lurch further Left and thereby make themselves unelectable against genuinely Leftist Labor-Green parties or alternatively Coalition MPs can win by finding their principles and giving the electorate a clear choice at the ballot box.

Whether the battleground is economic policies, net zero or cultural issues such as the trans agenda, conservatives are on solid ground when they stand up for core principles instead of trying to appease their ideological opponents.

For close to a year, as Peter Dutton’s Liberals sat on their hands, it looked like the “yes” vote would prevail. Polls showed two in three Australians were planning to vote yes to enshrine an Indigenous voice in the Constitution. Leftwing thinktank the Australia Institute published a poll on July 31 last year showing support for the “yes” camp increasing further with only one in six Australians saying they would vote no in the referendum. That was largely due to the fact that for months the Liberal Party failed to oppose the race-based referendum, leaving it to the Nationals and minor parties to advocate the no case.

For close to a year, as Peter Dutton’s Liberals sat on their hands, it looked like the “yes” vote would prevail. Picture: Martin Ollman

Back then there were plenty of premature celebrations among the “yes” advocates, including Labor Party operative, lobbyist and RedBridge pollster Kos Samaras who tweeted: “Yes will win and win hands down”.

On the weekend, after his own polling company’s figures showed the “yes” vote losing in every state, he compared the no vote to Brexit, writing “this is what we have been warning about for months”.

The latest RedBridge poll also showed that when exposed to the arguments of the yes and no camps, the no vote increased further, with one in four people who were leaning towards supporting the referendum switching their vote to no.

In less than a month we’ve had three major polls showing the “yes” vote floundering and on trajectory to lose in all states. You can be sure that would not be the case if the Liberals ran dead on the issue like they have on so many other consequential fights.

Conservatives must learn to articulate their values and engage in the ideological debate; only then will they give the electorate a reason to support them. We already have Leftist options, what we need is mainstream conservatives who stand for something.

Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist