Conventional approach to real debate on voice

Opposition legal affairs spokesman Julian Leeser. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Better late than never. At last, opposition legal affairs spokesman Julian Leeser has suggested we do what we did for the republican debate and hold a constitutional convention. Leeser’s proposal, based on a thoughtful piece by Sydney barrister Louise Clegg, would signal that Australia’s shy voters – those who are leaning to No but are too afraid to say so, or are curious for more information but too afraid to ask – are being welcomed back into the public square on this major change to our Constitution.

To date the proposal for the voice has been exclusively the plaything of Yes activists and elites. It was formulated by Yes activists and has been pushed, ferociously, by supporters. It’s no surprise that the proposal is a more radical shift in power than mere recognition, and that polite requests for a debate and details continue to be dismissed as morally offensive. At no time have the concerns of curious Australians been sought out or considered.

That explains the extraordin­ary levels of reader support – completely without precedent in my experience – for articles in this newspaper that represent virtually the only expressions of dissent or concern permitted in mainstream Australian media. The Australian’s coverage has been water in the desert for ordinary Australians.

A properly balanced, even-handed and fairly run constitutional convention could change this one-sided campaign. Instead of curious Australians being frogmarched into major constitutional change without proper debate or analysis, any change flowing from robust and genuinely probing constitutional conventions is much more likely to gain genuine support, credibility and legitimacy.

These constitutional conventions must not repeat the faux conventions run to date exclusively by and for activists and supporters. A debate must include No advocates, the undecideds and the uncertains.

In short, shy voters deserve a seat at the democracy table. Such a forum for all Australians, pro and anti, would be a huge improvement on what has frankly been a deeply disturbing process to date.

For too long, the Yes case has used old-fashioned high-pressure sales techniques, coupled with gobsmacking attempts to skew the playing field and suppress dissenting views. We have been lectured about a take-it-or-leave it, one-time-only offer. We have been bullied by assertions, our questions treated as telltale signs of the ignorant and ideological. Don’t ask the voice advocates about the Ts & Cs. That’s all irrelevant, they say. Buy the product now and we will reveal the Ts & Cs later – we promise you will like them.

We’ve been shamed as racist bigots for wanting information first. We have been pressured by claims that reconciliation is dead if we don’t vote Yes.

Now the Prime Minister accuses anyone curious about details as being wicked culture warriors.

Glossy ads and celebrity endorsements? The soft-focus TV ads telling us to focus on the vibe were wheeled out last year with more on the way. And though Shaquille O’Neal bombed, there are plenty more celebrity endorsements coming. Churchmen, sports stars, business leaders. You ain’t seen nothing yet. Since the first encyclopedia salesman crawled out of the primordial slime, we have known to walk away from high-pressure selling. That advice applies right now.

Equally shameful is the government’s attempt to skew the field by refusing to distribute both a Yes and a No case to voters. Even worse, the very institutions that one would hope and expect to promote informed, vigorous and rational debate of all sides of an issue appear not only to have become uncritical cheer leaders for the Yes campaign but to be positively shutting down debate.

No one expects the ABC to fulfil its statutory obligation to be fair, impartial and balanced. Funded by taxpayers to the tune of more than $1bn, it has become a fully fledged lobby group campaigning daily, across platforms, for favoured staff causes. Particularly on the voice, the ABC has become a propaganda broadcaster peddling all forms of diversity, except democracy’s most precious diversity of thought.

Worse, our major corporates, professional firms and bodies, including the NSW Bar Association and the Australian Institute of Company Directors, have not so much drunk the Kool-Aid as jumped into the vat, bathed in it, and are now force-feeding it to employees and members.

To illustrate, a senior leader at National Australia Bank recently wrote to chief executive Ross McEwan and NAB board members complaining about the extent to which NAB is forcing its activist stance on to its employees. The senior staff member at NAB wrote anonymously because he or she said it was unsafe to express opinions about the voice. NAB’s embrace of diversity apparently does not stretch to diversity of thought.

The staff member, who expressed a firm belief that Indigenous disadvantage must be addressed, stated that there was a real fear of careers being stifled if someone expressed a view inconsistent with the voice.

I hear concerns from staff who work at major accounting firms and law firms about a lack of intellectual diversity that make NAB appear positively open-minded. I have direct experience of senior silks telling me they cannot put their name to their real legal concerns about the voice without fear of having their careers affected by these same one-eyed law firms, corporations and professional service firms.

The AICD, representing Australian directors, is running deeply anti-intellectual campaigns that suppress all signs of a No argument. This body will shortly run what it calls a “respectful discussion” but that features four voice advocates with not a No speaker in sight.

The NSW Law Society and Bar Association, in combination with the Judicial Commission of NSW (would you believe it?) are just as intellectually shallow. Last weekend, they held a conference called Exchanging Ideas: First Nations Consensus in Constitutional Reform, Nation Building and Treaty Making Processes. The invitations to Warren Mundine and Jacinta Price may have got lost in the post. Certainly those responsible for the advertised guest list didn’t give a hoot about diversity of thought.

A genuinely honest and balanced debate at a series of constitutional conventions would go a long way to remedying this anti-intellectual campaigning that is aimed at hoodwinking the nation. It would add immeasurably to the legitimacy and credibility of any resulting changes to our Constitution or governance arrangements.

By contrast, a 51-49 win procured by high-pressure sales tactics, suppression of dissent and misrepresentation will guarantee permanent division and distrust, not goodwill and reconciliation.