"The Voice" Referendum
In The Voice referendum, all states in Australia and Australia as a whole voted 60% NO, against The Voice.
Canberra, the nation’s capital, was the only place that voted YES.
I came to the issue late and from Hong Kong -- an Australian living here in Hong Kong, unable to vote in the Referendum, but interested in it, because I’m an Aussie, and referenda are rare and... interesting.
I came to the question with no preconceptions. I decided just to look into the arguments for YES and for NO. I was as ready to agree with the “YES” case as I was to agree with the “NO” case.
In the end, I decided that the NO arguments were more powerful. The spokespeople for the NO campaign, especially Jacinta Nampijimpa Price, and Warren Mundine made the better case and won the debate hands down, I thought. Here’s a summary of the for and against cases.
And, in the end, the NO vote won, easily, despite the early polls showing a win for the YES vote.
Canberra -- Australia’s capital city -- stood out. As a “Capital Territory”, it’s not a State, but more like Washington D.C. Its vote only counts to the overall tally, not as an individual state. In an Australian referendum there has be be a majority of the Six states and a majority of the overall population that votes in favour. For the Voice, it was all states, (but not Canberra, in the Australian Capital Territory) and 60% of the overall that voted against. That was after the early polls showed a majority in favour. That is: the NO vote case was viewed as being more persuasive.
What do Canberrans thinks of that? I don’t know, but I suspect that they feel they were on the “right side of history” and that the rest of Australia are the rubes. That’s the impression I get from the talk-back on Canberra radio.
Click on Voice in the Labels. And here’s a summary of the YES and NO arguments.
Nuclear for Australia
Now the latest is on the Nuclear for Australia debate. Overall, around 55% to 70% of Australians, depending on the poll, are in favour of nuclear power for Australia. [Here is a selection of polls].
But in an online poll last week on ABC Radio Canberra, AM666, the poll was 80% against nuclear. How do they feel about this, I wonder? Again, I’m guessing that they feel they are in the right and that the rest of us are simply dumb.
But... I happen to know something about this nuclear business.
I wrote a summary of “The Case for Nuclear”, at the request of an Australian Greenie friend of mine. Who then said she couldn’t or wouldn't read it, because... well, I never did find out because why... Because it would perhaps have changed her mind on something so deep in her psyche. And she didn’t want to risk that level of cognitive dissonance.
Most of the comments I heard on ABC Radio Canberra last week that were against nuclear, ware ignorant. Like “WASTE”, which is a resolved problem. Like “PROLIFERATION”, which is an old and nonsense concern. Like “COST”, which is an overblown concern, and in any case ought not to be the primary concern, when we’re looking at a “climate emergency” according to these same folks. Like “IT’LL TAKE TOO LONG’, again an overblown concern, but again not something that ought not be a primary concern, when a single nuclear power station will last up to a century and we're looking at an issue with climate that goes beyond the next five or ten years.
In all, I heard nothing new, and certainly nothing that should rule out nuclear for Australia. Some of the comments just out-and-out scaremongering.
We here in Hong Kong live right near a Nuclear Power Station, around 30km away, the Da Ya Bay power station. I’ve visited it, and sailed past it many times. It’s a fine facility that’s been delivering a third of our power, safely, cleanly and cheaply for thirty years. To those NIMBY folks, I say YIMBY: “YES, in my backyard”.
The extent of Labor Party hysteria over the plans by the Opposition Coalition to put nuclear power stations in soon-to-be decommissioned coal fired stations, is something to behold. Childish hardly mocks it enough. But the Canberra elites are right on side with the silly anti-nuclear memes and scare tactics. Shame on them all.
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So, how do they feel, these Canberra folks? Out of sync with the rest of Australia on two really major issues in the last half year.
They ought to do some self-reflection, at the very least. They ought to wonder, why are we the odd ones out? Why are we so different? Are we in a bubble perhaps?
For sure you are. You’re in a lovely, homely, middle-class, comfortable, white-privileged bubble.
Maybe it’s asking a bit too much of you, to feel “ashamed”. But surely it’s not too much to ask to be reflective? Is it? To reflect that perhaps you might be getting things wrong? That there are other views which might just be valid? That the rest of Australians might be the ones getting it right?
