At the risk of sounding like an English teacher, compare and contrast the following:
It’s OK to say no. “It’s OK to vote no”.
This isn’t the right time. “I think it is time for the Prime Minister to consider whether he just wants to stick to his original timeline . . . or whether he actually, genuinely wants to work with all members across the Parliament”.
I’m in favour of this but I’m not in favour of it this way. “Today is not a no from the Liberal Party, it is a day of many yesses. Yes to constitutional recognition for Indigenous Australians, yes to local and regional voices, yes to better outcomes for Indigenous Australians, yes to Australians having their say. But it’s a no for dividing Australians”.
The bold lines are from the same-sex marriage debate, at least as recalled by Tiernan Brady, a man credited with having won marriage equality on two continents.
The quotes come from Liberal politicians campaigning against the Voice.
Are we tired of talking about the Voice yet? We might be.
Federal Member for Perth Patrick Gorman wasn’t necessarily wrong when he said the Voice was a bigger deal for WA than GST but people don’t enjoy thinking about things just because they’re important. If that was true, nobody would ever ignore a MyGov notification again (I’LL GET TO IT WHEN I GET TO IT).
So let’s talk about marriage equality instead.
That 2017 vote didn’t lead to legalised bestiality, as then Liberal senator Cory Bernardi suggested. Nor was it the Titanic-sinking tip of the iceberg implied by Marriage Alliance, a group since rebranded as Binary Australia to oppose trans rights, just in case anyone thinks the anti-trans lobby are only coming for trans people.
Comparing the same-sex marriage campaign to the Voice is like comparing Barbie and Oppenheimer: both Hollywood movies out next week but with as many differences as similarities. There won’t be atomic bombs in Barbie and Oppenheimer will presumably have a dearth of roller-blading Ryan Goslings. More’s the pity.
Voting for the Voice requires understanding what an Indigenous advisory group to Parliament will look like and how it will work. That’s tricky because it’s Parliament’s job to figure out the “how it will work bit” — if voters want it.
Nobody voting on marriage equality needed to be told how marriage works because everyone already understood the mechanics involved in legally chaining yourself to another person in the hope you might a) get some lovely gifts and b) stay together long enough for one of you to die.
But there are similarities, which means there are lessons.
Mr Brady, who helped mastermind Australia and Ireland’s marriage equality campaigns, recalled during a recent Zoom hook-up with Committee for Perth, watching a news report on the Scottish independence referendum and seeing a young woman holding a homemade sign. “It said ‘I’m voting yes, ask me why’,” he said. “I remember looking at it — this was two years out from the Irish referendum — and going ‘that’s space, that’s an invitation to talk’.”
“If we hadn’t created the space for those questions to be answered we knew the people who were nearly over the line would vote no because they couldn’t have their questions answered.”
If people are going to support the Voice they need to ask questions, not get called racist if they want to know why it isn’t just feel-good politics, or why First Nations Aussies aren’t already sufficiently represented via Parliament.
In the Irish marriage campaign the first “no” ad didn’t mention marriage.
“It talked about gendered school uniforms, which of course had nothing to do with the marriage vote at all but it was expanding the topics to try and create more doubt,” Mr Brady said.
That might be why some are so keen to blur the lines between the Voice and WA’s Aboriginal heritage laws or suggest the Voice will kill Australia Day.
The No campaign on the Voice has been borrowing, inadvertently or otherwise, from the marriage equality playbook. Will they be more successful this time?
Without getting too hyperbolic time — and votes — will tell if we’re looking at a Barbie scenario (smiles all around, maybe a quick dance number) or more of an Oppenheimer outcome (BOOM).