Why Identity Politics Lost Big in Australia

Sydney — Chalk up a big defeat for identity politics. On Saturday, Australians defeated a ballot initiative that would have changed the constitution to establish an indigenous advisory body to the federal parliament.

In a referendum, the nation rejected the change pushed by the center-left Labor government by a 20-point margin. As a result, a constitutional “Indigenous Voice to Parliament” — an unelected and unaccountable group of Aboriginal Australians that would have advised the nation’s lawmakers on any matter of its choosing — was consigned to history before it was even instituted.

Proponents of the change billed the Voice as a modest proposal that would help heal the traumas of history and unite the nation. For opponents, the Voice would have been a smoke screen for an informal treaty between Australia and its indigenous peoples involving reparations by the former to atone for the historic “sin” of British settlement, which would further divide the nation.

Proponents had every advantage. Corporations and rich philanthropists gave massive financial support (more than A$50 million). Celebrities, union bosses, the sporting codes, and much of the mainstream media were on the Voice’s side. So too were several prominent, past and present members of the center-right Liberal Party. Even the machinery of government was working for the constitutional change. According to academic historians, supporting the Voice meant being on “the right side of history.”

Opponents appeared to have very little going for them. They raised less than one-third of the Yes campaign’s funds. Until polls shifted against the Voice a few months ago, anyone who strayed from the progressive consensus was treated with shock and distaste. And yet, against the odds and in the face of received wisdom, the opponents triumphed spectacularly.

Why? Simply put, the Voice was a dud. It was sold as a conversation between the Aboriginal community and lawmakers to help address indigenous woes. But it was never explained to the public precisely who would choose the members of the Voice, what its constitutional powers would be, and how much it would cost. Even Prime Minister Anthony Albanese seemed confused and uncertain about what the Voice would do better than the scores of current government-sponsored Aboriginal agencies. His government, which never sought bipartisan support for the idea, provided so few details about the proposal that it created a vacuum for opponents to exploit.

Critics were accused of peddling “misinformation,” but they raised legitimate questions about an opaque and top-down process that few people really understood. At the same time, the Voice’s proponents tried to mask the paradox of their proposal: It was sold as both modest change and profound transformation. It could not possibly be both, and Australians are not mugs.

The cultural elite has long treated indigenous Australians as victims since the British “invasion” in 1788. But even if Australia was once a racist place, it does not follow that Aboriginal people are denied equal rights today. According to the distinguished historian Geoffrey Blainey, Aboriginal people had the right to vote in Australia long before women did in Britain.

It’s true that welfare dependency, taken together with separate rules, norms, and institutions, has led to a permanent underclass in remote communities, where about 15 percent of the 980,000 Aboriginal Australians live. But most live in cities and regional centers, they increasingly intermarry with non-indigenous people, and their living standards are far higher than those of people who live in remote communities.

Like all racial and ethnic groups, our indigenous community espouses a wide diversity of opinion: As many as eleven Aboriginal Australians represent different parties in federal parliament. The two leading opponents of the Voice — Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Nyunggai Warren Mundine (who are my friends and, either previously or presently, my colleagues) — are themselves Aboriginal. Far from embracing the Left’s narrative about “systemic racism” and “white privilege,” they promote a new political paradigm based on the virtues of a strong work ethic and a recognition of the limits of state power to correct social ills.

However, instead of encouraging free and open debate, many Voice enthusiasts strove to discredit opponents and engage in character assassination. They vilified decent people as “dinosaurs,” “d***heads,” and “racists,” clouding the issue in the hope that Australians would vote according to emotion and not reason. All the bullying and aggression proved not only that they were about to lose the vote but that they had already lost the argument. (Sound familiar? Australians, like Brits and Americans, have a deep and abiding affection for political underdogs.)

A vocal minority of proponents, egged on by media sophisticates, was swift to make its case but far less swift to be questioned or examined on it by others. No one is ever served by shutting down debate, yet this appeared to be what the Yes advocates were all about. But in a liberal democracy, progressive ambitions can’t be imposed by political diktat.

All that is good in our liberal society boils down to a belief in freedom, merit, tolerance, respect for difference, and equality before the law. In a multiracial and multiethnic society such as Australia’s, our shared values are what ultimately bind us. But identity politics, as Americans know all too well, divides people and poisons public discourse.

Critics warn that the Voice’s defeat will deal severe reputational damage to Australia’s global image. The reality, though, is that this nation of 25 million people will remain a tolerant, welcoming liberal democracy, where the rule of law applies equally to every citizen.