Woke Politics Can Be Defeated — Just Look at Australia

A mericans rarely follow other countries’ elections, but conservatives should pay attention to the referendum Australia held Saturday. It not only shows that woke politics can be defeated; it’s the biggest example of the global class divide since Brexit.

Australians were voting on a proposed constitutional amendment to provide a “voice” to Parliament for the nation’s indigenous population. The measure was opposed by the country’s conservative parties and backed by the governing Labor Party and their Green Party allies.

All the usual dynamics one sees in woke politics were at play: Establishment media, big business, and most academics lined up to back the initiative while opponents did what they could with what little they had. Proponents thought they had it in the bag, as polling showed “yes” ahead by 2– or 3–1 margins last summer when the prime minister first released draft wording.

Instead, Australians crushed the establishment soundly.

“No” is ahead 61–39, a margin that could grow as the final votes trickle in. The amendment failed in all six states, including ultra-progressive Victoria, Australia’s version of California. Only the Australian Capital Territory will vote yes. That’s the Aussie equivalent of D.C. voting against the rest of the country.

This win should give heart to anyone battling woke politics. Proponents played on the same appeal to white guilt that is often a feature of progressive campaigns. But it was hard to play on white guilt when many prominent indigenous leaders came out against the proposal. The “no” campaign featured these people, showing that strong conservative leadership from racial and ethnic minorities can be a persuasive antidote to the progressive playbook.

Just as heartening is the fact that even many left-leaning voters believe that democracy means one rule for all people. Indigenous Australians can and do vote, and they have the same voice in Parliament as any other group of Australians. That fairness-for-all message resonated in a country that relishes the “fair go” and where everyone is your “mate.”

The final nail in the coffin was delivered by the proposal itself. It was unbelievably vague, neither clearly establishing what powers this voice would have or how they would be selected. The lack of clarity may have been strategic, on the logic that if the special body were allotted multiple specific powers, most voters would reject it. But the keep-it-vague approach backfired on the pro-“voice” advocates, as the opposition came up with a clever slogan: “If you don’t know, vote no.”

Courage, savvy marketing, cross-racial support: All of these are factors that American conservatives can apply to similar efforts pushed here. The demographic breakdown of the vote, however, provides an even more tantalizing taste of the realigning opportunity delivered by campaigns for equal rights for all.

Australia has no exit polls, but it does release vote totals for each House of Representatives constituency. What this reveals is both obvious and stunning: Support for the referendum was largely confined to highly educated, well-off areas while opposition attracted blue-collar Labor voters of all backgrounds.

Only 32 of the nation’s 151 House seats voted yes. The top five “yes” votes came from urban seats so left-wing that, in last year’s election, they divided their votes between Labor and the Greens. The other “yes” voters are primarily from upscale places in the big cities, many of which created shockwaves when they switched their longstanding support for the Liberal Party to elect Greens, Labor candidates, or climate-friendly independents known as “Teals.” Sound familiar?

The movement in the other parts of Australia were truly earth-shattering. It was a foregone conclusion that blue-collar seats held by conservatives would vote no once their parties endorsed the opposition. But in almost every case, the “no” vote exceeded the conservatives’ share of the two-party vote in the last election. That meant only one thing: Many people who backed Labor in 2022 backed “no” in 2023.

This is especially telling in heavily Labor blue-collar seats. The South Australian seat of Spence is indicative of this. A demographic profile shows that over 62 percent of its population lives in poor areas and only 5 percent have a bachelor’s degree or above. Its Labor MP won 62.9 percent of the two-party vote last year, yet only 27.5 percent of voted yes. Over half of the Labor vote deserted its government to oppose its signature initiative.

This was not an appeal to latent racism, no matter what some proponents might say. “No” prevailed even in heavily immigrant western Sydney seats such as Blaxland. Over 71 percent of residents there do not speak English at home, with Arabic and Mandarin the primary languages. Labor won 64.9 percent there in 2022, but “yes” pulled in only 37.8 percent.

Conservatives know that only applying the rule of law equally to all, no matter what their background, can bring true racial justice. Australians showed this weekend that this message wins even against massive odds. American conservatives can take note and take heart.