To start with a disclaimer just to makes things clear. I am a permanent resident in Germany, so I can’t vote in the upcoming referendum even if I wanted to. I am pro-sovereignty, and I support genuine informed self-determination. For me, this means it’s up to each sovereign nation to decide what they want to do in the referendum. Here’s some food for thought for this decision making.

Now I will start off with the assumption that voting ‘yes’ has already been ruled out as an option, because this would be a different conversion altogether. I am also going to assume that you, are a potential voter and an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander person, and you are tossing up whether to vote no or to not vote at all. I’m pro-boycott, and in this post I’m going to go through my thought process.

Pure Voting Strategy

First I want to look at it purely by the numbers and by the referendum rules. And yeah, I am talking about a change to the constitution act, which isn’t exactly what was asked for in Uluru Statement, but it seems to be what’s happening this year anyway.

Let’s take a hypothetical scenario. Suppose you were to mobilise and organise 99% of all Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander people to all vote NO in the referendum. What would the impact be? Could we realistically have a discernable impact on the final result?

In this type of referendum that modifies the constitution act, there are two hurdles to be met. One is the majority of 6 States must each vote yes. The other hurdle is an overall national simple majority must be met.

If you look on wikipedia, it has a list of all the referendums in a handy table. It’s handy because you can sort it by different columns. From playing with the table sorting a bit, you can see that some referendums failed the majority of the States test but passed the simple majority test. But there have been no referendums that passed the majority of the States test but failed the simple majority test. This would indicate that it is that the real test in a referendum is the majority of the States test. And therefore, the easiest way to defeat a referendum would be to focus on swinging a state or two towards a ‘no’ vote.

Is it possible for our hypothetical 99% no-voting block of Aboriginal people to swing a State? Let’s look at the demographics… Below is a chart showing the proportion of ‘Indigenous Australians’ [sic] in each State.

We would have a very decent chance at swinging Northern Territory to a ‘no’ vote. But unfortunately, the Northern Territory doesn’t count as one of the 6 States for the referendum. NT votes just get shoved into the nation-wide pool. So there goes that idea.

So we are starting with a very big handicap thanks to being outnumbered. We will need to campaign to others, and try to convince them to vote no. Our chances are not that good.

But maybe there’s some hope… if you go back to the wikipedia table and sort by the national majority (column called voters)tally, you will see there are quite a lot of referendums that were down-to-the-wire, with a simple nationwide result between 47% and 53%. As we are now about 3-4% of the total national tally, we could have theoretically swung these referendums. But if you sort by date, you will see these were mostly a really long time ago, before we could vote at all. You have to go back in-time by 7 referendums before you find the most recent one within a 3% margin.

Even if we were a perfectly coordinated, no-voting block, the chances are not good that we could realistically influence the result. We would need to rely on influencing others to tip the scale, and that’s not self-determination. The game is rigged.

The role of the Media

I think Aboriginal people as a political community have a complicated relationship with the media. I’m going to share some of my (unashamedly biased) impressions.

As we are such a small minority, our voices are easily drowned out. It seems that one moment, the media can throw us a lifebuoy, and the next moment they are in the pool pushing our heads under. There’s a similar dynamic between the media and celebrities. But a celebrity can at least speak authoritatively on their own behalf. We can’t always do that, because the media can always pick and chose who to listen to depending on their agenda. They can shop around for the right soundbite. And the media follow the money. Who’s paying them? Yeah, we know who.

Even in our theoretical scenario of 99% co-ordinated NO-vote… We are at a great disadvantage. Because we don’t pay the media, they are not on our side.

There’s many ways to spin a story. We show up to the polling booth and tick our name off the list. The moment we drop our ballot in the box, our vote is indistinguishable from the 97% non-Aboriginal population. There are ways to spin the end result. It wasn’t Aboriginal people voting no… it was Karen and her friends. The media can shop and pick just the right showcase electorate by demographics for such a story to make sense. They can stand outside a polling booth until they get the right voter with the right sound-bite. There’s literally hundreds of ways that our theoretical 99% coordinated no-vote can be lost inside the ballot box.

The spin has already started. Example this article; 80% of Aboriginal people support the voice. The strategy is already in place. The place that media portrays as having the biggest visible Aboriginal dissent seems to be in the NT itself. Quelle surprise – because that’s exactly where an Aboriginal vote would make a difference. They need an explanation for the big NT no-vote that’s going to happen. The media are priming the reason, and that is because the Aboriginal people in NT are Anangu, traditional old-skool who are unhappy with the misuse of their word Uluru, and they vote differently to the Aboriginal people in the other States who are going to vote predominantly yes… You know, the yes-voting city Aborigines in Victoria, sipping on fancy coffee wearing high-heals. Victoria – high absolute Aboriginal population, but low proportion compared to the general Victorian population… The city-black’s vote is the easiest to make dissapear in the bucket of ballots using the magic of stortytelling. It’s a numbers and yarn-telling game by Crosby-Textor. The absolute majority of Aboriginal people do live in the States, so the claim that 80% of Aboriginal people support the voice can logically hold up. So if you are an Aboriginal person in the higher populated States, your ‘no’ vote is already attributed to ‘Karen who watches Sky news’ before the date is even set, all thanks to media spin.

Active vs. inactive action

I have seen on social media some Aboriginal people advocate for a NO vote over a boycott for the following reason.

A ‘no vote’ is better because it is an active/assertive, not inactive/passive action. Voting NO is actually ‘doing something’, whereas a boycott is ‘doing nothing’. It’s better to ‘do something’ than ‘do nothing’.

While I respect that opinion, I argue against it for the following reasons.

An active approach is not always better than a passive approach. An (unfortunate) example is when a Aboriginal youth is dealing with the police. An active approach against the police is outright dangerous. It really depends on the situation whether a active or passive approach is better. It’s about using the right tool for the job.

Secondly, a boycott can be an active action, it depends how on it’s implemented. An active boycott in this scenario could be also double as an assertion of self-determination and sovereignty if done in a certain way. A group that identifies themselves as sovereign can band together, collectively agree as a clan/tribe/community etc. to boycott, and put out a public statement declaring that. eg. “We the xxxxx people are not participating in this referendum because yyyy plus we are not citizens of the state of QLD anyway, we are peoples under colonial occupation”. This way, you will be heard clearly. It will be difficult for the media to spin if the group of people is large enough. It may also help prevent potential election fraud (eg. if it turns out that members of your group had their names crossed off when they didn’t vote). It might also be a good idea for someone to keep track of names and/or a count of people who are under the public statement. I think it is unlikely that your people will be fined for not voting in this scenario, particularly for this referendum, because the government would need massive balls to fine your group for expressing their identity in this way – and that’s mainly to do with International laws on self-determination of colonised peoples AND also the “Indigenous rights”/UNDRIP (gammin version of self-determination).

Another way to make an active action against the referendum on the side of a boycott is by a petition to c24 as I blogged about here.

A boycott can also be passive and lazy. Just don’t turn up, and don’t say anything. That might be good for your own peace of mind. But it’s probably not going to be very effective, even if you are a high profile person with a platform and put out your own statement.

It doesn’t make sense for us to be voting anyway

It doesn’t really make sense for us Aboriginal people to be voting at all in this Australian referendum.

• At Yulara an offer was made on behalf of all First Nations[sic] people to the Australian people.
• The Australian people will accept of reject the offer. They do so by having a referendum.
• Aboriginal people shouldn’t be voting in the Australian referendum, because then they are playing both sides of the table.

If we vote in the referendum, not only are we playing both sides of the table, but it sends the wrong message about who we are.

Unlike previous referendums or elections, it is especially important for this particular referendum: high levels of Aboriginal participation could be mis-interpreted that we are asserting our identity as Australians with a right to say in the matter. When did we become Australian? If we are Australian at all, we must have always been Australian. The First Australians, under brutal Australian law.

In terms of the right to self-determination for colonial peoples determining their political status, that’s a big mistake in my opinion. We need to differentiate ourselves, and any negotiation with the occupiers needs to be from a basis of “us and them”, at least initially. As John Howard said (paraphrasing) – Australia can’t treaty with itself. If we start off-the-bat saying we are one with colony, there’s no point.

I’m playing contrarian

This one a dumb reason for a boycott, but it is one of my reasons… There are certain “grassroots leaders” who I don’t trust, because I have watched them carefully for several years, and they are consistently nudging Aboriginal people in what my analysis shows is the wrong direction. These individuals now seem to be trying to dissuade a boycott in favour of a NO vote. I see them coming a MILE away… And it feeds into my confirmation bias. Not the best reason, but a reason nonetheless.

Reasons to Vote No instead of boycott

Reading what I’ve written, I think maybe I’m too harsh on vote no. I’m trying to think of a good reason to vote no rather than boycott.

But I’m struggling… There’s only one reason I can think of, and that there’s a small possibility that it may be the difference between the referendum passing or failing. But I don’t buy lotto tickets.

Titleimage from John Hain on Pixabay