There has been no shortage of navel-gazing in the year since the Voice referendum failed. Voice advocates have repeatedly blamed ‘misinformation’ from the No side. They have also blamed Anthony Albanese for the cardinal sin of taking their preferred model to the public. They have blamed Peter Dutton for failing to acquiesce to this maximalist Voice model.

The issue, however, is more fundamental. Let’s not mince words: the Voice was a bad idea. It was also prosecuted badly. The Yes campaign had vastly more funds to splurge than the No campaign thanks to foundations and corporations who simply extorted shareholders without asking for their views. It also had the support of the ‘elites’, and nearly all sporting codes, corporations and organisations. It appeared superficially as if the Yes case had the support of the entire community.

All in all, a bad idea.

Let’s start with the underlying problem. The Voice inherently separated Australians into categories based on race. It did this both symbolically and practically. Symbolically, it would have inserted a new chapter into the constitution to specifically refer to indigenous rights.

The Voice would have given additional powers to a subset of Australians and there was not even a clear definition of indigeneity. This is because only the Voice would have a constitutionally enshrined right to funding, to make representations, and implicitly be consulted on policy by both parliament and all government agencies.

In turn, the Voice would have operational power by being able to sue should it allege its representations were not given due consideration or if it were not ‘adequately’ consulted. Access, funding, and justiciability, meaning that it has the right to make its case, gives power. The Voice thus conferred additional powers on one group of Australians. No other Australians would have such constitutionally enshrined guarantees.

The problem therefore was that the Voice was prima facie discriminatory. Australians saw this discrimination for what it was, and they rejected it decisively. In a way, racism did sink the Voice, but it was people rejecting the racism inherent in the Voice’s very basis.

Which leads us to the poor execution.

The pro-Voice case was botched. Even if the Voice were palatable, the marketing was so bad that it was doomed to fail.

The biggest issue was gaslighting and misinformation from the Yes campaign. Misinformation did help to sink the Voice. But it was the Yes campaign’s own misinformation that was its own undoing. Let’s look at some examples, and this is not an exhaustive list:

The Yes campaign repeatedly claimed that the Voice would not have any power. But, as we outlined above, it would have constructive power, and those concerns were never properly addressed so much as condescendingly dismissed.

The Yes campaign vacillated over the scope of the Voice. The Attorney-General falsely stated that the Voice would only address matters that applied ‘differently to other members of the Australian community’. His claims were in his second reading speech. This was false as the constitution’s text did not limit scope in any way, shape, or form. Even defence, foreign affairs and international treaties remained on the cards. The Yes misinformation was endemic from the beginning.

The Yes institute – the Uluru Dialogue – operating the ‘Uluru Statement’ social media accounts made factually false statements about the composition of the Voice body. They falsely claimed that it was a ‘fact’ that the Voice would have equal gender representation, regional representation, be elected, and so on. These claims were false as the Voice referendum text said nothing of the sort. Further, there was no enabling legislation tabled in relation to the Voice body, meaning that claims about how the Voice body would be comprised were misinformation.

There was a farce over the length of the Uluru Statement. In 2018, Megan Davis stated that, ‘The Uluru Statement from the Heart isn’t just the first one-page statement; it’s actually a very lengthy document of about 18 to 20 pages, and a very powerful part of this document reflects what happened in the dialogues’. But when people looked at those additional pages, they found that they called for reparations, including reparations in the form of a percentage of GDP. This was unpalatable, triggering a backflip and claims that the Uluru Statement was really just one page, which nevertheless called for a ‘treaty’. We just were not told what that treaty would involve.

Australians saw through the inconsistent statements and the claims that defied basic logic. After all, access plus funding is power. We were told that this was precisely the point. But, when people were nonplussed by this, we were just told to switch our brains off and believe that the Voice was just an outstretched hand. The messaging looked duplicitous.

Moreover, let us not forget the bullying. When people raised the inconsistencies in the Yes campaign, they were accused of spreading so-called ‘misinformation’. Or they were labelled ignorant. Or racist. Bullying and name-calling is not a vote-winning strategy. But the government has repeatedly adopted that strategy elsewhere, too, including when prosecuting and defending its big government fiscal policy.

The shemozzle was not entirely Anthony Albanese’s fault. He should have known better than to pursue a maximalist Voice. He should have forced additional safeguards into the referendum text to assuage concerns. But dogmatists won the day.

The debacle was not Peter Dutton’s fault, either. There were claims that the lack of bipartisanship sunk the Voice. But bipartisanship is to be sought, not assumed. If a Bill is bad, the opposition should oppose it. As it turns out, Peter Dutton’s position was that of the 61 per cent of the Australians who rejected the Voice outright.

The net result was that the Yes campaign prosecuted a bad case and did so badly. The lesson:  people did and do not want the Voice.

Treaties are even more extreme than the Voice and it beggars belief that people who rejected the latter would want the former. Premiers should realise this rather than trying to steamroll their voters into treaties and reparations.