Sky News

• The “yes” and “no” campaigns for a Voice to Parliament are about to be supercharged as both sides begin a six-week countdown to voting day.
• This includes the key messages that are getting the most public attention – in the news, social media, online ads and opinion polls.
• To win, “yes” needs to get a majority of voters in a majority of states.

What’s happening in the news?

• This week it is averaging 7,184 mentions, showing how attention to the debate is slowly building since the start of the year.
• To date, public engagement through media and social media posts is more likely to be piqued by criticism of the Voice than support for it.

What’s trending on social media?

• When we look at who and what is getting public attention on Facebook and X, it is most often conservative figures and politicians sharing Sky News reports critical of the Voice.
• In the past three months, the top five items that have had the most interactions - tens of thousands of shares each and reaching more than 6 million viewers collectively - on X and Facebook, are:


These snapshots are concerning because some stories contain misleading information such as Pitt linking the Voice to state laws. But they also show the power of negative stories to attract attention, and the reach of Rupert Murdoch’s Sky News TV stories beyond its paywall.

What’s happening in online advertising?

• About 14% of ad spending is reserved for elsewhere, namely South Australia ($73,528) and Tasmania ($26,739).
• However, Yes23’s core messages are more disparate than the “no” ads paid for by Advance Australia for the “Fair Australia” campaign.
• The “no” ad spend focuses on its stronghold states in Queensland ($33,652) and Western Australia ($27,234), and the possible flip-state South Australia ($16,6712).

How are the polls looking?

• In looking at the key messages, the ad spend, and the polls, we can provide a snapshot of the state of the two campaigns so far.
• As with any voting campaign, much can change as public attention sharpens as polling day looms.
• He is an affiliate of the International Panel on the Information Environment (IPIE), and member of the Electoral Integrity Project‘s International Advisory Board.

• “Reverse racism” claims have surfaced in the current debate around the Voice to Parliament referendum.
• “The concept looks racist to me,” wrote Sky News commentator Kel Richards last August.
• Such views misrepresent the Voice as preferential treatment of First Nations peoples, falsely suggesting it would somehow weaken the political say of non-Indigenous Australians.
• Put simply, the concept of “reverse racism” – or “anti-white racism” – just doesn’t work, because racism is more than just prejudice.

Why ‘reverse racism’ is a myth

• Prejudice and discrimination are inherently tied to historically rooted and entrenched, institutionalised forms of systemic racism and racial hierarchies, injustices and power imbalance.
• Read more:
  Explainer: what is systemic racism and institutional racism?
• They may be discriminated against: for example, by an ethnic business owner who prefers to employ someone from their community background.

How common are reverse racism claims?

• A more recent US survey, in 2022, concluded that 30% of white respondents saw “a lot more discrimination against white Americans”.
• But there is evidence a significant minority of Australians seem convinced anti-white racism is a thing.
• A 2018 Australian survey found that around 10% of respondents who stated they had witnessed racism as bystanders said the victim of the allegedly “racist” incident was a white person.
• Actually, that’s reverse racism!” But as he has argued, “To be called racist for identifying actual racist behaviours and rhetoric is not OK.”

  Read more:
  How believers in 'white genocide' are spreading their hate-filled message in Australia

Backlash against racial justice

• “Reverse racism” sometimes reflects a naïve but profound lack of racial literacy.
• But more often, it’s a defensive backlash against societal reckoning with racial injustices, both past and present.
• And it’s often an expression of “white fragility” in the face of an increasing awareness of racism in Australia – as epitomised by Hanson’s political career.

• Mark's practice covers both non-contentious and contentious matters in all areas of commercial law, intellectual property law, information technology law, Internet, digital and privacy/data law.
• He has extensive experience in-house, having been seconded in the past to Hewlett Packard and new technology companies.
• Mark appears regularly on BBC1 (usually providing advice on-screen to BBC Watchdog) and also on Sky News as a legal commentator.
• Founder of The Knowledge Business, is a UK solicitor (non-practising) and specialist in Knowledge, Learning and Innovation.

• Party stability on the progressive side of politics, and repeated party reconfiguration on the conservative side of politics, is a marked contrast in the history of Australia’s two-party political system.
• That history is relevant now, as the Liberals find themselves in the electoral wilderness, and as a schism emerges over its stance on the referendum for an Indigenous Voice to the Australian parliament.

A party of many iterations

In contrast to the Australian Labor Party, which predates Federation in 1901 and has existed continuously since, the Liberal Party was formed in 1944 and formally launched in 1945. It is the fifth iteration of the main vehicles through which the centre-right has sought federal parliamentary representation. Federally, the Liberal Party’s genealogy is:
• They were the Deakin-led Protectionist Party, the Free Trade Party (later renamed the Anti-Socialist Party) and the Labor Party.
• In 1909 the Protectionist Party and Anti-Socialist Party united to create the Commonwealth Liberal Party to compete with Labor, ushering in the “two party” era.
• The next two iterations saw the main anti-Labor party unite, from opposition, with Labor breakaways to form a new party.
• In 1931, the Nationalist Party opposition and Labor defector Joseph Lyons and his allies joined to form the United Australia Party (UAP).

Could the Liberal Party be reborn again?

• Holding the Liberal Party together has since become established as the benchmark for Dutton’s success or failure as opposition leader.
• This is either a low bar or it’s a sign that the Liberal Party is indeed at risk of breaking apart.
• Howard and conservative Liberal leadership successors since demanded the selling out of principled centrist policy positions as the price of moderates’ inclusion in cabinet and shadow cabinet.
• The party become less and less reflective of mainstream Australia even as some visible moderates survived and rose through the ministerial ranks.
• Former prime minister Scott Morrison’s misogynistic handling of sexual violence allegations concerning Liberal Party figures followed.
• Read more:
  Will a preoccupation with party unity destroy the Liberal Party?