The ‘No’ campaign against an indigenous voice to parliament is facing accusations of deliberately spreading fear and misinformation. It comes after reports volunteers are being encouraged not to disclose, they are from the no campaign when making cold calls.
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00:00 Well, what surfaced today out of the No campaign is a session where a former government, a
00:09 former Liberal staffer is instructing now, sorry, former Liberal staffer who now works
00:14 for Fair Australia, which comes under the conservative lobby group Advance, which is
00:19 running the main campaign against the voice to Parliament, is coaching prospective volunteers
00:25 on how to make cold calls, targeting soft yes and soft no supporters to try and win
00:31 support. That in itself is not surprising. This is all part of campaign tactics. But
00:36 what did come out as part of that session, which the ABC has seen, is that people from
00:42 the No campaign are being encouraged to not tell people on the phone that they are calling
00:47 from the No camp. They are said that that could scare people off and cause conversations
00:53 to end early. They are encouraged instead to be saying that they are calling from Fair
00:58 Australia. Also, as part of the script that these volunteers are being served, they are
01:05 being asked to then raise concerns around questions that they have with prospective
01:11 voters about the voice to Parliament proposal. And those concerns centre around the fact,
01:17 well, not the fact, but the opinion that Australia Day could be affected by the voice or that
01:23 the voice could be used to push for compensation or treaty down the line. So this has caused
01:30 concern particularly from the Yes campaign, who say that the No campaign is deliberately
01:36 sowing fear and misinformation among voters. The government has called this out as well
01:42 and say that they are not happy with the way that the No campaign is conducting itself.
01:47 SPEERS So what has happened at Parliament House in relation to this today?
01:51 BOWEN Well, very robust question time, as they all
01:55 have been lately, to be honest. But this is the last sitting week before we head towards
02:00 that October 14 referendum date. So this is the last chance that politicians will have
02:04 to duke it out before we go to the vote on October 14. Now, there are a lot of questions
02:11 directed towards the Indigenous Australians Minister, Linda Burney. And at one point after
02:16 an answer that Minister Burney gave, Peter Dutton, the Leader of the Opposition, attempted
02:21 to suspend standing orders for a debate around whether her answer was orderly or not. That
02:28 was ultimately shot down. And then there was a division not long before I've come in to
02:33 speak to you. That motion hasn't gone through, but certainly speaks to the tone of the debate
02:39 with both sides getting very, very robust in the chamber. There was also an issue earlier
02:47 on when the Deputy Opposition Leader, Susan Lee, read out half of a quote from a newspaper
02:55 in WA, which Marcia Langton, one of the co-authors of the Calma Langton report that informs a
03:02 perspective model for the voice, had said she was misquoted in that. And that's been
03:09 the centre of some debate into the afternoon. So there's a lot of different things flying
03:15 around. Earlier today, Keren Little spoke to my colleague Greg Jennett here on afternoon
03:20 briefing. She was asked directly about the tactics of the no campaign, whether or not
03:25 they were in order with a good, respectful campaign that people have been calling for
03:30 around the voice. Here's what she had to say.
03:34 I think we have to be careful when we talk about the no campaign. I am no to this form
03:39 of constitutional recognition or it being in the constitution. That doesn't necessarily
03:43 make us all the no campaign, all the same.
03:46 So you're distancing yourself from...
03:48 I'm not distancing myself. You just can't throw people collectively who don't engage
03:52 in day-to-day conversations. I've not been involved in drafting up questions, training
03:58 people. I'm not removing myself from that conversation. What I'm saying is the no campaign
04:04 is much bigger than one individual or one organisation. What I can talk about is what
04:09 I do. And I think the way I've conducted myself is on the record.
04:14 And so, Dana, we're a month away now from the vote, where all Australians will vote
04:18 on this. Where do things stand in terms of support?
04:22 Well, it's very, very difficult to tell, Jo. The ABC doesn't report on individual polls.
04:30 However, we do collect the averages of all the polling that are done by the main pollsters
04:35 out there, including Redbridge, the Guardian's Essential Poll, News Poll, which runs through
04:42 the Australian newspaper, and we look at the averages. And as our colleague Casey Briggs
04:47 spelled out very well on Insiders on Sunday, the average of the yes vote is trending significantly
04:54 down and has been for some time, and the no vote is on the uptick. From here, it is difficult
05:00 to see a path to victory for the yes camp. There are sort of two things that could lead
05:06 to that, that there is a complete 180 turnaround and an uptick in support from here, or that
05:13 the polls have got it wrong. So, many pollsters will tell you when you speak to them, there's
05:18 only one poll that matters, and that's on the day itself in the voting booth. So, we
05:24 will just have to wait and see on that one and see how it all shakes out on October 14.
05:29 And so, you've been following this closely. What do you make of the effectiveness or otherwise
05:33 of the respective campaigns so far?
05:36 Yeah, it's interesting. It's certainly the yes campaign, to start with them, have a difficult
05:44 task on their hands because constitutional change is not easy to achieve in Australia.
05:51 It's also the proposition that is being put forward is something that everyday Australians
05:56 aren't engaging with. Most people before this last 12 months probably hadn't really thought
06:02 about the constitution at all. And so, a proposal to change it, they're sort of starting from
06:07 a place of what is this and why should it be changed? So, it is difficult to engage
06:13 people in that discussion. Interestingly, the no campaign, part of that training session
06:19 that the ABC has seen where those issues we spoke about earlier came up, they spoke about
06:27 the effectiveness of emotion in this campaign. And that's certainly something that they've
06:32 latched onto very effectively. Always calling it a divisive voice to parliament proposal
06:39 is something that is sort of laid out as one of their tactics in this particular session.
06:45 And the reason for that is that it's emotive language. It makes people feel a certain way.
06:50 And they say that emotion will win out over logic at the polling booth. So, they're certainly
06:55 trying to make people feel something about the voice and that is that they feel that
07:00 it's divisive and they want to sell that message on to Australians. The yes case now have the
07:06 task ahead of them to sell the antithesis of that, that this is a unifying moment. That's
07:12 something that we've certainly heard. But when your comeback is as simple as no, we
07:19 don't want it, it is a difficult case for them to be able to sell.
07:22 Dane, I'm just interested to hear, do you come across people you know who are still
07:27 unclear on what they're voting on? I think it's important when we have these discussions
07:31 as journalists because we've been talking about it ad nauseum for quite some time now.
07:35 There are a lot of people out there who still don't seem to know. And isn't the bottom line,
07:40 it is a pretty straightforward question.
07:44 It is. It's written in sort of parliamentary language and politicians speak. But what the
07:50 question is actually asking Australians is whether there should be an advisory body that's
07:55 part of the constitution that gives advice to the Parliament and the Executive Government
08:00 of Australia on laws and matters that affect Indigenous people and that the Parliament
08:06 will make the laws about the body itself. So that question that we hear all the time
08:11 about detail, that will be decided by the people asking the questions in some cases
08:17 because it will be decided by the people who are elected here in Parliament House.
08:21 It's funny you say that. I do encounter people all the time who don't know about this, who
08:26 are unsure of the debate and are struggling to find good touch points of information so
08:32 they can get across both sides of this proposal and work out where they fit.
08:36 I'll take the opportunity now, pretty shameless plug, but if you put everything you need to
08:41 know about the voice into the ABC News YouTube or you go onto the voice referendum page on
08:47 the ABC News website, you'll get a lovely little explainer if I do say myself, which
08:53 we cooked up earlier this year. All the information in that still stands. It'll give you where
08:58 the voice came from, what it would propose to do, why people are for it, why people are
09:05 against it.
09:05 [BLANK_AUDIO]