Latest news with #VoiceReferendum
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- General
- Daily Mail
Stan Grant launches an explosive attack on the ABC
Stan Grant has revealed his deep 'sadness' over how the ABC failed in its 'duty of care' to him when he and his family were the target of relentless racist abuse and death threats. The veteran broadcaster and journalist also shared his thoughts on the failure of the Voice referendum, the future of treaties in Australia and the recent boing of the Welcome to Country ceremony at the Melbourne ANZAC Day dawn service in a wide-ranging and nuanced interview with TVNZ's Jack Tame. Grant, 61, quit his role as host of the ABC's Q+A in May 2023 after being subjected to 'relentless racial filth'. In a parting shot, he accused the ABC of 'institutional failure' over how he was treated when he was being bombarded with abuse during the Voice referendum. 'I became a target, my family became a target and the level of abuse just grew louder and louder and louder,' he said. 'Being misrepresented, hateful comments made to me, my wife, my children, my parents. And death threats against us. And a person arrested and charged. 'And throughout it all, I have to say with some sadness, a failure on the part of my employer to handle that and to be able to show proper duty of care to someone in my position who was exposed in ways that I couldn't control.' Grant said his decision to quit was to protect his family and his own sanity. But he insisted he held no one at the ABC personally responsible. 'I didn't feel protected and supported as I should have done with my employer. I don't necessarily blame them,' he added. 'I think they were swimming in waters that were far too deep for them.' After leaving the ABC, Grant said he retreated into Yindyamarra, an Aboriginal philosophy encompassing respect and sitting in silence as a way of trying to understand others and the world around you. The period of deep contemplation allowed him to change how he viewed the failure of the Voice referendum. 'There was something existential about this vote for us as Aboriginal people,' he said. 'It wasn't just a constitutional amendment, it felt like a vote on us. Inevitably, it does. 'We live in a country where we are three percent of the population. We are the most disadvantaged people, we are the most impoverished, we are the most imprisoned. 'We come out of very hard history. And that's almost unknowable to many Australians because Australia is a postcard, and it's beautiful, and it's rich and it's successful, and it's multicultural and it's peaceful. And they're phenomenal achievements.' He said he now saw the Voice as a a 'political failure, rather than a moral failure'. Grant also praised New Zealand for its approach to reconciliation with the Maori people. 'It's interesting being in New Zealand and the ease people move in out of the shared space. 'You know that you are in a place that is founded on something that is very vertical, very deep and very shared - contested, yes and not evenly distributed - and I think the treaty goes a long way to that,' he said. He was referencing the Treaty of Waitangi, the foundational document in New Zealand's history which established a relationship between the Maori and the British Crown. 'Australia doesn't have that. We don't have treaties. We don't have a constitutional recognition,' Grant said. 'There is still the overhang of Terra Nullius (meaning 'nobody's land' in Latin) that it was claimed because we simply weren't there in a legal sense. They are existential wounds that we have no dealt with.' Grant said that he was faced with a choice between having to 'imagine the Australia that I want or live in the Australia that I have'. 'To imagine a treaty, the likes of which you have here (in New Zealand), in the Australian context is just not possible. We are not made that way.' 'I navigate this now as more of a question of The Voice being a political failure rather than a moral failure.' Grant was also asked about the ugly scenes during the ANZAC Day dawn service in Melbourne where the air of reverence was broken during Bunurong elder Mark Brown's Welcome to Country, when loud heckles and boos threatened to drown him out. 'The wonderful thing about that is that the people who applauded the welcome and showed respect, far outweighed the small number of neo-Nazis, which is what they are, who had booed that Welcome,' Grant said. He said his immediate, gut reaction was to think 'Australia hates us' but his considered response allowed him to realise those who opposed the booing far outweighed the minority who were doing it. But he criticised Peter Dutton for trying to score political points by seizing on the national discussion to say he thought Welcome to Country ceremonies were sometimes 'overdone'. He accused the former Opposition Leader of a 'moral failure'. To take that and land that in the midst of a culture war where once again Aboriginal people were a political football and it backfired.' He added: 'The conservative side of politics sought to inflict a moral injury out of what was a very hateful act from a very small number of people.' Grant went further, claiming that opposition and criticism of Welcome to Country ceremonies was actually a 'failure of Conservatism'. 'What deeper conservative tradition could there be than a Welcome to Country that is thousands of years old? That is joined with an ANZAC service that is a solemn acknowledgment of sacrifice for the greater good,' he said. 'And to put those two beautiful traditions together creates a sacred space that we can all share in and any decent conservatism would seek to preserve that as a common good.' Grant also turned his sights on the media in general, which he claims is responsible for 'generating conflict and polarising debate'. 'I really had to confront what I was doing and what I saw, I thought, in the complicity of media in the conflicts of our age,' he said of his decision to quit the public broadcaster. 'I started to see that the media in many ways was the poison in the bloodstream of our society.' Since he quit the ABC two years ago, Grant has written a book about the failure of the Voice called Murriyang: Song of Time and has served as the Vice Chancellor's Chair of Australian-Indigenous Belonging at Charles Sturt University.
ABC News
4 days ago
- Business
- ABC News
Economy and culture wars cost the Liberals with voters
There has been a lot of talk the so-called "lessons" for the Liberal Party after its decimation at the last election. From culture wars to the economy, the lessons from this election are widespread and some blatantly obvious. One particular area of soul searching has been about the way the Voice referendum and the messages — or non-messages — it sent have been used and misused. The other about the impact of welcome-to-country debate. There's a growing consensus that an obsession with these issues is damaging the Liberal Party brand, particularly in the cities. What there hasn't been enough reflection on is how the Liberal Party failed in areas where it has always had a traditional advantage — the economy. New post-election research demonstrates the Coalition is losing its advantage even here. If the trend continues, that is diabolical for the Liberals. When Treasurer Jim Chalmers was first appointed treasurer three years ago, he made it his mission to reverse the reputation of Labor being weak on the economy. What is extraordinary about the federal election is despite the cost-of-living crisis, voters, who overwhelmingly vote on the state of the economy, marked Labor just ahead of the Coalition. After every election there are surveys done to understand why voters went the way they did. A report from Talbot Mills Research, one of the polling firms used by Labor, found Labor had beaten the opposition on the economy. When voters were asked, unprompted, what their most important voting factors where, 18 per cent chose inflation and cost of living as their most important issue. Talbot Mills Research director David Talbot said the research showed the Liberals had lost ground in this area. "In our research, Labor ended up with a one-point edge over the Liberals as the better party for managing the economy," he said. "Around the world, centre-right parties typically lead by 10 to 15 points on this question. If Labor can continue to match or beat the Coalition on economic management, it could position them to become the natural party of government in Australia," he said. Before the election, it was clear the prime minister was spooked by talking about Aboriginal affairs because of the Voice defeat and the way Peter Dutton had weaponised it. Just a few weeks before he called the election, Anthony Albanese distanced himself from the Uluru statement's other requests — treaty and truth-telling — disappointing Aboriginal leaders and showing Labor's timidity after the Voice. But after its landslide election victory, there is a quiet shift going on inside Labor, another realignment on how it should handle these issues. It is being led by Indigenous people either in or aligned with Labor who believe the election has signalled a seismic shift in the politics around Aboriginal affairs. The federal government has now signalled it is open to considering a national truth-telling process — a dramatic shift that speaks volumes about its growing confidence. Speaking to me on Thursday, Indigenous Australians Minister Malarndirri McCarthy said that while the Voice was lost, there was an opportunity to learn from the different states conducting truth-telling, including Victoria and South Australia, and said the government was committed to the principles of the Uluru Statement from the Heart. Pressed on if she wanted to commit and advance the principles — especially truth-telling — in Labor's second term, she said: "We've never shied away from the principles." "We have a First Nations caucus to meet. We've got to be sworn into parliament at the end of July. There's still a road to go. But can I say to your viewers, I am very much open to listening to what people have to say," she said. McCarthy said the election result sent a strong message about these issues. "There was also welcome to countries and we saw how the opposition wanted to use cultural wars through the election to determine the outcome of the referendum. "And our country, thankfully, voted no against hate. Voted no against culture wars and supported us in moving forward. "I take that not only as the minister for Indigenous Australians but also as a woman in the Labor caucus. I take that as an opportunity for us now as a Labor government to really have a good look at what we can do in this term." It is the first sign — subtly and gently delivered — that the minister for Indigenous Australians sees the significant political capital Labor now has as an opportunity to meet the needs of Indigenous Australians. Professor Marcia Langton, who campaigned for a Yes vote, has long talked about truth-telling, declaring after the referendum that Yolngu leader Galarrwuy Yunupingu had taught her many years ago that you know when you're being told the truth, because "the truth burns". She says the country now has a unique opportunity to embark on a process of learning about the past. In the time since the Voice defeat, she has been working on several projects that at their heart tell the truth about the history of our country. One is a truth-telling book about the history of Melbourne University. The other — an art exhibition called 65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art, featuring more than 400 works — opened on Friday. The exhibition places confronting chapters of Australia's post-colonial history on display, works from early European arrival to the University of Melbourne's historic eugenics practices. "Many works are works of truth-telling. They're not simply decorative," Langton says. Across the country, truth telling has been quietly progressing while politicians have been shouting. Langton now believes the time has come for the country to turn the corner. "Albanese's government has an unprecedented mandate to improve the lives of all Australians. His government also has an unprecedented opportunity to achieve equity for the most disadvantaged Australians," she said. "While I congratulate him for his courage in putting the referendum question to Australian voters, I also ask him to see clearly through the fog of racism that LNP leaders instigated, to be brave and compassionate. "Indigenous leaders do not want power; we want to advise on sound policies that correct the history of failure in closing the gap. "I want to see great courage from our prime minister and his cabinet to stare down those who think it is OK to allow the horrific disadvantages faced by far too many Indigenous Australians: sky-rocketing incarceration and child removal rates, unemployment, food insecurity and stubbornly high chronic disease. "Elevating our aspirations for economic development and accelerated education and employment supports to shift people towards equity sooner, not 30 years from now — that's what I would like Albanese to lead." Langton believes that in the federal election, voters "turned against the culture wars directed against them and their wellbeing". The messages of Labor's whopping election victory are many. But the opportunities are now self-evident. By the end of last week, it became clear that One Nation got the same number of senators up as the Nationals. One Nation also took 6.4 per cent of the primary vote. The Nationals, if you include the CLP, got 4.03 per cent of the primary. If you add in a third of the LNP vote, they still only reach 6.39 per cent of the primary — less than One Nation. NSW Liberal senator Dave Sharma has been making the case that the Liberals need to embark on a policy process that better understands the needs of the cities. The fact the Nationals are so small yet demand so much explains the frustration in Liberal ranks. "The Liberals have been evicted from the cities. We now only hold eight of 88 metropolitan seats. Winning back these suburban votes, in part by ensuring we reflect their values and priorities, must be our most important focus if we are to remain a competitive party of government," Sharma tells me. "The Nationals have their constituency, and we have ours, and we both need to respect that." Other Liberals tell me the links are clear. A failure to own the economic narrative and an over-focus on issues that are either low order for Australians — or seen in Australian capital cities as largely settled. Flags don't win elections. Patricia Karvelas is presenter of ABC TV's Q+A, host of ABC News Afternoon Briefing at 4pm weekdays on ABC News Channel, co-host of the weekly Party Room podcast with Fran Kelly and host of politics and news podcast Politics Now.
ABC News
27-05-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
Liberal insiders say Voice triumph confused Coalition's election priorities
Was the "no" result in the Voice referendum a pyrrhic victory for the Liberal party? Our Four Corners story on the fight inside the Coalition over its future direction revealed something I didn't expect to. Even those who strongly advocated against the Voice believe it gave the party all the wrong messages about how Australians felt about a broader range of issues and established a sense of complacency that ultimately led to its historic belting. From the conservative to the moderate side of the Liberal Party room there is a growing consensus that the "no" vote fought for by the conservatives created the wrong impression for the party. Rising conservative star Andrew Hastie told me the Voice gave the Coalition "a false sense of confidence". "I think Australians are naturally, we're incrementalists," he said. "So the Voice was a massive change to our constitution, which is why I think it was defeated. But that's very different to who do you want to govern this country? And in order to win people over, you've got to demonstrate that you're fighting for them. And I just don't think we landed that argument." Asked if fighting against the Voice could have been damaging for Peter Dutton, Hastie answered: "Yes, perhaps. But I think we probably lingered over the voice for too long. Like I said, it was a tactical victory. Things can change very quickly in politics." That view is shared by former shadow attorney-general Julian Leeser, who resigned from his opposition portfolio in 2023 in order to campaign for the referendum. He argued on Afternoon Briefing yesterday that the Coalition's success in defeating the Voice to parliament referendum gave the Liberal party "a false sense of confidence" about its chances of victory in the federal election. Leeser says that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese "seemed to lose his way" after the Voice referendum was defeated and this, combined with what he says was Albanese's poor handling of the local antisemitism crisis, "gave so many in our party a false sense of confidence". Leeser says he was "shocked" that the internal polling conducted for the Coalition used the number of Labor voters who voted "no" in the referendum in his calculations of a swing against the government, which was instead returned in a landslide. The government's victory is so big it mirrors John Howard's 1996 election landslide. "Part of the reason my colleagues were successfully defeating the referendum was in 2023 the issue did not seem to be one of top priority for Australian voters," Leeser said. "Certainly, in 2025, it was completely irrelevant and I had no idea why the issue kept reappearing in our campaign." While Dutton regularly raised the Voice as one of several examples to demonstrate that Labor was out of touch, he campaigned in the last week of the campaign on what he said was a "secret plan to legislate the Voice" after Foreign Minister Penny Wong told a podcast "we'll look back on it in 10 years' time and it'll be a bit like marriage equality". "It indicated we were not in touch with the concerns of ordinary Australians," Leeser said. "People were not talking to me about those issues until we raised them; they were concerned about paying the electricity bills, their mortgage, about the future of their children and what sort of jobs they would have in a world where AI will present both threats and opportunities. "We were not talking about any of those enough, and instead focused on esoteric issues and I think it indicated a lack of discipline and real focus." Despite a deep schism over the future of the party and how to deal with vexed questions including whether to stay committed to net zero by 2050 — many in the party acknowledge that the Voice set them on a path which created false positives that didn't materialise in votes on election day. That revelation — if listened to carefully — provides warnings on how to rebuild. It is a cautionary tale on what to focus on and where Australians expect their political parties to be focused. The Liberals are now in negotiations to bring the Nationals back into the Coalition — with Nationals leader David Littleproud denying that his party "flip flopped" on its split with the Liberals. "There's no flip flopping from the National Party. We did not blink," he told Sky News. But it's Littleproud whose leadership is under pressure over the shambolic incident and he is on borrowed time according to key members of his own party room. Opposition Leader Sussan Ley may have a monumental task before her in settling issues that are red lines for many inside her party but her leadership has been strengthened by the recalcitrant junior Coalition partner's overreach. Her next job is to manage the divergence in her own party room. The Nationals may end up seeming like the easier job compared with managing some of the policy differences inside her own party. Watch Four Corners's Decimated, reported by Patricia Karvelas, on ABC iview. Patricia Karvelas is presenter of ABC TV's Q+A, host of ABC News Afternoon Briefing at 4pm weekdays on ABC News Channel, co-host of the weekly Party Room podcast with Fran Kelly and host of politics and news podcast Politics Now.
News.com.au
14-05-2025
- Politics
- News.com.au
Ley can't repeat Dutton's mistakes - it's time to let her freak flag fly
COMMENT In the aftermath of the Labor Party's 2022 election victory, there was much praise for Peter Dutton keeping the show together without any big blow-ups. But as the Liberal Party surveys the scorched earth of their 2025 defeat, it's worth asking the hard question: Was this failure to have the big policy fights one of their biggest mistakes? The Liberal Party has been playing pretend for three years like they are still in government, too timid and too scared to rock the boat and have the fight. High on their own supply of fantasy football that they would be storming the Prime Minister's office after one-term in 2025, they wanted to keep a lid on the big debates. There wasn't even a leadership vote after the 2022 election. Queenslander Dutton got handed the top job without ever having a fight or spelling out why he wanted it or deserved it. Can you even remember any big policy barneys this term after the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison years? Even the opposition to Peter Dutton's ultimate position on the Voice referendum was a genteel affair, leading to one bloke few had ever heard of – NSW Liberal MP Julian Leeser – retreating to the backbench. Politics is meant to be a contest of ideas. The Liberal Party ended up looking like it didn't have any good ones. Bizarrely, this mob appeared to have more robust arguments about policy while running the government than during the freedom years of the opposition. Sure, Peter Dutton took a big gamble on nuclear power. But he then spent the entire campaign refusing to talk about it and refusing to back it in. He showcased all the policy timidity and equivocation and anxiety that ended up swallowing him whole during the election campaign. Liberal frontbenchers were tasked with coming up with acres of policy ideas that got buried in the leader's office. Mr Dutton, the big, bad, bald hardman of the Liberal Party, had a soft, gooey, frightened centre over policy fights like work from home. And it was his undoing. By contrast, the teary Prime Minister, who cried when he called the election and talked about Medicare or whenever anyone mentioned his mum Maryanne, has always hidden a ruthless political tough guy. Hell, Anthony Albanese this week even went around terminating cabinet enemies who got on his wrong side during his first term, including the NSW Right's Ed Husic. He even managed to get his deputy Richard Marles to take the blame. That's next level Machiavellian gear. People are complex like that and so are politicians. But the fights the Liberal Party needs to have now are about policy, not personalities. So here's the best piece of advice to the Liberal Party as it tries to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Have the policy fights. Let it all hang out. It's time to let your freak flag fly. The fundamentals of what the Liberal Party is supposed to stand for are just fine – lower, fairer taxes. Why that article of faith was trashed during the election by the brains trust of Mr Dutton and Angus Taylor is unfathomable. It's worth remembering that the seeds of victory inevitably lie in the lessons of defeat. Would John Howard have governed for as long as he did without John Hewson losing the 1993 election? Would Mr Albanese or his ALP campaign chief Paul Erickson have won the 2025 election without the brutalising experience of the 2019 election loss under Bill Shorten? Most pundits seem to think the Liberal Party has Buckley's chance of winning the next election. Those sort of predictions sometimes turn out to be wonky. But let's imagine it's true. This is the Coalition's big chance to knock down and remodel the Liberal Party for government in the future. Time to call in the demolition crew and the architects. To win government in the future, the Liberal Party must also fix two other issues. First, grow up over John Howard, and second, grow up about women. The former prime minister will always be a lion of the Liberal Party, the second-longest serving prime minister of Australia, after Sir Robert Menzies. He served from 1996 to 2007, a total of 11 years. He is rightly revered and his counsel sought. But the world has changed since that era and the Liberal Party has failed to change with it. The whole show just smells incredibly musty. You can respect Mr Howard without pretending that the issues that moved voters in the 1980s keep millennials up at night 40 years later. Which brings us to the ladies. The embarrassing Stockholm syndrome of women in the Liberal Party lining up to insist they don't need quotas because it's all about merit – it's too much. Here's the cold, hard truth. Please, please stop talking about merit when you have chosen the musty old crew of boring men you have on your frontbench. If that's merit, please don't say this out loud, as people will giggle. The problem with the bogus merit argument is staring us all in the face if you look at the frontbench photo under Mr Dutton. Just enough. Ladies, we recognise this is the only way you get preselected, by pedalling this nonsense to 90-year-old Liberals in Launceston putting their teeth in a jar. We get it. But it's not going to get you into government. If you talk to any blokes in the Liberal Party who have worked in the private sector, they will tell you. Corporates worked out years ago that they needed to promote women into leadership if they wanted to get women into leadership. They are not always ready. Neither are the men. But until you fix this, your entire party is going to smell like your grandmother's wardrobe. So, no you don't need to have quotas. Call it a target if you want. Call it a TimTam. Nobody cares. Just fix it. Good luck. Enjoy the freedom years. It could open the door to the government faster than you think.
