I’m currently researching and writing a possible scholarly article and/or conference paper on the topic of why referendum proposals are seldom successful in Australia, whether at Federal, State or Local level.
The standard explanations (apart from the peculiar difficulty of the “double majority” required to pass Constitutional amendments) include the alleged conservatism of Australian voters and the low level of political knowledge amongst the voting public. Whatever might be said for or against these proposals, I think there is another important factor. This is that the art of referendum campaigning is much less well developed and well understood than the art of election campaigning. Further, insofar as the most common and well-developed techniques of election campaigning are applicable to referendum campaigns, they are much more effectively applicable to “No” campaigns than to “Yes” campaigns. This is particularly true of modern political advertising techniques
Amongst other things, modern political advertising tends to be:
* negative, often fiercely so;
* visual rather than textual;
* targeted to different segments of an electorate which is profiled and segmented in depth by party organisations;
* in particular, targeted at “swinging voters” who are considered by the parties to be the voters who are least well-informed, least civic minded, most materialistic and most easily stirred to negative emotions;
* increasingly short and simple;
* content-free as far as substantive issues and policies are concerned;
* geared to selling personalities rather than policies.
None of this is well suited to securing the passage of a referendum proposal, and task which requires (a) clearly explaining the proposal so that a large majority of the voting population understand it and (b) providing persuasive arguments to convince a majority of the voters to support it.
One of the case studies I’m looking at is obviously the 1999 republic referendum. Whilst the weaknesses of the “Yes” campaign in 1999 were not the decisive factor in the defeat of the referendum, it is nonetheless the case that the “Yes” case was not well presented. In a piece I wrote shortly after the referendum, I suggested that this failing reflected the specific incompetence of those responsible for the campaign. I have had to revise this view because the pollsters, advertising company and campaign committee for the “Yes” campaign were chock full of people and organisations who knew how to win elections. The pollsters included Rod Cameron, who has been associated with many winning campaigns for the ALP. The advertising company was Singleton Ogilvy Mather, whose principal John Singleton had been responsible for successful Federal Labor advertising campaigns in the 1980s and 1990s. The campaign committee included Peter Barron (former Hawke government staffer during its years of electoral success) and Andrew Robb (Liberal campaign director in John Howard’s 1996 election victory). All these seasoned election-winning professionals were flummoxed by the task of winning a referendum.
Here in south-east Queensland we’re having a referendum this year on whether to accept recycled water in our water supply. I will be watching this referendum with more than usual interest.
Sounds interesting, Paul, and I think the campaigning angle is a good one. I don’t know if there’s any academic literature on it (though I’m sure there is) but there must be a lot of stuff in campaign/policy wonk periodicals on initiative campaigning in the US – might be worth having a look at for a comparative look.
Interesting research topic which may hopefully give the pollies a few tips.
Here’s a few assertions that might be useful discussion points:
You haven’t mentioned another probably leading cause of “No” votes. Have a look at the exact phraseology of the question asked. Does it frame a question that is not intrinsically bound up with Federalist vs Centralist politics, and transform it into an apparent grab for more power by the Federal Government?
Pople tend to see through this, when it happens, and vote accordingly.
The “No” vote on the Republic was achieved by deliberate sabotage in a related fashion. The referendum was rushed through so as to happen before people were ready, and Howard had made sure that the outcome of the Republican Convention was such that the type of Republic being offered was not the type which most Republicans wanted.
If anyone in SE Queensland wants to sabotage the recycled water vote, all they have to do is keep referring to “recycled sewage”. Since noone pays enough attention to the outside world, it probably does not matter that in the rest of the developed world, this stuff already gets mixed back into the drinking water supply, particularly when several urban centres lie along one river (Recycled Water @ Wikipedia). It may be an exaggeration to say that Londoners drink water that has been through 5 other people to get to them, but it does form part of what they drink, and hasn’t killed them yet.
I can still vaguely remember some of the no ads (orchestrated by Peter Reith if I remember correctly) from the 88 referendum. “No more power to Canberra” was the slogan – not that any of the proposals could have plausibly given much more. In hindsight, it must have been the last time the Liberals powerfully articulated federalism as a theme.
Too often studies of referendum questions start from the implicit assumption that the Australian voters keep getting the answer ‘wrong’ i.e. by voting no most times. It is all very well to discuss question framing, however you should at least consider the possibility that people are voting on the merits of the proposed changes.
That said, the ‘centralist’ argument would be less effective if someone other than the federal govt could initiate referendums: maybe state govts or even a citizens initiated referendum. I don’t think the latter idea should be tainted just because the LaRouchites advocate it.
AndyC has added an aspect to referendum questions that needs inclusion. The framing of the Republican questions was designed to ensure the Howard outcome, an outcome that I found hard to vote for and explain to my french collegues who couldn’t believe Australia would want Lizzie.
Another possible issue that has raised its head within the last 2 weeks in WA, the government big hitters (Ripper)clearly wants the deregulation of shopping hours on the political agenda, this is following it having been defeated by referendum recently. WA has a precedent of ignoring the masses, recently reintroducing day light saving after it had been defeated TWICE previously. In 2009, we shall have another poll. My point is why?
“The “Noâ€? vote on the Republic was achieved by deliberate sabotage in a related fashion. The referendum was rushed through so as to happen before people were ready, and Howard had made sure that the outcome of the Republican Convention was such that the type of Republic being offered was not the type which most Republicans wanted.”
Wasn’t that the Convention’s fault? What exactly did Howard do that prevented the ARM group from moving away from their entrenched position of minimal change? He could only pass them a gun, they did not have to shoot themselves in the foot with it. I think it was interesting that the ARM thought, cynically, that the way forward on this was to pfaff around the edges of the constitution, put up some purile cosmetic ideas and the “low level of political knowledge amongst the voting public” would kick in and away they’d go. Well so much for that idea. We know why they needed the minimal change model, they needed it to keep the parliamentarians onside but what they didn’t realise was they didn’t need the parliamentarians, they needed the People. Laughed? I nearly shat.
And they still haven’t learnt, they are still talking about plebicites and vague spinny ideas about an Australian Head Of State.
We’d vote YES more often if there werer better ideas.
In Perth we are rejecting daylight savings, again, in two summers after this one. Laugh? You bet I will.
On Singo’s advertising in the Republican referendum, didn’t the use of celebs and the content free patriotic themes come in for a lot of flak at the time? You’d have to say his record in political campaigning’s been pretty mixed – didn’t he lose the ALP advertising account at one point? Though whining Wendy or whatever her name was was a classic of the genre.
Not sure where exactly I read it, but I seem to recall there is some correlation between the success or failure of referendum questions and the stance of the two major parties on the issue. Cases where there was bi-partisan support for the question generally get up, but split opinion questions fail.
Now, I might have mis-remembered, and it doesn’t really ‘explain’ why people vote the way they do, but it might suggest that any hint of doubt about whether a change is warranted might be enough to dissuade voters.
Then again, it might not…
Hmm, failing to vote “YES” in a referendum means voters weren’t “fully aware” of the issues?
Perhaps voters vote “NO” in a referendum because they do not want the proposed changes.
It is called “Democracy”.
The success rate of citizens iniated referenda in Australia would be most interesting. Of particular interest would be the issues which the citizenry decided to put forward as referendum material, (when compared alongside what political parties have been putting forward)
Propositions seem to suceed in California and regulate important areas – ‘three strikes’ for example. Why they don’t come off so often here I put down to our cautious British heritage. So many of us saw the cautionary ,’ Rise and rise of Michael Rimmer,’ documentary where government by constant ‘push-polling’ was finally rejected in favour of the Michael Rimmer dictatorship of the late sixties.
I think the 1999 referendum was a special case. The ARM got my vote asserting that they weren’t against an elected President. Then promptly shafted the concept when they got to the convention. Thanks very much, but I can wait for a republic until I get to vote for the President.
“If anyone in SE Queensland wants to sabotage the recycled water vote, all they have to do is keep referring to “recycled sewageâ€?.”
Thanks for the tip!!
p.s. it is recycled sewage water.
Steve,
my take on citizen initiated referendums is that the only CIRs in Australia – if any – are at state level and State government are not consttutionally bound by their outcomes but retain full discretion to legislate on the referendum subject matter, and may repeal any legislation enacted subsequent to a CIR. Ergo, citizen initiated referendums in Australia (even if they exist) are pretty meaningless. Referendums are more weighty at Commonwealth level, since their outcomes can facilitate binding constitutional change but it is the Commonwealth parliament that has exclusive power to bring on a Commonwealth referendum.
I don’t have my finger on it right now, but there is persuasive data to the effect that
1. Commonwealth referendums have always failed without bi-partisan support and
2. there is a tendency for the YES / NO cases in referendums to split down party lines regardless of the issue.
I think referendums are almost inevitably held at election time…as a result parties square off against one another on the YES/NO issue, and subsequently the referendums are doomed …
The most intriguing vote to me was when the Northern Territory voted no to becoming a state when the CLP ran dead on the issue even though they were the Government of the day and expecting the yes vote to get up.
The Toowoomba vote was just the result of games being played by the Queensland Nationals while expecting to win electoral support on the issue of Water just prior to the state election. Obviously the strategy was a disaster but it has yet to be seen whether the Nationals can change to a more useful position.
If the Nationals take the same course this time it will lead to great ructions between themselves and the Queensland Liberals who have already launched a website supporting the yes case for purified water.
The next vote about puified water with less political madness from the Nationals should reverse their last insane effort. I would expect even Toowoomba might now be able to see that dry dams just keep getting drier the longer the drought persists.
It is all a smoke screen. If a government really wanted something, they would do it. Accountability means basically nothing these days, especially not in Queensland with the hopeless parliamentary system it has.
Smokescreen or not referendums are still won and lost often in ways that people never suspect and why this happens is very interesting.
People tend to forget that the 1999 Republic Convention was seriously stacked. Half the convention delegates were personally chosen by Howard, the other half elected. And of the half elected, a third to a half were probably “conservative”. In addition, the referendum vote was postal and voluntary, unusual in our federal system but a sure way to lose a few more voters.
Senator Minchin, then Special Minister of State, responded to Howard’s request to get the issue off the table by ensuring that the whole process was rigged from the get-go. It was a complete farce in democratic terms, rescued to some degree by the great performances of some of the delegates.
The most interesting referendum was the 1988 one, mentioned above as Peter Reith’s great moment of truimph in winning the No case – remember his absurd victory salute? Those referendum questions were sane and sensible, the product of years of commission reports on consitutional change, yet it went down because of a massive advertising campaign mounted by the forces of darkness. The Liberal Party actually had little problem with a couple of the questions, it was just a spoiler campaign for fun (and made Reith’s career).
Both these examples demonstrate that the Liberal Party does not have any interest whatsoever in constitutional change, no matter how great the need, and will mount spoiler campaigns just to flex their political muscles and have a good laugh at democracy’s expense.
What does this mean for future referendums? Don’t have one unless it has bipartisan support, locked in at the legislative proposal stage.
The 1999 Republican debate was lost following the convention forum. It was always doomed and the government had the framework and final say in manoeuvouring (?) the debate/questions to their advantage.
Paul, do you have any data on the success/failure of CIR’s
Not at this stage of the research.
grace, I think the vote to elect the Convention was postal and voluntary, but I’m sure the referendum was at polling booths and compulsory.
“WA has a precedent of ignoring the masses, recently reintroducing day light saving after it had been defeated TWICE previously” – actually THREE times: ‘75, ‘84 and ‘92
“there is some correlation between the success or failure of referendum questions and the stance of the two major parties on the issue” – the majority of MPs in both major parties in WA support Daylight Saving and the de-regulation of trading hours.
It might be worth quoting the questions put at the 2005 referendum on retail trading hours in WA – they didn’t ask “Should retail trading hours be extended …..” but:
1. Do you believe that the Western Australian community would benefit if trading hours in the Perth Metropolitan Area were extended to allow general retail shops to trade until 9 pm Monday to Friday?
2. Do you believe that the Western Australian community would benefit if trading hours in the Perth Metropolitan Area were extended to allow general retail shops to trade for 6 hours on Sunday?
How you frame the issue / questions will have a major effect in determining “what people want”.
Another issue I would like clarified, why did WA have a referendum on retail trading hours.
Surely, we pay pollies for such. Perhaps it was yet another Gallop vacillation.
Some sameless self-propmotion from the European Journal of Political Economy, Volume 22, Issue 4, December 2006, Pages 862-873.
Direct democracy in Australia: Voter behavior in the choice between constitutional monarchy and a republic
Sinclair Davidson, Tim R.L. Fry and Kelly Jarvis
Abstract
Opinion polls conducted throughout the 1990s indicate most Australians favor a republic. A referendum making that constitutional change, however, was defeated. This paper investigates whether voters employ a loss-minimization rule, as opposed to a value-maximization rule, when making political decisions. Based on the predictions of each rule, political strategies are devised and compared to the official arguments employed by republicans and monarchists during the period preceding the vote. Empirical research relates voting outcomes at the individual voter level to influences that are likely to be correlated with political risk aversion. The results are consistent with the conclusion that voters do not employ value-maximization rules.
Voters use referendums to stick up the government, even if they like the government. Sinclair calls it political risk aversion. I reckon it’s just the Australian larrikin streak.
The evidence for this is the question on the preamble in the 1999 referendums. This was John Howard’s pet project. The proposed preamble created no constitutional risks. It was just harmless window dressing. Howard who was very popular at the time asked the voters to say yes. Yet they said no, decisively.
To say that “the Toowoomba vote was just the result of games being played by the Queensland Nationals while expecting to win electoral support on the issue of Water just prior to the state election” is incorrect. Anyone closely involved in the Toowoomba debate knows that some of the key players were not politically aligned. To dismiss the NO vote in Toowoomba because of politics is a fundamental mistake.
There is a failure to understand that the public does not at this point in time wish to drink recycled sewage water. The statistical studies show this but governments still push on with their referendums to try to prove a point.
“The Queensland Liberals have already launched a website supporting the yes case for purified water.”
Why is it that the two councillor contributions on that website so far do NOT support recycled sewage for drinking?
“The next vote about puified water with less political madness from the Nationals should reverse their last insane effort.”
It is highly likely that SEQ will return a No vote on March 17.
“I would expect even Toowoomba might now be able to see that dry dams just keep getting drier the longer the drought persists.”
Toowoomba will vote No once again. Toowoomba has water beyond the dams. And if you saw Toowoomba, you would see how green it is from recent rains. So much for Mayor Thorley telling us it would never rain again!
Wendy, Brisbane is pretty green at the moment from recent rain too. It makes no difference whatsoever to the water supply unless it rains in the dam catchments and for a sustained period of time.
God knows. It was a dumb idea rife for ‘if we have extended trading hours the sun will explode’ rhetoric from so-call independent retailers.
“God knows. It was a dumb idea ….”
You too could know if you took the trouble to find out. I don’t think anyone mentioned exploding suns (and I collected a lot of the referendum material for archival purposes.) Perhaps you should consider the role the Greens played in the issue.
But never mind, you, Coles and Woolworths are bound to get what you want, sooner or later.
An aspect you should consider is compulsory voting (which is a uniquely Australian requirement).
A significant proportion of voters FORCED to go to a referendum arrive at the ballot box in a negative frame of mind because they have been coerced into making a decision on issues which other people are fighting over. The noisier the controversary, the more alienated voters become in the run-up.
Since they can’t voice their protest/alienation by staying away from the polls, they derive emotional satisfaction from voting No.
This explains why no matter how harmless the proposal seems to be or how “popular” public opinion polls are saying it is, at the last moment it is invariably swamped by a cranky No vote.
The only refs I can remember getting up are those which have strong bi-partisan political support and therefore attract the least controversary.
I think when you do your comparisons with referenda in other parts of the world, you will find voluntary voting applies to all of them except Australia – and it is that which improves their success rate.
Sorry, compulsory voting is not unique to Australia, although a comparison between referenda in countries with and without compulsory voting hasn’t been done that I can recall.
More shameless self-promotion (on compulsory voting)
http://www.cis.org.au/Policy/summer05-06/polsumm0506-2.htm
Much as I’d be keen to reply to Sinclair, and support compulsory voting, perhaps a new thread on that topic would be a good idea.
Barbara, I think, most referendums have been held together with elections, so voters aren’t required to make a special trip just to say No. And in the recent cases I remember, the government was supporting a yes vote, and was returned to government, but the referendum failed. So I don’t really see a connection between compulsory voting and a No vote.
Sinclair: Thank you for the correction. I gather from Wiki that only 19 countries enforce compulsory voting and only 10 of these are OECD countries (like Australia).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_voting
It would be interesting to see a study of the success/otherwise of referenda between compulsory/non compulsory countries. That way Paul would be better able to surmise if there is a uniquely Australian aversion to voting Yes.
David: I was not intending to provoke a discussion on the merits of compulsory voting (on which I am neutral). If others want to pursue that it probably would be better on another thread, as you suggest, since Paul Norton is seeking ideas relating to a specific topic he is researching.
Russell: My point is a significant proportion of voters are resentful at being coerced into having to vote at all, so a referendum being held at the same time as general election is not really relevant?
In the example you mentioned of a govt supporting a “Yes” vote and being returned to office, yet losing the referendum … did the Opposition also support a “Yes” vote?
I would be interested to know how many referenda have been defeated (or carried) when there has been broad bi-partisan support for the proposal? And which topics they were?
Well I don’t have chapter and verse (and quite frankly couldn’t be bothered searching), but as I recall it was yet another of those efforts by The Waste along the lines of ‘the government’s going to win the election but we can still give ‘em a clip across the ear to prove we’re still relevant’.
And as I recall the campaign was led by IGA. You know, the supermarket chain that trades whenever it can. And thanks to IGA South Freo for being open on Sundays. Great convenience.
The WAG should have just legislated and been done with it.
The Green’s role in all this was that they only passed the Refferendum legilation if it had their wording. And re IAG, those bunch of hypocrites had Brian Burke advising them, and we all know the result of THAT one
Re The Waste, if it’s an ALP idea, it’s automatically bad
Sums it up Frank. Ooohhh that rag makes me mad.
Brian Burke. Heh. I’ve got a story I’ll tell you one day …
Oh and to make things worse, The Waste are running another one of those Win 5 Holdens in 5 Weeks competitions where you cut out out a week’s worth of coupons, this is a good excuse to ramp up the Anti-ALP bile.
And speaking of their “Journalists”, Gary Adshead has left and is now a reporter for Ch 7 News, another paragon of media excellence (NOT).
*falls down laughing*
This would be one of the three commercial Perth news channels whose news is actually produced in Sydney.
Ch 10 news is produced out of Sydney, 7 & 9 are stiull done form their Dianella Bunkers. Actually Ch 10 isn’t too bad, as they cover some local stories that the others don’t.
Ch 7 are the Defacto West Coast Eagles PR dept, notice how they always manage to lead with an ‘Eagles” Story ??
Oh and I’m waiting for an on-scrfeen stoush between Adshead and Reece Whitby
Frank, I’m hoping to get home this year and I do so miss Ch 7’s and The Waste’s Catholic commitment to the Eagle rich boys.
I had some phone encounters with Adshead in my former occupation as Spin MD and I didn’t find him too bad. But when you come down to it when the local rag’s best read column is gossip on P2, what do you say?
Also, living temporarily in The East, it’s occasional fun to see Nick Way from 10 popping up on screen attempting to convince the rest of the world that there’s a New Orleans style hurricane about to blow into Esperance.
The Funny thing about Ten Weekend News is that while the bulletin itself is from Sydney, Sport & Weathyer are done from the old Ten Newsroom in Perth, and at least the national weekend bulleting is done live into Perth, so they can run local stories etc, whereas the Late Bulletin is delayed and it shows when a big news item is happening.
I think The Waste is getting a run for it’s money with Perth Now breaking local stories on it’s website quicker than on The Waste, oh, and The Waste ALWAYS run news stories that don’t bag The Govt 2 days after they occour.
Eastern Staterts are spoilt with The Terrorgraph and the SMH in dead tree form, while we’re lumbered With The Waste
BTW, the first line should read WEEKDAY bulletin
Yes. You have to wonder what TW’s web strategy is all about. They expect people to pay for that bumpf?
Perthnow (given that it’s basically a Sunday rag) at least makes a fair punch at being newsworthy on a day to day basis.
Yep, PerthNow have really set the agenda more than The Waste, take for example their campaigns for Daylight Savings and Extended Retail Hours.
Our so-called talkback station 6PR was instrumental in leading AGAINST extended hours, led by Sookie Sattler. I believe IGA has a commercial interest in the station as PR at the end of last year ran a promotion involving a “Mystery Shopper”.
Plus IAG were a big donor to the Libs, so much for them being Free Enterprise and Choice.
Yes Mark but if you believe the rhetoric from our Mayor, you would think that some scorched earth policy had been applied to Toowoomba. She tries to make it known as far and wide as possible that the city is dying when the exact opposite is true.
Anyway we will finally see how the Queensland Nationals handle a bit of heat and pressure and I fear that as usual it won’t be well. It is one thing to have a vote forced on Toowoomba by the Feds and quite another to see how the heat and pressure of the next little vote will play against the Queensland Nationals bigtime.
The Queensland Government will offer some real test to the Nationals little games next lap around. And if the Nats continue to think that they are going to be the major conservative party in South East Queensland then they can not act with the sewer tactics they bought to the last vote. They really can’t afford to let the Liberals steal a march on them either so I look forward to their reaction with much interest.
The reality is that the real opposition to Beattie’s recycled sewage plans will not come from the State opposition.
Which gets us back to the original post where without an organised opposition the purified water vote result is likely to be far different to when the National party was able to roll one mayor and her rational approach.
After which the sewer proponents will be left scratching their heads as to why what seems like a foregone conclusion was not supported by a majority of voters who want a consistent water supply..
There are a number of non-National party aligned people who would probably take offence at the comment that the National Party rolled Mayor Thorley and that hers was a rational approach.
Anyone who has read the Toowoomba City Council’s National Water Commission funding application – which the Council refused to hand over until an FOI application was made and even then they dragged their feet as long as possible – would know that Mayor Thorley’s recycled water scheme would never have worked as proposed and would probably have bankrupted the city with cost overruns and the additional debt the city would have needed to take on over and above the State and Federal funding.
I suggest you read the whole NWC application. At that point, you can make an informed comment on the Toowoomba water debate.
Every statistical study to date in Australia and overseas shows that a majority of people do not want to drink recycled sewage water. A $10 million ad campaign by Beattie over a 6 week period (once the question is ‘finalised’) is not going to change anything.
In that case I will apologise to all the Non – National aligned voters who could be offended. If you can supply a link to the document I will certainly read it.
Don’t be scared to link the document but I have a sneaky suspicion that now that the document I was supposed to read is out of the hands of the mean, nasty and evil Toowoomba Council and in the hands of the sainty but scatologically challenged side of the purified water debate the document will be as scarce to view as it was previously.
Beats me how a campaign can be won by keeping documents secret but I am sure there will be absolutely deluges about the benefits of purified water.
Without reading the said document , it seems clear to me that sooner or later barring a depression from a cyclone, Toowoomba will be at risk of running out of water if the referendum result is repeated next time around but that is not likely to happen really is it? Especially with the leadership vaccum on the recycled sewerage side of the fence.
Apology accepted but there you go falling for the name calling game – anyone who opposes recycled sewage water for drinking is instantly “the sainty but scatologically challenged side of the purified water debate”.
Why is it that the pro-recyclers always climb down into the gutter of name calling at every opportunity? It’s bizarre!
Council never put the NWC online and, at over 300 pages, none of the No side ever did either. Suggest asking the Council for a copy. I’m sure they would be very obliging! I’d like a few pro-recyclers to understand just how hard it is to get the ’secret’ documents out of Thorley and her gang.
Don’t worry – Toowoomba has plenty of water options – you’re justing falling for the Thorley rhetoric – see – http://media.putfile.com/Thorley-AEF-conference-speech
Not so. Rather than rhetoric I thought Di Thorley showed great strength under difficult circumstances and if the “no” supporters showed half of her character the world would be a better place.
I was an interested bystander during the last vote. By that I mean I read the Toowoomba Chronical daily, the Liberal Party website, the water futures website, the state Government press releases, the Courious Snail, the Australian, the National Party website and Lyal Sheltons blogspot which was a hoot only because of the wit and charm of Agent X who really was hilarious.
I don’t think I even bothered to make a comment on the issue at the time but was appalled with the way that the National Party used the issue obviously thinking that they were going to win the ensuing state election on “health” and “water”.
Even the genisis of the vote being bunged on by the Federal Government to allow for cheap political shots in the lead-in to the state election was sus in my view.
This time however having seen and learned from all that looking, pointing and cringing, things will be different this time round. What I was trying to point out when accused of offending non-national aligned people was that it is a different ballgame now at a far bigger and more intense level and the nonsense of the “no” vote supporters will not cut the mustard this time around.
Nor will the influence of ex-mayors be as great given the bigger pool for the next stoush
I still think that the Nationals stand to lose what little credibility they have left if they opt for the same tactics as they displayed in Toowoomba last time but we will soon know which way they jump.
If you thought the last vote was exciting then you will enjoy this trip – pity you aren’t on the winning side but that is a matter of personal preference.
paul norton says:
I dont think negative advertising is the reason for the failure of refferenda in Australia. They have always faced an uphill battle, well before attack advertising became the weapon of political choice.
The statistics show that in the pre-modern advertising era (1901-66) only four out of 24 successful refferenda – a 16% success rate. In the post-modern advertising era (1967-200?) there have been four out of 17 successful refferenda – slighltly less than 25% success rate.
Australians are properly conservative about changing their constitution. As they should be given the atrocious record of political and cultural constructivsts in the past generation.
God only knows what nonsense we would be lumbered with now if last seasons ideological fashions were easily foisted upon us every time someone meddling busybody got a referendum idea rattling around their nut.
The conservative general rule is the higher the scale the slower the pace. Social change is better handled the lower it goes. It is okay for locals individuals to have makeovers. But global insitutions should be steady as she goes.
Michael Oakshott
I think you got that pretty right Jack as far as it goes in theory but the problems arise when the question for the republic referendum was one they knew in advance could not be supported by the Australian people.
The Northern Territory statehood vote saw the LCP Government run a godforsaken incompetent campaign in support of the yes case.
Finally, the Toowoomba water vote was just a political beat-up just to put pressure on the Queensland Government on the eve of an election.
All these could have been won under different political circumstances. Many of the other votes I am unfamiliar with may also have been won if handled differently.
“if the “noâ€? supporters showed half of her character the world would be a better place.”
You have fallen for the media image of the Mayor. You weren’t closely involved in the water debate or you would know the tactics she used against people and businesses in Toowoomba to try to get her way.
“This time however having seen and learned from all that looking, pointing and cringing, things will be different this time round.”
Do you think you can change people’s perceptions in a 6 week period? Look at the statistics.
Winning side – we’ll see …
“Finally, the Toowoomba water vote was just a political beat-up just to put pressure on the Queensland Government on the eve of an election.”
Wrong again but keep thinking that …
I agree – the tactics of Thorley against certain businesses and people in Toowoomba were deplorable. You can’t threaten people like she did. She even threatened to sack outdoor council workers if they didn’t vote yes. And you thought we were living in a democracy.
Is it so unfathomable, that the public votes no simply because they do not agree with the proposal of the referendum? A fool may believe that everyone else is wrong and uneducated, rather than accept the majority knows exactly what it does and doesn’t want, for then he would need to concede that he was wrong.