They definitely threw around a lot of money, i believe the way the media counted the funding also probably underestimated the amounts they really had for that campaign.

But the referendum was a complicated beast, misinformation certainly played a part, but there was also simple confusion, lack of goodwill, Australian’s natural propensity to be conservative with our actions. It was always a moon shot.

I know the actual result ended up just about the opposite to the pre/early referendum polls, but i think too much weight is put on those polls as evidence for the undue influence No campaigner’s misinformation had.

I’ll try to explain my reasoning below,

A referendum is nothing like an opinion poll which is a cheap indication at best of a snapshot of sentiment on a subject.

• The question asked by a market research company will be treated by a respondent with far less seriousness than that same question in a referendum. So thats one thing.

Same thing seems to be happening to Dutton and the Liberals now the Federal election has been called.

• The bar for a referendum is very high, that in itself likely has a tonal effect on the citizenry during the campaign, as the citizenry learn the double majority rules, and the practical finality of constitutional changes.

• There is widespread misunderstanding, and distrust of the interpretive nature of Australian law as opposed a more codified system. The populous, i believe, thinks our laws are far more codified than they actually are. A fundamental, but often overlooked strength of Australia is our judiciaries, for now, ability to interpret the statutes/Constitution for the uniqueness of the case before them, the more codified a system is the less this nuance can be utilised by the judiciary. No where is this more the case than in Constitutional law.

My point about interpretation of law is fundamental to the wording of the Voice proposal. It was intentionally vague for the protection of the courts ability to apply the real world cases that would inevitably rise.

But by serving the interests of making good law, it made it a confusing proposition to the citizenry, and due to its vague wording allowed a No campaign ample room to attach all kinds of possibilities that the wording couldn’t reject without judicial intervention, ie a High Court case determining the limits.

So the vagueness allowed a wide berth for misinformation to seem plausible, whilst being hard to deny or counter.

• Lack of community goodwill, i also think, was a key under-rated problem with the Voice Referendum, especially when compared to the Same sex Marriage Plebiscite. A difference between the two is the relative dispersals of the two minority populations within the wider Australian community. LGBT+ persons are distributed relatively more evenly throughout class, race, ethnicity, geography, etc, whereas Indigenous Australians are for more centralised along those demographics. So there was a closeness, and therefore higher rates of familiarity, with LGBT+ Australians, than with Indigenous Australians. I think this played a big role.

Then theres other factors like lack of bipartisanship, which decreased likelihood of rusted on Party line voters to vote in favour, against their general election behaviour.

I don’t that was a big moment for Australia. I don’t think most people have reslly reckoned with the complicated reasons why that fell the way it did.