Old Dynamite

Fifty reasons to vote no Roger Franklin Quadrant Online August Special Edition 2023 Unless Anthony Albanese, taking note of the rapidly declining support for the Voice, decides to cut his losses by postponing the referendum, Australians will soon be asked to authorise a pointedly unexplained addition to the Constitution that opens a host of possibilities, none of them good. That’s one key reason to oppose the Voice. Here are fifty more: 1. Because you still can. 2. Because you’re sick and tired of woke. 3. Because BHP shouldn’t have opinions on anything except digging stuff out of holes. 4. Because Wesfarmers has no business giving $2 million of shareholder cash to the Yes camp. 5. Because every Yes-backing sporting code in the country has been bought with grants and handouts. 6. Because Albanese & Co can’t or won’t explain what they have in mind. 7. Because you don’t approve of Melbourne being renamed Naarm. 8. Because, sooner or later, the High Court will get involved. 9. Because the High Court has been known to indulge in judicial ratbaggery. 10. Because Australians need their very own “Bud Lite moment”. 11. Because the National Press Club tells us we should. 12. Because the ABC and Nine newsrooms will be awash with tears if Yes loses. 13. Because a No victory will prompt the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments at the Guardian. 14. Because you’re sick and tired of being called a racist. 15. Because Dan Andrews wants it and so does Victoria’s empty-suit opposition leader. 16. Because you’ve never given an Aborigine infected blankets. 17. Because you’ve never distributed poison flour. 18. Because the Massacre Map isn’t history, it’s elements of truth larded with a lot of agitprop. 19. Because you’ve been silent about too much for too long. 20. Because you don’t need welcoming to your own country. 21. Because, if you’re a New Australian or recently descended from such, what harm did your ancestors ever do an Aborigine? 22. Because Bruce Pascoe. 23. Because it was fun to hear Linda Burney’s slurred mispronunciation of “Aborishnial”, but the novelty has worn off. 24. Because a No victory will do serious harm to Anthony Albanese’s leadership. 25. Because Anthony Albanese will have a target on his back. 26. Because few things are quite so amusing as watching comrades counting numbers, sharpening knives and lopping heads. 27. Because a No win will make Marcia Langton more irate than usual. 28. Because, unlike gender fluidity and other noxiously fashionable memes, the Voice is the one woke narrative you can stomp. 29. Because your blue-haired niece caused a scene at the last Christmas dinner. 30. Because, if you have no black blood whatsoever, you’ll have only slightly less than some Voice campaigners. 31. Because, as Salvatore Babones notes, at this rate we’ll all be Aborigines by 2080. 32. Because scholarly, accurate but unsettling accounts of Aboriginal life and customs are being removed from library shelves. 33. Because we shouldn’t be having this referendum in the first place and, Yes or No, race relations and resentments will be worse in its wake. 34. Because Noel Pearson’s constant insults deserve a ballot-box rebuke. 35. Because Noel Pearson is always ready for his close-up. 36. Because a Voice won’t stop what’s happening every night in Alice Springs. 37. Because Aborigines don’t trace the bulk of their lineage to Malaysia, the Philippines, Niue, Vanuatu and Singapore. 38. Because you’re weary of being told how to think. 39. Because your kids are being taught what to think. 40. Because Pat Dodson refuses to remove his hat in the Senate. 41. Because bar associations, undoubtedly aware of the potential for lucrative litigation, are backing Yes. 42. Because the voting booth makes you immune to doxing, cancelling and workplace retribution. 43. Because of the newly legislated shakedowns by Western Australia’s “indigenous cultural consultants”. 44. Because you’ve endured enough politically correct lectures from self-righteous dills to last a lifetime. 45. Because a clan pursuing a subsistence existence is not and never was “a nation”. 46. Because “a story the aunties told me” isn’t reliable primary-source material. 47. Because you’re unfashionably normal. 48. Because normies are no longer found in newsrooms, on government benches, in academia or amongst senior public servants. 49. Because you remember the waste and disgrace that was ATSIC. 50. Because those vending lies know you recognise them as lies but insist you become complicit in their charades and falsehoods. Roger Franklin is the Editor of Quadrant Online, where he invites readers to add their own reasons to this list.