Sometimes I do hate being right.
But as predicted, the Great Potato has refused to read the room and continues to try to use his political power to support anti-democratic ideas and influence this country in the wrong direction, with varying degrees of success.
Perhaps the most notable example for this year would have to be his constant support for the No Campaign in the Voice to Parliament Referendum. Now you might be thinking 'So what, he's entitled to an opinion' or 'How can one man influence things like that'
Well what if i told you that nearly the entire No vote to date is just another big Dutton lie, of such enormous scope and proportions that it has been sufficient enough to nearly sink the matter entirely and bring anti-aboriginal sentiment to its greatest height in 20 years?
How Dutton Wrecked The Voice
This is probably going to upset some people, but way back when it first started being discussed as a major issue late last year, the Voice enjoyed majority support amongst Australians because most reasonable individuals agreed that our First Nations people deserved better and the current system doesn't sufficiently enable better. The No vote was largely limited to 'Silent Majority' fringe activists who as usual were neither silent nor a majority, and had no proper rallying point, with support for the Voice suffering only minor fluctuation.
This is where our friend Dutton comes in.
At the start of the year, he started asking questions about the Voice, issuing a letter to the Government and true to the spirit of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, the Albanese Government and First Nations activists started giving him information about what it was, starting with the 275 page Calma-Langston report.
And yet, despite the fact that all of the questions asked could be comprehensively answered by the existing information and expert opinions on the subject, Dutton settled on a line of ignoring any reasonable response given and claiming loudly, to anyone who would listen, that there was not enough information. This started slowly eroding confidence as most people won't conduct more in depth research on matters than a Google search, allowing the news and major political figures to form an opinion for them. Now Dutton, despite the election, was still a figure people listened to, because after all, in the minds of some, if someone like him should be against something, there must be something to it.
Then in April he set the Liberal Party into formal opposition to the Voice, using greatly inflammatory language he knew full well would animate people who didn't know better, such as referring to it as the 'Canberra Voice' and claiming that it would be led by 'City based academics' and not work for people in the regions. Now the Voice was put together as a concept after years of deep consultation with regional based First Nations people, but few wanted to listen, and the No vote rode a wave of anti-govenmental and anti-academic support.
Then, later in the year, Dutton, ably assisted by the Liberal Party media arm aka the Murdoch press, began really stoking the flames of outrage, spreading masses of misinformation with the goal of misleading you, the potential voters.
He claimed that the best legal minds in the country were against it, when in reality the High Court, the Law Council of Australia and many of our most significant legal experts and constitutional academics came together to support it and confirm that there are no major risks involved.
He claimed that it would divide us as people, while actively instigating fear and division himself.
And far too many people were taken in by his lies, preferring to think the worst about Aboriginal people and deny them even the smallest bit of change. Not once did this man try to halt the hate tactics employed by his side. Not when they started calling Yes supporters communists, anti-christian, and even traitors and other egregious falsehoods, Dutton didn't try to reign them in.
When they went on about how the Voice would lead to the new world order or a UN takeover of the country, Dutton didn't refute it or even seem to mind.
Even when people started aggressively harrassing promenent First Nations individuals, with one going so far as to torch an Indigenous flag in the street while hurling insults at anyone within range and throwing Nazi salutes, not even then did Dutton try to bring reasonability and sense back into frame, instead doubling down on his earlier claims.
The Voice has suffered a 25% drop in support since the start of the year, and with the evidence at hand I posit to you that it is largely due to the influence of a single overgrown potato.
His muckraking and disinformation have done massive damage to this country swayed formerly reasonable people into completely unreasonable points of view.
Once again he has lied to all of us and expects to just get away with it again. Will we let him? Consider: Dutton has been on the wrong side of history for almost every major issue for the last 20 years. He was against the Apology. He was against Gay Marriage. He claimed Covid wasn't that much of an issue. He voted against supporting Regional Australia in times of crisis. He thought the Liberals stood a chance of winning the last election.
Think. Why in god's name would a man so out of touch with the realities of our society suddenly have the answers on this?
Be reasonable. Vote Yes tomorrow.