Edit: I have submitted this petition to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Thank you to everyone who signed, shared and promoted this petition. This petition is now closed and no longer accepting new signatures. 

According to polls, the No campaign looks set to win by a large margin, but the Government is making it clear that they won't take no for an answer. Opponents of the voice are being portrayed as gullible, racist conspiracy theorists. The government is poised to blame the failure of the Voice on Chinese bots. 

In recent years, Western governments have demonstrated that they don't respect election and referendum results. Take Brexit as an example. For the last seven years the British establishment has sought to scupper Brexit. And if Labor wins next year’s general election, Britain looks set to rejoin the EU.

You could also look at the 2016 US presidential election. For four years, the establishment tried to undermine Trump’s administration. They engineered his defeat in 2020. And they are now running a campaign to ensure that he won’t be re-elected in 2024.

The Voice referendum is shaping up to be Australia’s Brexit moment, Australia’s Trump moment. The moment "disinformation" and "hate" prevailed. I am concerned about two possible outcomes.

First, if the Voice is rejected on the 14th of October, I believe that the government will try to legislate a Voice to Parliament. The government would not need to amend the constitution or hold a referendum in order to do this. 

Second, I am concerned that the referendum result will be used as a pretext to increase censorship, restrict freedom of speech and clamp down on dissent, just as there was increased censorship of Facebook and Twitter after the 2016 US presidential election.

I believe that the influence of foreign actors is greatly exaggerated. Even if Chinese or Russian bots are posting in favour of the No campaign, the government can't prove that a bot has changed one person's mind. Likewise the Nazi propaganda. The government can't prove that one single neo-Nazi video or article has changed anyone's mind on the Voice. Time has shown that the so-called "Russiagate scandal" was a hoax to undermine the 2016 election result. There is precedent for governments using foreign interference false flags to undermine election results. 

The Identify and Disrupt Act of 2021 allows “Australian Federal Police … and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission … to disrupt data by modifying, adding, copying or deleting data in order to frustrate the commission of serious offences online …” Police can take over social media accounts and post under the name of the account holder. They can take over websites and post as the administrator. As a result, we have no way of knowing whether posts by "Chinese bots" or "neo-Nazis" are legitimate. It could all be the work of the AFP. We’ll never know.

Petition request:

I believe that with all its rhetoric, the government is signalling that it has no intention of honouring the referendum result if No wins.

1. We therefore ask that the Commonwealth Government honour the result of the referendum, even if the Voice is rejected. This means not establishing a Voice to Parliament through legislation. Respecting the referendum result also means respecting the people who voted against the Voice.
2. We also ask that the Commonwealth Government not introduce any legislation or take any action in the name of clamping down on so-called "misinformation", "disinformation" or "foreign influence" during elections. It would only harm Australians whose opinions differ from the government's. 

What happens next:

I hope to keep this petition running for at least a few weeks. I will keep an eye on events after the referendum. If the government announces that it is going to introduce legislation to establish a Voice to Parliament or clamp down on disinformation and foreign influence during elections, I will immediately submit this petition to the Prime Minister. In the meantime, let's get as many signatures as we can.

If, however, the government makes no such announcement in the coming weeks, I will still submit the petition to the Prime Minister once I have collected as many signatures as I can, to remind him to abide by the referendum result.

Please remember to share this petition on social media; it helps get more exposure.