Polls have just opened in south-eastern Australia in the first federal constitutional referendum in a quarter-century on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament. Polls suggest the Voice is set to fall far short of success, but we’ll see soon enough.
Voting has also commences in today’s national election in New Zealand. You can get up to speed on that election by listening to my preview podcast episode, or follow The Overhang on Twitter tonight. Polls close at 7pm New Zealand time, which is 5pm AEDT. Results are expected to come in quickly. Apparently TVNZ will be streaming their coverage outside of New Zealand on YouTube.
I won’t be making any updates today, but feel free to post your thoughts here.
I’ll post a fresh open thread when polls close at 6pm AEDT. I won’t be liveblogging tonight but you’ll be able to hear me on ABC Radio (local, Radio National and News Radio) throughout the night.
Referendums are more difficult to predict compared to elections and demographic trends are hard to predict.
Some initial predictions
1. Maranoa will have the highest No vote
2. Longman or Bowman will be the highest No vote for an metro seat
3. Melbourne, Grayndler & Sydney will be highest Yes vote in the nation
4. Griffith and certainly Brisbane will have a higher Yes vote than Ryan
5. Blair will not be in the top 5 in the nation or even in QLD for the No vote this time compared to 1999
5. There are some areas that have become more progressive since 1999 mainly inner city densiification & Gentrification, tree & sea change areas and some outer growth corridors are now much better educated & ethnically diverse such as Greenway so this is what i will be looking for
If the Newspoll is right and yes is low-forties, I think you’ll see big No votes in all sorts of unexpected places.
I think it will be a forgone conclusion by 7pm AESDT – No.
But I think Nimalan points to an interesting factor to watch – where will the votes fall in individual seats. Will the seat votes indicate that Liberals have now truly forgone their traditional metropolitan seats and are now fully depended on their outer metropolitan and regional strategy??? Will they point to more Green “uprising” in more traditional Labor seats???
I live in the seat of Moreton and just on anecdotal observations.
* I have seen no No campaign signs on peoples houses in my travels around the ‘hood.
* There is a smattering of Yes campaign signs, but not what I would call substantial.
* I have received double the number of No campaign material in my letterbox.
* No one has come to my door from either side to solicit for my vote.
Moreton is usually a strong Labor seat, but he rarely wins with a straight majority. So I will be interested to see how it goes, especially because we have a fair % of 1st generation migrants and blue collar workers. I wouldn’t be surprised by a No vote in this electorate.
It wont pass. There have been so many scare tactics from the No so and Yes has not been able to tell people what it actually will mean very well.
From those saying to vote yes is rascist and us v them, to talk of treaty and taking land.
Facts and helping people will never win against being scared that things will get worse for you.
If the government explained what they were going to do, and they didn’t want to change the constitution. Then it would probably get up.
@David, in my area (West Gippsland), based on the Letters to the Editor, anyone advocating a No vote was racist.
@Nimalam my prediction for highest No vote in a metro seat is Fadden. There is an argument out there that Wright is somewhat of a metro seat (or increasingly becoming so).
Agree with Maranoa as most likely to have highest No vote. Although Kennedy will be in a similar ballpark and an interesting one to watch, with its indigenous population above 15%.
Highest Yes I expect in Sydney or maybe Grayndler – assuming the local Greens supporters remain on side.
I expect Chalmers’ division Rankin to have a striking No percentage. In fact I expect Logan and Ipswich more broadly to have a notably low Yes vote relative to their typically high ALP 2PP.
On Neil’s comment, I think Moreton will be the Queensland tipping point seat, Griffith, Brisbane and Ryan will each be Yes, followed by Moreton and finally Lilley being a toss up.
Really interested to see how Richmond below the border goes, I think it will be close either way. I will also have a curious eye on McPherson.
I am referring more to media campaigns like Katter then letters.
Voting no can be seen as racist, in particular people I know are voting no because they dont think 1st Nations should have a seperate advisory body, pr that it is discrimination because they are white and thus cant be on the committee.
From my pooint of view, Australia started racist, not including part of the population till 66 or 67. This is just fixing that a bit.
@ seq observer
Yeah possibly Fadden but that is a gold coast based seat so in terms of capital city Metro I think Longman or Bowman
I expect Rankin to vote no but I think a bit softer due to ethnic communities Rankin has a significant Muslim community where there maybe a bit better support than white working class voters
Around the electorate of Bean in the ACT no “No” corflutes & a scattering of Yes signs. At the polling both this morning no-one representing the “No” campaign. There have been lots of well attended community events by the Yes campaign – certainly the people I know who joined in community activities were not otherwise politically active.
@Doug
This could be because ACT does not count toward state total.
David and Doug, also the ACT as a whole seems to be quite progressive (on par with the inner-city suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne). Also, the ACT was the only state/territory to vote yes in the 1999 republic referendum so it could also be the sole ‘yes’ supporting state/territory this time.
the Yes campaign has been active in the Act regardless of us only counting towards the national total. ACT I think likely to record something close to 60% Yes.
Predictions:
1. Referendum fails despite the heavy on-the-ground campaigning from the Yes side.
2. ACT will vote Yes.
3. Highest No votes will be in QLD, followed by WA. SA is also a definite No.
4. TAS, VIC and NSW are also leaning No, but there could be surprises. The Yes side would be lucky to get two of them.
I think there are a lot of No voters who support some form of recognition, treaty or voice but are against the proposed model or proposed amendments. It’s similar to how in 1999, many people supported a republic but did not support the proposed model or wanted to buy some more time.
The No side will win and ironically, various parties from the Progressive No side (e.g. Lidia Thorpe, Blak Sovereign Movement, Tent Embassy) to the CLP/Nationals to Peter Dutton (who supports constitutional recognition) will claim victory as their own.
I know it’s a long beaten drum, but there’s something messed up that Tasmania, with ~100k more people than the ACT gets 12 Senators and count as a state for referendums.
@Votante
Also, NT will probably vote similar to SA.
Can anyone point me to where the data might be by electorate for the referendum? Was looking to put together a map. AEC said it would be listed on their site but now sure what type of format to expect.
I believe that a no vote will make the politicians think that Australia believes the current policies to help 1st Nations do not need to be changed.
It is much the same as the republic, the belief was that we didn’t want to be a republic.
Most wanted to be a republic and I believe most think policies need improvemet.
Lidia Thorpe in particular wants the voice, but wants more. More will never happen if we cant even get this small change. Can anyone explain what the progresive no groups get out of voting no?
While waiting in the polling booth que I heard one person say to their partner: “the irony is that all racists will vote no but voting yes is supporting a racist proposition.” Followed by a sigh…..
To me this kinda sums up the entire proposal – bit of a mess.
Seats like menzies, Deakin and Aston in outer metropolitan will help determine if Victoria Yes or No. I do seem to remember that these 3 voted yes although on these current boundaries Aston would have voted no in 1999.
What data? There’s a page on the AEC’s website called “Downloads and Statistics” which has data like number of pre-poll votes, postal vote applications, postal votes received, list of booths etc.
If you mean results, they will appear on the Virtual Tally Room once polls close.
If you mean previous referendum results, check out my data repository.
I think Melbourne will be the highest yes vote. It was highest in the republic referendum and same sex marriage plebiscite. It will likely be higher than in Sydney or Grayndler. Interestingly, Sydney CBD is awash with Yes with the City Council flying Yes flags everywhere, and advertising signs. Not so prominent in Melbourne’s CBD but there are certainly more Yes signs in inner city Melbourne than Sydney.
In Greater Melbourne i think highest No vote will be in Dunkley, Flinders & the Croydon/Lilydale area
Thanks @ben some great content on your site, love the blog. Will collect what I can find from your site and AEC.
Specifically looking to map the results by electorate boundary and combine with some of the abs demographics. Maybe also a separate map looking at accessibility to poll stations which might be interesting if low turnouts.
I think the biggest mistake was calling it “the Voice”. Should have focused on Recognition. Have all votes been counted? Pre-poll and Postal? I do not expect the overall result to change but never the less interesting.
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