Three years after Australians delivered a resounding No to the Indigenous Voice to Parliament in the 2023 referendum, with over 60% voting against it nationally and every state rejecting the proposal, elements of the Left are at it again. Sally McManus and the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) have submitted to a parliamentary inquiry pushing for a constitutionally enshrined Voice, a legislated advisory body, treaty processes via Makarrata, and even revisiting Australia Day. The rhetoric frames it as essential for combating "structural racism."
This isn't learning from defeat or seeking genuine reconciliation. It's a refusal to accept the democratic verdict of the Australian people. "No means No" was a slogan the Left once championed in other contexts. Today, when it comes to constitutional change they desire, "No" apparently means "Not yet; try again via stealth, states, or bureaucracy."
The Referendum Was Decisive — The People Spoke
The 2023 referendum was a clear exercise in democracy. It required a double majority (national and a majority of states) under Section 128 of the Constitution. It failed spectacularly. The ACT only delivered a Yes majority. This wasn't ambiguity; it was a broad rejection across urban, regional, and rural divides. Many No voters, including Indigenous Australians, opposed the divisive race-based approach, lack of detail, and risks of entrenching permanent division rather than practical outcomes on health, education, and crime.
Yet here we are. State-level experiments, such as Victoria's treaty processes and advisory bodies, proceed despite the federal rebuke. The ACTU, a major Labor funder and influencer, floats the same agenda: self-determination, truth-telling, treaty. This is the Albanese government's stalking horse, testing ideas for implementation by legislation or regulation where a referendum failed.
Democracy as a One-Way Street
The pattern is unmistakable. For the activist Left, democracy is a tool when it delivers their preferred outcomes. When it doesn't, it becomes an obstacle to be circumvented:
Referendum Denialism: Claims of racism, misinformation, or insufficient "education" explain away the loss rather than engaging substantive critiques about race-based constitutionalism undermining equality before the law.
State Workarounds: Fragmented implementations at the state level create a de facto Voice architecture despite national rejection. This erodes federalism and the referendum's clarity.
Institutional Capture: Unions, bureaucracies, NGOs, and sympathetic media keep the issue alive, pressuring politicians who fear being labelled on the "wrong side of history."
This isn't unique to The Voice. We see parallel disregard on immigration, energy policy, speech restrictions, and cultural issues. Majorities opposing rapid demographic change, net zero costs, or compelled speech are dismissed as bigoted or ignorant. The Left's response is often elite-driven institutional pressure, judicial activism, or incremental bureaucratic creep rather than persuasion and fresh democratic mandates.
Sally McManus invoking feminist "No means No" while ignoring the referendum result is particularly galling. Consent and democracy both require respecting boundaries. Rewriting "No" as temporary undermines the entire system.
The Case for a Great Divorce
Australia, and liberal democracies broadly, cannot sustainably coexist with a faction that treats electoral and referendum defeats as mere pauses. Core principles are at stake: equality under law (not race-based privileges), national cohesion over grievance hierarchies, and genuine self-government over perpetual activism.
A "great divorce" doesn't mean literal secession or violence. It means cultural, political, and institutional separation of spheres:
Federalism's Limits: States pushing rejected agendas highlight the need for stronger firewalls or national overrides where core identity and equality are concerned.
Cultural Parallel Structures: Conservatives and classical liberals must build robust institutions: schools, media, think tanks, businesses, that reject progressive orthodoxy rather than accommodate it.
Political Realignment: Voters increasingly reject elite consensus. Parties and movements choosing democracy, borders, fiscal sanity, and equal citizenship (without racial constitutional carve-outs) gain ground. The rise of alternatives reflects exhaustion with the status quo.
Moral Clarity: The Left's project often adopts symbolic gestures, internationalist abstractions, and identity over practical governance and shared Australian identity. Coexistence requires mutual respect for democratic outcomes. Absent that, parallel societies or heightened conflict become inevitable.
Australians voted No for good reasons: preserving a Constitution based on equality, avoiding division, and focusing on practical Indigenous outcomes through existing mechanisms. Ignoring that vote disrespects the sovereign people.
The Left's revival of The Voice three years later confirms what many suspect: for them, democracy is sacred only when they win. When the people say No, the response is persistence, reframing, and elite manoeuvring. This erodes legitimacy.
True reconciliation and progress require accepting the referendum result and working within it, not against it. No means No. If the activist Left cannot accept this foundational democratic norm, a deeper separation of worldviews may be the only path to peace. Australians deserve governance that respects their voice, not one that endlessly seeks to override it.