Dutton's victory over cancel culture

THe opposition’s success in extracting concessions to create more of a level playing field in the voice debate represents a triumph over cancel culture. BY NIck Cater.

The progressive left’s preferred tactic for winning any argument these days is to avoid having one.

Their goal is to silence their opponents by branding them as racist, bigoted, transphobic or otherwise morally disreputable.

The advocates of an Indigenous Voice to Parliament who hoped to sideline reasoned discussion by deploying this brand of cancel culture suffered a decisive setback in parliament last week.

Peter Dutton has yet to declare publicly whether he is for or against the Voice.

Yet he has already won the first victory for No campaigners by ensuring their right to be heard.

The Opposition leader has secured two significant concessions from the Prime Minister to ensure the referendum is fought on as level a playing field as it can be.

Anthony Albanese has agreed that a pamphlet outlining the cases for and against a voice will be sent to every voter.

He has bowed to Dutton’s demand that donations to the official No campaign receive the same tax-deductible treatment the Yes campaign has enjoyed from the start.

Albanese has stuck to his refusal to provide government funding to both campaigns as the Howard government did at the 1999 republic referendum.

Conservatives are in no position to complain, however, since any money the Albanese government decides not to spend is a victory of sorts.

The value of the political capital Albanese has burnt to win the Opposition’s support for the legislation to allow the Voice referendum to go ahead is not trifling.

Some of the leading advocates in favour of the Voice have argued stridently that the No case was too dangerous to be heard.

Guardian Australia reported as recently as January that the government wanted to avoid circulating the No case because it feared elevating anti-Indigenous sentiment. 

Professor Megan Davis, one of the key architects of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, warned a parliamentary committee last month that giving an uncensored platform to her opponents could spread misinformation and “racist messaging”.

If the government agreed to distribute the pamphlets, she said, it would be responsible for any “racist language and racist assertions, that may or may not breach racial discrimination laws.”

Dutton and his Indigenous Affairs spokesman Julian Leeser achieved the victory this week that they have been working patiently towards for months.

The subtlety of the Opposition’s parliamentary tactics disappointed those conservatives who longed for a fire-and-brimstone denunciation of a proposal they deeply abhor.

Their frustration was shared by the Prime Minister, but for different reasons.

Albanese is desperate to offload the blame if the referendum fails. What he desperately needs is an intransigent, troglodyte tory, but Dutton is refusing the role.

Albanese would happily cede the front page headlines on this topic to the Opposition leader any day of the week.

Making Dutton the story, rather than his own inept mishandling of the debate, would help to unite the fractured pro-Voice camp.

Instead, Albanese is caught in a painful wedge, unable to concede to all the progressives’ demands on the referendum’s scope for fear of alienating those in the middle ground.

This week’s developments in Canberra have illustrated the beauty of a parliamentary system that we mess with at our peril.

Not for the first time, a Prime Minister inflated by hubris has been dragged back to earth by the gravitational pull of democracy.

It is an effect Alexis de Tocqueville observed the best part of two centuries ago in 'Democracy in America'.

Leaders whose survival depends on the popular vote “may frequently be faithless and frequently mistaken, but they will never systematically adopt a line of conduct hostile to the majority”.

It is why democracy is the conservative’s best friend in an era when the radicals can bend almost every institution to their will except parliament.

And it is why the radicals are on a mission to dilute the powers of parliament at every opportunity.

The policy disasters during the COVID pandemic shows what happens when they succeed.

Of the many consequences that flow from a constitutionally established Indigenous Voice to Parliament, the threat to democratic authority is the one Australians should fear the most.

The Voice will not be elected and so cannot be sacked.

The moral force it will exercise over elected governments will be considerable.

It would indeed take “a very brave government” to defy the Voice, as Albanese has said.

A very brave government that decided to push its luck could be pulled back into line by the courts.

In other words, to paraphrase de Tocqueville, no government is likely to systematically adopt a line of conduct hostile to the Voice.

The voice of the people, expressed through their representatives in parliament, will inevitably be diminished.

Dutton’s tactical long game has allowed the automatic stabilisers in our poetically balanced democracy to kick in, forcing Albanese closer to the centre, albeit some way off on the left.

Had Dutton spoken forcefully against the Voice, things would’ve worked out very differently.

The referendum proposal Cabinet rubber stamped this week is worrying enough.

But if the Coalition had refused to negotiate - leaving Albanese seeking the support of the Greens, it could have been much worse.

A green-tinged referendum proposal would have been less likely to pass.

It would, however, have been far more dangerous for our democracy had it done so.

Had Dutton and Leeser tried to block the referendum proposal, Albanese would have gleefully accused the Opposition of denying Australians the right to have their say.

Instead, the Coalition has outwitted the left, denying them the opportunity to deploy the manoeuvre outlined by Saul Alinsky set it out in the activist’s 1971 bestselling handbook, Rules for Radicals: "Pick the target, freeze it, personalise it, and polarise it."

The passing of the enabling bill ensures that the decision on the Voice is no longer in the parliament’s hands.

It depends on the judgement of a majority of adult citizens in a majority of states.

To the extent that history serves as a guide, we can have every confidence that Australians will cast their vote with utmost prudence.