ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
Recent opinion polls have shown waning support for the Indigenous Voice referendum, with the majority of people surveyed saying they are going to vote “no.”
One of the telephone polls canvassed a wide range of landline-owning people who openly take part in phone surveys during business hours. This one, in particular, spoke to nearly a hundred people last Tuesday who had nothing better to do at 11 am than speak to a complete stranger about their political and social justice proclivities.
A survey last week featured 86-year-old local, Greg Couples, who told The Advocate that he spoke to a nice young Australian man for about an hour regarding this so-called “Voice.”
“I’m worried about this Voice,” he said.
“I don’t know what it is, which is why I’m scared of it. It’s also something that will change the constitution. It’s a perfectly good constitution, why change it? Come to think of it, I’m unsure of what the constitution is,”
“It’s important, obviously.”
When asked if he was afraid of the constitution, Mr Couples sighed.
“No, but I’m afraid of it changing. I don’t know why I’m afraid of it changing. Maybe I should stop watching the news for a while. It only makes me more afraid of where the world is going. When they first came up with this idea of a Voice, I was impartial. I thought it wouldn’t really affect people like me, a middle-class old person living in a retirement village. But apparently, after watching that Sky News and reading whatever navel-gazing literature they pawn off as journalism these days, I found out how wrong I was,” he continued.
“I know they said it [Voice to Parliament] can’t make laws or steal my CSL dividends, but still, I’m afraid.”
More to come.
