ABC News in Australia has been using the passive voice everywhere in regards to Israel until they simply couldn’t avoid it any longer now that Israel has killed an Australian aid worker.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/26/australias-abc-staffs-concerns-over-gaza-bias-revealed#:~:text=Staff at Australia’s national broadcaster,claims that convulsed the outlet. ABC staff have been complaining internally about pro-Israel bias in their use of language too

God damn it, that headline got my hopes up for a second.

Not every member of the Commonwealth has the British monarch as head of state (in fact the majority do not).

Not to mention that the bar for a referendum to pass is very high. For the non-Australians, you need not only a majority of voters nationally to vote yes, but also a majority of states to vote yes (the so-called “double majority”). Only 8 of the last 44 referendums before now have passed and partisan referendums have never passed, so this one was doomed the minute Dutton decided to play politics with it.

I never saw any arguments against the Voice that weren’t either simplistic ideology (“it’s racist to have an advisory body for indigenous people!”) or outright lies and conspiracy theories. Claiming that it wouldn’t have gone far enough isn’t a good argument to do nothing instead. Does anyone really think that a treaty is more likely now than if we had voted yes?