My uncle was offered an entry into the Aboriginal identity group because he did some work with them in the NT for a while. They said he was a good bloke and said they'd vouch for his claim if he ever wanted some easy money and clout. We're 95% Irish and 5% Scottish, but that doesn't matter so long as they had his back. He declined, which I'm pretty impressed by.
You're not retarded, most people here didn't know either. And even they're not retarded for not knowing. The Voice to Parliament was going to be an amendment to our constitution essentially allowing Aboriginals to form communities with unprecedented power over the country. A group of Aboriginals would "have a say in affairs that affect them" which really means whatever they want. Want to build on this site? Nah, it's sacred. Want to put an extension on your home? Actually, this was our land first, we're going to have that back. Want to give money to Aboriginals in the outback? Yes, but triple the amount. It was a full, constitutional division. A new sovereign nation parallel to our own but with extreme veto powers over ours.
The thing is the "Yes" campaign did everything they could to not talk about it, and just called anyone who questioned what it meant racist. Very few people understood what was happening, and thankfully that was enough to steer them away from a terrible mistake. Edit: I should point out that a lot of "pure" Abos wanted nothing to do with this. It was all for lefty mixed blood Aboriginals who demand power.
It's a good feeling, Ausbros, seeing a clean sweep across all the states is very satisfying. They'll bounce back and invent some new way to try to fuck up our lives, but tonight we can rest.
I reckon they were going to try, but the only way to win is to have a majority vote yes overall, and for more than half the states and territories vote yes. There are only 2 million votes left to be counted and only a single, tiny territory voted yes. With less than 40% saying yes across the board there's literally no way to bring it back even if they did cheat. Not that that's stopped people before...