The Indigenous voice to parliament proposal is not a secret UN plot to steal Australian land. It is not a proposal for a “third chamber of parliament”. It is also not a conspiracy to stop dairy farming, impose “backdoor communism”, force people to listen to rap music or start a new religion … though I have been told all these things on social media this past fortnight.
Welcome to Disinformania; Australia, you’re standing in it.
The Indigenous voice to parliament is a proposal for an independent advisory body representing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians to be established in our constitution. The point of a constitutional change is that a vote of the people puts it beyond the machinations of political parties, who’ve spent 50 years creating Indigenous representative bodies only to smash them when governments change. An independent body with no power of veto, it’s empowered only to “make representations” to government; a modest plan to improve policy and stop waste.
But, by all means, tell me that it’s got something to do with blood-drinking child-molesters – which was argued by a QAnon contingent that turned up to the rally in Sydney on Saturday.
Conspiracist ideology appeared to be the dominant theme across last weekend’s nationwide-ish “no” mobilisations. Organised in part by a Putin-apologist and anti-vaxxer currently holed up in Sydney’s Russian consulate (yes) as he tries to avoid assault charges (yes), the rallies fluttered with red-ensign “sovereign citizen” flags amid the dozens of people who turned out. Were Australians more endeared to the cause by the threats to lynch journalists seen on the back of one protester’s T-shirt at the Sydney event, or the parade of black-clad neo-Nazis who turned up to the rally in Melbourne?
Both are less scary than what’s going on online.
Wil Stracke has made a couple of cut-though videos on TikTok explaining the history and context of the current voice to parliament campaign. Sharing these to various online platforms, I made a thousand exciting new friends overnight … by which I mean I was relentlessly trolled for two weeks by “no”-insisting locked accounts who tended to kick off every night around 3am. Apparently, it’s of deep relevance to the campaign for Indigenous recognition in the Australian constitution that I be told I need a dentist, have weak muscle tone and “hate all men”. I’ll spare you the accompanying racism, but the sheer volume of disinformation and misinformation accompanying it has immediate and long term implications for Australia, none of them good.
The brigading’s been observed by others posting yes material – and international masthead publications. Overwhelmingly, the troll cohort have a true cobber’s grasp of the local lingo. It’s been interesting both to meet “Shezza” – supposedly, a man – and to appreciate just how thoroughly Americanised Australian spelling has become. Curiously, bluer turns of phrase that saturate Australian vernacular have not been present; was the account-holder who posted “PURE CREPE!” on my page trying to protect my delicate Australian lady sensibilities from “pure crap”?
Were they overseas accounts? Perhaps. Whether of common or diverse national origin, what’s clear is a shared set of talking points have circulated among energetic volunteers in extremely online communities, fusing their boutique conspiratorial paranoias with the “no” cause. The Sovereign Citizens insist something incoherent about the choice being an illegitimate “Australian corporation” plot. QAnons claim sly “elites” are up to nefariousness. Old school conspiracy theorists are banging on about UN takeovers, white supremacists are pushing the “great replacement” theory and claiming the “Voice” is racist. They mean against white people, by the way.
Seemingly innocent pages – claiming to be of Hollywood fans or country music appreciators – are suddenly pushing “no” propaganda. Egad! The voice is going to steal your back yard! It was the same baseless fear-mongering made against land rights in the 70s, and against Wik and then Mabo in the 1990s, now with the added oomph of manipulated Facebook algorithms, mysterious commenters, and the eager assistance of shameful commentators on Sky. If you’ve seen people swear blind on their socials that the one-page Uluru statement is SECRETLY 26 pages, just read this.
Yes campaigners inevitably get baited by bad-faith provocations, desperately defending the facts and compulsively citing the easily-searchable. Some “No” campaigners are pointing directly at this online madness confusing the hell out of the too-time-poor-for-politics, persuadable undecideds when they smugly suggest that the voice – to be constituted by government, remember, with no veto power – is somehow “risky”… so “if you don’t know, vote no”.
It looks so very much like American Steve Bannon’s strategy of “flooding the zone”, doesn’t it?
Any Australian conservative apparatchik giggling at forced-answer polls showing an erosion in what was once popular support for the voice may wish to consider what happened to the Republican party in the US when Bannon unleashed the “monster power” of the internet to create parallel, misinformation ecologies there. Permission structures given to campaigners to just make shit up has resulted in a disinformationist takeover of the Republican party, reducing former power-brokers to little more than stars of their own hostage videos as they try to placate the post-truth mob.
Every centre-right opportunist in modern western political history has cynically believed they can maintain control of an unleashed far right flank. This delusion may, in fact, be the greatest disinformationist triumph of them all.
• Van Badham is a Guardian Australia columnist
