[Theme Music Starts]

ANGE:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ange McCormack. This is 7am.

Audio excerpt – Jacinta Price:

“The Australian people have voted overwhelmingly to say no to this referendum. They’ve said no to division within our constitution along the lines of race. They’ve said no to grievance and the push from activists to suggest that we are a racist country when we are absolutely not a racist country.”

ANGE:

On Saturday night, when Australia rejected the referendum, Jacinta Nampajinpa Price stood next to Opposition leader Peter Dutton to claim Victory…

Audio excerpt – Jacinta Price:

“As I have always said, the gap doesn't exist between Indigenous Australia and non-indigenous Australia.”

ANGE:

Only a few years ago, Price was an obscure Northern Territory politician…but now, she’s a household name.

Audio excerpt – Jacinta Price:

“The Australian people want practical outcomes, a unified country where we can move forward together. Once again, I want to thank the Australian people for delivering this result. We hear you loud and clear. Thank you.”

ANGE:

So what led to her political rise and her role in convincing Australians to vote no?

Today national correspondent for The Saturday Paper, Mike Seccombe on the secretive groups that elevated Jacinta Price and crafted the messaging used by the “No” side.

It’s Monday October 16th.

[Theme Music Ends]

ANGE:

So Mike, the campaign for the “No” vote was obviously very effective because when the referendum was first announced, there was majority support for it. But by the time polling day came around, a lot of people flipped. As someone who's followed the “No” camp closely, how did they pull that off?

MIKE:

On the broad subject of why it happened as it did. There's already been an autopsy cutting this up in many different ways. You know, some people say the “Yes” camp wasn't strong enough and organised enough.

Audio excerpt – David Speers:

“Why has Australia voted this way?”

Audio excerpt – Isabella Higgins:

“I spent a bit of time in polling booths this week and I was surprised by the number of people who said, I don’t get it… it’s too hard so I’m going to vote no, just from travelling around the country… that’s a message that I was getting a lot.”

MIKE:

And I'm a bit of that view myself. Some people say the “No” camp unfairly used lies and misinformation, and I definitely agree with that. There was some outrageous stuff promulgated by “No”.

Audio excerpt – John Paul Janke:

“And misinformation played a big part in this. I think we can’t underestimate that. The feedback that we were getting from Western Sydney was the fear of, I’m going to lose my house… if the Voice gets up I’m going to lose my house, it’s giving them extra rights that I don’t have… and that really played a part.”

MIKE:

And some people say the timing of this referendum, you know, during a cost of living crisis, people weren't feeling particularly generous because they were worried about themselves.

Audio excerpt – Isabella Higgins:

“And it’s interesting as well now that we can see that wealthy electorates were more inclined to vote yes, and I think if we really peel back some of the reasons people were voting no, underneath it was what are they getting that I don’t have. I think that’s really what people were saying. Its a cost of living crisis. It's a hard time for some people. I don't feel like they should get more than me, and I think if we really strip it back that’s what people were saying.”

MIKE:

And some people say the wording of the proposal wasn't clear enough. I don't agree with that at all. But, you know, broadly, if we think about the “No” side, they had a few things working in their favour.

First of all, it's much easier to convince people to do nothing than to get them to do something. And also they did have very clear messaging. You know, “if you don't know, vote no.” they said, which morally bankrupt as it was, is an argument. I mean, I think people are obliged to know what they're voting about. But anyway, the other message, of course, that they ran that convinced quite a lot of voters, as I understand it, was that not all Aboriginal people wanted the Voice. That's what they said. And of course it's true. You know, some Indigenous people did oppose the Voice as in every community, you know, you seldom get 100% support for anything. But we know the vast majority of Indigenous voters did want around 80% according to multiple polls that I've seen. So the “No” side wilfully ignored that majority, of course.

But the argument that not all Indigenous people wanted the Voice effectively enabled a lot of voters to feel more comfortable voting no and to deliver that message. I think you just can't go past the effectiveness of the two key leaders on the “No” side. That's Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Warren Mundine.

Audio excerpt – Jacinta Price:

“Voices like mine, voices like my good friend Warren Mundine are speaking up.”

Audio excerpt – Warren Mundine:

“Jacinta is right. This thing is about division and dividing this country and the racial abuse that we've been hearing over the last few months.”

MIKE:

And Ange part of the reason why Price and Mundine became so influential was because they had the help of an organisation that a lot of people might not even have heard of or likely know very little about, which is a think tank slash research centre called the Centre for Independent Studies.

ANGE:

Okay, so tell me a bit more about the Centre for Independent Studies. What is that and why would they be interested in building the influence of people like Warren Mundine and Jacinta Price?

MIKE:

Well, the Centre for Independent Studies, the CIS is a libertarian think tank. It's quite a powerful group and it features on its board some of Australia's most influential business figures. I mean, it’s got an enormous board. You could hardly find a better connected crew.

Audio excerpt – Centre for Independent Studies promotion:

“For 40 years, the Centre for Independent Studies has been providing ideas to make a better Australia. Our evidence based practical research helps open debate and lay the groundwork for policy change.”

MIKE:

And basically, it holds what you might call a market fundamentalist view. You know, that almost everything can be fixed by markets. They should be less regulation, they should be smaller government. All the usual positions that you would expect from a group that indulges in neo liberal thought. And this plays to their attitudes to Indigenous affairs. So for decades, the CIS has produced research detailing the failures of Australia's Indigenous policies. And some of it's very good, I might add. But what makes it contentious is the fact that it's been coupled with this advocacy for the full integration in inverted commas, of First Nations people into a market based society. So a consistent feature of their research over many years argues against the idea of what they called separatism. You know, that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people shouldn't be treated differently in any way and have already been separated from the rest of Australian society to their detriment. And that thinking essentially blames Indigenous people for the gap between them and non-Indigenous people as to the connection between Jacinta Price and the CIS. It's not just theoretical. Not only did she use those ideas during her campaigns, she actually authored a lot of them because the CIS has employed her and considers itself to be kind of responsible for creating the phenomenon that is Jacinta Price and turning her into the political player she is today.

ANGE:

Yeah, right. So can you explain what the link is between the CIS's and Jacinta Price?

MIKE:

Well, before the referendum, hardly anyone knew much about Jacinta Price. You know, she was an obscure councillor from Alice Springs, but the CIS has known about her for years and take credit for bringing her to national attention. Back in 2016, she was plucked from obscurity to deliver this talk for, quote, emerging thinkers that they put on every year.

And she gave a very passionate speech to that event. She talked about the sexual abuse experience in her own family, about the scourge of violence, about alcohol related illnesses in Aboriginal communities.

Audio excerpt – Jacinta Price:

“In my own family there are a number of cases that I’m aware of, stories I’ve been told about women who are my blood, who have experienced abhorrent acts of sexual violence, domestic violence, or who have been murdered.”

MIKE:

A lot of it was personal anecdote and it was very powerful. But it was a contentious speech, too, because Price, as has been the case with the CIS even before she joined them, blamed Indigenous culture for much of the problems.

Audio excerpt – Jacinta Price:

“Instead of looking for constitutional recognition, or treaties, or governments to solve the problems, ownership, responsibility, and constructive criticism must take place. Yes, we’ve worked out the role governments have played in our country’s history, but we also must acknowledge our own part in the demise of our people.”

MIKE:

Now, remember, this was, what, six, seven years before there was any referendum proposal actually on the table. You know, she was out there arguing the “No” case before there was a “No” case effectively, anyway, on the strength of that speech. She was made the indigenous program director at the CIS's. And from there, of course, it was a rapid rise. Price won a seat as a senator for the Northern Territory at last year's election. She was quickly elevated to the frontbench, made Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs by Peter Dutton.

And of course, when she moved onto politics, the CIS has enlisted Warren Mundine to head its Indigenous program. So the links are long and deep here I guess is the point. And the influence of the CIS's in this referendum actually doesn't stop with Price or Mundine, for that matter.

ANGE:

After the break - The wealthy donors who helped elevate Jacinta Price.

[Advertisement]

ANGE:

So, Mike, you mentioned before that the CIS is backed by some of Australia's most influential business figures. Can you explain who's involved with and connected to the CIS's.

MIKE:

So the executive director of the CIS is Tom Switzer. He has his own radio show on the ABC's Radio National called Between the Lines. He's a conservative writer and commentator. He's a former Liberal Party staffer and one time candidate. So he's the relatively well-known face of this think tank.

But there's a bunch of other high profile figures connected to it. Maurice Newman, for example, helped start the CIS's all those years ago. He's most famously, I think, a climate denier, but he also wrote a piece in The Australian not long before the referendum that claimed the Voice was a power grab by elites. Then there's Gary Johns, who has links to the CIS's and also Australians for Unity, which was the campaign led by Price and then incorporated Mundine, who said there should be blood tests to measure whether someone is Indigenous or not, among other inflammatory things, which at one stage impelled even Warren Mundine to ask him to kindly shut up because they were just so out there. Then if we go to the board, one of the board members of the CIS's is Sam Kennard, whose family made their fortune from the storage company. He gave at least 40,000 in financial backing to the “No” campaign and possibly more. We'll learn more about that down the track, I guess. And Tom Switzer acknowledged that people on the CRC board were split. He mentioned that there were a couple of board members who were also on the board of the Ramsay Foundation, for example, a big philanthropic organisation which donated 5 million to the other side of the referendum to the “Yes” campaign.

ANGE:

Yeah. I want to ask about donations and how both sides of the referendum campaigns were funded. The “Yes” side had a lot of money behind it. You could see that clearly with some of the big ad campaigns. But what about the “No” side? Where was that money coming from?

MIKE:

Well, that's exceptionally hard to answer. And I think that's one of the key distinctions, is that we know much more about where the money was coming from for the “Yes” side than the “No” side.

As for the anti voice groups, well, the Financial Review might have an attempt to unravel the complicated structure of the anti voice groups. You know, there was Australians for Unity, which was led by Mundine and Price, but the list of its directors filed with ASICs showed that they were exactly the same ones as were listed for Advance Australia, which is a sort of activist group with strong Liberal Party connections. David Crowe in the Sydney Morning Herald tried to get to the bottom of the “No” camp’s funding and did manage to identify some donors. Marcus Blackmore, who made his fortune in the vitamin business, big time stockbroker Simon Fenwick and his wife Elizabeth, a director of the Melbourne Storm Football Club and some others. And the point that Crowe had to make was that this kind of undermined the, as he called it, calculated myth from the “No” camp that "Yes” was being supported by elites. And I've got to say, I couldn't agree more. You could hardly find a more elite bunch of people in the CIS's board. You know, they're very networked into the true elite of Australia.

Separate to funding, though. Maybe we could consider funding to be also the foundational ideas of the No campaign. The CIS has essentially manufactured a lot of the bullets that were fired by the activists and it remained a quiet constant throughout the “No” debate. Tom Switzer said his organisation was neutral in that it published work from both sides of the debate. You know, I think that's a bit disingenuous, frankly. He was the executive director of the CIS's. He had ultimate responsibility for deciding what areas of research the CIS would undertake and who would do it. And it was his choice to engage Price and Mundine.

ANGE:

So it sounds like the CIS's and I assume other groups like it wield a lot of influence in the background of Australian decision making. What does this story from the referendum say about how significant that power is and how little transparency there is about this kind of work?

MIKE:

Well, exactly. You're spot on. There have been calls for greater transparency around these think tanks and the political groups they are connected to. And they are, I think you could say, secretive by design. And this is true of both sides of politics. You know, the CIS's maintains they were neutral in the referendum, but clearly, clearly, that's a fig leaf. Okay.

And there are, of course, equivalent bodies on the progressive side of politics. And we don't know anything about who funds them either. The existence of these organisations is not necessarily a bad thing. They do quite often produce valuable work and shine light on problems. The CIS's research on Indigenous policy did produce some valuable data about Aboriginal disadvantage and about various programs and their effectiveness.

But there also exists the potential for these groups to undermine our democracy by weighing in anonymously without anyone knowing. On key issues. One would argue that they've been quite successful in the case of the referendum, and it's fair to assume, I think, that those who fund these groups are not always motivated by altruism or pure intent. And I think that's particularly true of the groups on the right. They get a lot of their money from people in corporate who have vested interests. If there is an organisation in Australia that can wield so much influence, isn't it in the public interest to know that and know more about it. If they've been instrumental in opposing a crucial referendum to try and improve the lives of Aboriginal people in this country, isn't it reasonable for there to be greater accountability about their interests. So to hammer the point yet again, these are the real elites. And as things stand, they get to wield great influence quite anonymously.

ANGE:

Mike, thanks so much for your time.

MIKE:

Thank you.

[Advertisement]

[Theme Music Starts]

ANGE:

Also in the news today -

New Zealand has elected a new government. The National Party’s Christopher Luxon, a conservative first term MP, will be the country’s 42nd Prime Minister.

The leader of the outgoing Labour Party, Chris Hipkins said his party needed to ‘reflect and refresh’ after it appears to have only won 34 seats - compared to 65 seats in 2020.

And

In the aftermath of the referendum, the Greens have called for a $250 million dollar truth and justice commission.

The commission, according to Greens leader Adam Bandt, would pursue a truth telling process to “talk honestly” with Australian people about the history of dispossession of First Nations people.

I’m Ange McCormack, this is 7am. We’ll be back again tomorrow.

[Theme Music Ends]