‘We can’t have separatism’: Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin reveal fatal flaw in Albanese’s Voice campaign in latest podcast episode

Former prime minister Tony Abbott and his former Chief of Staff Peta Credlin have analysed what decided the Voice to Parliament referendum in the latest episode of their podcast Abbott and Credlin.

The referendum lost in a landslide defeat with an overall majority of Australians and all states and territories except the ACT voting No.

Speaking on the seventh episode of their podcast, Abbott and Credlin delved into the decisive moments of the Voice campaign on both sides of the argument, after the country moved from heavily favouring Yes early in the year to a comprehensive No victory.

LISTEN TO THE LATEST EPISODE OF THE ‘ABBOTT & CREDLIN’ PODCAST HERE

The former Liberal leader agreed with Credlin’s claims that the Prime Minister’s pitch for the Voice was contradictory and the repeated statement that it was going to just be an advisory body was “not right”.

“I think by the end he was saying it was just an advisory committee, as if advisory committees get entrenched into the Constitution,” Abbott said.

“But on the other hand, he was also saying that this was going to be an epoch-changing improvement to the way Aboriginal people lived. It was going to basically set the seal on the whole reconciliation process. It was going to be both historic and insignificant at the same time.”

Abbott argued the widespread support received from big business for the Voice combined with the belief it was going to “enshrine separatism” were factors that led to the decline of support for Yes.

“There was this dawning realisation that it was going to entrench two different categories of Australians into the Constitution on the basis of ancestry. Plus it was going to enshrine separatism,” he said.

“So notwithstanding all the superficial elite endorsements notwithstanding big business, big sport, big tech, even some of the church groups coming out in favour of it, it was always a very bad idea. And so in the end it was a big no to the voice, but it was also a really big yes to equality and unity.

“So I think it’s a result that the Australian people can take a great deal of quiet pride in, but it’s also a result that both sides of politics need to learn from.”

Credlin said the result was an example of how the Australian public “always get it right” despite a widespread emotional response from the Yes camp with the country following the defeat including the Aboriginal flag being held half-mast and a week of silence in the media from its campaigners.

“We were supposed to be almost a bit ashamed at the result,” she said. “But you know, the Australian public always gets it right. And I think the Australian public voted for as much of a Yes case to keeping this country united as it was to any sense of a negative No.”

The podcast hosts turned the heat up on Anthony Albanese following the defeat of the biggest proposal of his tenure as Australia’s prime minister to date.

Abbott compared the Voice referendum to Kevin Rudd’s emissions trading scheme which he pulled in 2010 when climate change was the “great economic, political and even moral challenge of our time.”

“Now this is thought to have fatally damaged the Kevin Rudd prime ministership,” he said.

“And given everything that Anthony Albanese had invested in the Voice, I think he may well have felt that pulling it or substantially altering it would have, as it were, knocked the stuffing out of his prime ministership,” he said.

“That said, I think to lose a referendum like this on such a topic as this has done enormous damage to the Prime Minister’s moral authority and he will struggle to get it back.”

The Prime Minister was also warned by Abbott and Credlin to avoid moving on with Treaty and Truth as they were a “package deal to entrench separatism” and that the Voice result ultimately rejected all three elements of the Uluru Statement.

“In the end, what the public were voting against was separatism. And we can’t have separatism via the backdoor through treaty and so-called truth. Having rejected it in the front door by saying no to the voice,” Credlin said.

Abbott was full of praise for Warren Mundine, Jacinta Price and other Aboriginal voices who campaigned for a No vote with their “barnstorming of the country” as well as Liberal leader Peter Dutton who left the Prime Minister lacking bipartisan support for the referendum.

He said the manner in which the No supporters ran their campaign was in stark contrast to the Yes side, which he accused of having acted “extremely nasty” to anyone “suggesting slight differences”.

“After a very slow start, the No campaign was unified with Fair Australia providing the campaign logistics (and) you had in Jacinta Price and Warren Mundine – two very effective, very sympatico, very together main spokespeople,” he said.

“And of course, Peter Dutton’s courageous decision to come out very clearly on one side of this argument, despite the difficulties that he had initially with some of his own frontbench.

“This has really been a textbook case in how to run or not run a campaign. And in the end, I think it’s been something that has been very good for the Australian people because we’ve reasserted. Our faith in ourselves and our belief in our country.”

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