“It is a tactic of the proponents of the Voice to alienate their opponents and call them names,make them feel ostracised in an attempt to bully them into supporting the Yes,” she said. “I don’t stand for that level of bullying,and nobody should.”
It is the second time Burney haslikened the No campaign tactics to Trumpian politics after first making the claim last month. At that time,it was seized on by Voice critics as denouncing No voters,while some conservative commentators compared the remarks to Hilary Clinton’s labelling of Trump voters as a “basket of deplorables”.
Fair Australia has previously come under fire for featuring the image of Indigenous man Stewart Lingiari on its website and claiming that Vincent Lingiari’s grandson was supporting the No campaign. It removed it only after the man publicly rejected any family connection to the land rights activist and claimed he didn’t know what the Voice was.
On another occasion,AAP FactCheck concluded an email sent by Fair Australia to its supports,written in Price’s name,was “misleading” in its claims to have uncovered secret government documents that exposed the “real agenda” behind the Voice referendum,including plans to change the flag and force Australians to pay reparations to Indigenous people. It found the documents were minutes from 13 consultation events held in 2016 and 2017 about constitutional recognition and reflected comments made by some attendees,not positions adopted by the government.
Asked whether she was concerned she was alienating voters,Burney said “people need to understand that misinformation and disinformation is damaging,and I do not apologise”.
Speaking in Adelaide on Wednesday morning,Dutton maintained he had no regrets about his targeted criticism of the pro-Voice corporations and singled out Wesfarmers,which has donated $2 million to the Yes campaign. Wesfarmers chairman Michael Chaney has been a vocal supporter of the Voice.
“I think a company for example – to look at Wesfarmers – I think the $2 million would be better off reducing prices in their supermarkets or reducing prices at Bunnings.
“Every time I hand over my credit card or cash at Bunnings,or at Coles,I don’t want part of that money going to an activist CEO.”
Wesfarmers declined to comment.
Dutton criticised Burney’s attempt to narrow the focus of the Voice in the Press Club speech,in which she said she would ask the body on day one toprioritise the policy issues of health,education,jobs and housing.
“But that’s not the design of the Voice. I mean let’s not pretend that it’s just restricted to that. If the wording in the Constitution restricted it to those areas,it would be a different debate,but it doesn’t,” Dutton said.
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Yes23 campaign director Dean Parkin welcomed Burney’s vision,saying she had “very clearly provided more shape to the Voice”,and the four key policy areas “aligned with the day-to-day issues that are affecting our communities”.
But pressed on whether it would be up to the Voice to decide their priorities,rather than the minister,Parkin said it would be a two-way conversation.
“Yes,the government of the day will be able to outline its own priorities and the members of the Voice will be carrying that message from their communities about the issues that are important to them,” Parkin told Sky News.
Cut through the noise of federal politics with news,views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weeklyInside Politics newsletter here.