Recently, the Prime Minister of Australia has been heard regularly professing, ‘There is enough information about the Voice out there already!’

I have thought about this, and surprisingly discovered that he is right. There is enough information out there, in writing and in historical precedent, for people to decide that the only helpful decision with reference to the Voice, as currently presented, is a resounding ‘no’.

Consider some of the questions that have been asked by the leader of the Opposition, Peter Dutton.

The first of his four questions revolve around, ‘Who is an Aborigine/Torres Straight Islander?’ The response we received is circular in nature, because the Prime Minister goes to his infamous report and notes this definition will be according to local communities. But how does that sit alongside the interesting and unexplained rapid increase in Aboriginal identification in our last census? What if an Aboriginal group wants someone to represent them because of their social presence and commitment to their agenda, but only has one 16th or one 32nd or one 64th in their DNA heritage? Without any real objective criteria, almost anyone can politic their way onto the Voice. Note, this is not a democratic process, which means we would add something constitutionally that takes us backwards – or to express it in terms socialists might understand, this is ‘progressive dismantling’. Also note that the report on which the Prime Minister relies clearly notes that state and territory representation does not equate in any way to proportional representation (a large state like New South Wales will be radically under-represented compared to the ACT, for example).

Mr Dutton’s questions also relate to the operational principles of the Voice. For those who have done studies in organisation structures, they will recognise that this dynamic – of setting up institutional positions and processes – can make or break the spirit and usefulness of any bureaucracy (remember the wonderfully ironic accuracy in Yes Minister). Mr Dutton’s questions then slide into the related area of accountability, including whether there will be systematic monitoring to see if a Voice actually makes a difference on the ground. That this oversight will be politicised is clear, because the Prime Minister insists the body can be changed by Parliament. If the Voice was currently in existence, imagine the kind of Voice we would have if the Greens, Teals, or the David Pococks of our Parliament had even more influence?

When we get to Mr Dutton’s 13th question, we come to something that is so very perceptive and probably not on people’s minds at this stage – in essence, he challenges whether the Voice is a doorway to other action of the socialist protagonists – that is, will the Voice lead to a treaty and then to reparations? Will that be their consistent recommendation?

And here is the next reason why there is enough information and precedent to vote ‘no’. I first became interested in a serious political issue about forty years ago when we decriminalised abortion in New South Wales. I was given all kinds of assurances that this was not a ‘thin-edge’ strategy. It was a lie, as was the assurance more recently with the Same Sex Marriage movement, which is now wanting to cripple people’s beliefs if those beliefs come into the public sphere. Assisted suicide is following the same pathway. The last Prime Minister not to take their oath on the Bible, Prime Minister Gillard, had a similar approach to chaplaincy in schools, for example.

But here is the thoroughly horrible worst aspect of the Prime Minister’s reassurances. He is appears to be ignorant of the anthropological dynamics at play in this debate, as have been so many politicians before him, which is why we have wasted so much money over the recent decades. Douglas Murray notes a similar issue in his War on the West where he mentions Roger Sandall’s work in exposing the ‘Disneyfication’ of Indigenous cultures. Sandall observed that within anthropology:

[The West looks at native tribalism as] … romantic primitivism, which is the moral transfiguration of the tribal world… This projects a Disneyfied way of life, all flowers and contentment, all stress-free smiles and communal harmony … [this] romantic primitivism recklessly deleted not simply violence, but domination (of women, the young, commoners) and exploitation … [also,] premature death by infectious diseases that were only crudely addressed by magical means are all too easily edited out…

This represents a different kind of culture war, based on a clash of beliefs. When we previously experimented with local Indigenous communities operating schools, literacy and numeracy went dramatically backwards. Why? Because, despite so much loveliness and wisdom of local clans, their traditional culture is pre-literate. But we do not teach this in our schools and universities. The promoters of the Voice (who are deciding ‘yes’ because it feels kind and ‘decent’) want a Voice on the misconception that decision making that can be undertaken through local traditional customary law is equivalent to our Judeo-Christian Western tradition. It might be, but the Prime Minister’s go-to document clearly allows for it not to be.

Ultimately, if we want to close the gap, local communities need to decide if they want the best of Western civilisation while holding onto the best of their culture. The Prime Minister needs to speak to these beliefs to reassure us that he is not aiming for progressive deconstruction of our democracy. If the door is left open to ignore the rule of Westminster law for all, including assent to education for all, then forget any systematic improvement. It is a pathetically ignorant sell of an idea.

In essence, in the language of Ellul, the Prime Minister and his supporters are running the campaign trying to be engineers with the right technique, using psychologically informed social engineers suggesting the right desires towards achieving a feigned consent for the rest of society. In their minds, people and their responses are calculable and algebraic. To assist, they recruit the morally idle rich and sell them noble ideas that are actually ignoble.

Where will it lead? The ‘thin edge of the wedge’ future under such a socialist regime seems reasonably clear – elements will (eventually) include: removing God from the Constitution when we become a republic, controlling birthing and death, dividing the nation by race with institutional privileging of some, taking over the ethic of independent schools, increasing a price capped controlled nationalised economy, and controlling health strategies from an abundance of caution, while never using the words ‘socialist nation’. It is a game plan used effectively be the recently retired New Zealand Prime Minister, who our Prime Minister admires so much.

Interestingly, some time ago I wrote to the Federal Indigenous Minister and asked similar questions to Peter Dutton. Her response speaks volumes – she did not reply.