The Voice referendum is just one part of the Albanese government’s agenda for the radical change of Australia, change which can only accelerate our decline. This is no exaggeration. It can be demonstrated by two frightening facts. First, despite a massive increase in taxpayer funding, we are seeing a continuing collapse in education standards demonstrated constantly by comparative international testing. Education in Australia seems to be being replaced more and more by indoctrination.

Second, there is a continuing decline in Australia’s per capita GDP compared with countries hardly endowed with anything like our rich resources. A leading reason is that the political class is determined to discourage their development. Just to get to the preconstruction phase of the major iron ore mine, Roy Hill, Gina Rinehart had to obtain, with extraordinary persistence, more than 4,000 approvals from all levels of government. That is not a misprint, over 4,000 approvals were necessary just to reach the preconstruction phase.

In the meantime, the last thing we need in the middle of this housing crisis is the underhand and out-of-control Big Population Australia programme the Albanese government is foisting on an overwhelmingly reluctant people including, I suspect, recent immigrants.

That this is extremely unwise can be demonstrated by the fact that were Western Australia, which attracts few immigrants, to secede – as it tried to do in the Thirties –it would first regain all the offshore assets stolen by the Whitlam government. (They should have been returned following the 1986 Australia Act). Then, with those assets and a small population of less than three million and without the burden of Canberra, Western Australia would easily be among the very richest countries in the world.

I am not suggesting they secede, but demonstrating that a mindless Big Population Australia policy illustrates yet again the madness and incompetence of our political class and why the rank and file must resist this agenda, beginning with the Voice and then by demanding fundamental change.

If, as South Australian Premier Charles Kingston proposed to Alfred Deakin at Federation, we had completed the constitution with a larger dose of Swiss-style tried and tested direct democracy, the political class would now be subject to the continuing control of the people. There is no doubt the result would be a vast improvement in governance. Why? Because the rank and file are clearly endowed with far more common sense than our ruling class.

That is why, as Australians for Constitutional Monarchy proposed to a 2015 parliamentary committee considering indigenous recognition, we need an unpaid elected convention to hold the first general constitutional review by the people since Federation. But instead of the government considering our proposal, the Aboriginal industry borrowed the word ‘convention’ to cover whatever happened at Uluru.

In any event, some leading Australians, including John Howard, Tony Abbott and Alan Jones will be looking at aspects of the Albanese change agenda at a conference just days before the Voice referendum, called by the only organisation in this country experienced in successfully running a referendum No case, Australians for Constitutional Monarchy.

It is likely the ACM will be joined by a second such one soon. According to the polls, its task will be easier than ACM’s in 1999.

It was obvious from the beginning of this current campaign that unless Australians have changed radically, they are far too wise to ever agree to the Voice, a cabal of elites unlikely to have any effect in narrowing the gap but certain to weaken the ‘peace, order and good government’ the constitution was designed to deliver.

The fact is that, if established, the Voice would prove an even more attractive target than education departments already have for the ‘long march through the institutions’ by platoons of those who are nothing more than latter-day communists.

A separate announcement about the conference is published in this journal. ( Alternatively, just go to norepublic.eventbrite.com.au) For those who cannot attend, as well as for those who want to recall what was said, the conference will be available on demand on the nation’s new and exciting news platform, ADH TV, something which is being likened to the US Newsmax.

As argued here at the time of its announcement, the Voice referendum should never have been called. It was always predictable that it would have significantly less support than the 1999 referendum, except from those unfortunate young people subjected to indoctrination posing as education.

In the meantime, if anyone doubts that the incumbent Prime Minister is unworthy of the high office that the political system awarded him, just consider his calling of a fake inquiry into the disaster which was the official reaction to Covid. The fact is a plan already existed, drawn by an earlier health minister, Tony Abbott, which had gained international praise and made clear what should be done when Covid struck. As I have mentioned here, when asked by a government representative what I thought of the Albanese government’s intention of appointing a royal commission to investigate Covid-19, I said it depends on whom you appoint, an observation which caused some mirth.

I had in mind a royal commission by eminent lawyers from across the spectrum and of the standing of say, Michael Kirby, Ian Callinan and Margaret Cunneen, lawyers who would collectively inspire confidence. The terms of reference should have included why just the most vulnerable were not targeted with minimal interruption for everyone else, why medicines proven to be successful elsewhere were banned, why inadequately tested vaccines were mandated and as argued in a submission to government, norepublic.com.au /12282-2, why the making of regulations escaped from proper consideration by the nations’ executive councils and the full scrutiny and the power of disallowance by the people’s representatives in chambers normally independent of the ruling government.

But instead of such a royal commission, the Prime Minister has disgracefully announced a fake inquiry which, it is almost universally assumed, is designed to criticise former prime minister Morrison while protecting the Labor premiers whose decisions he so unwisely underwrote. What a scandal.