We all know that the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum, which cost around $450
million of your taxpayer money, was a complete flop with Australians collectively voting No,
but it wasn’t from lack of trying! A number of major Australian companies donated millions
of dollars towards the Yes campaign. What these businesses have to do with
pushing for constitutional amendment, I don’t know. It seems rather absurd, if you ask me.
This is the Australian Electoral Commission’s Transparency Register. We’re interested in
referendum returns. Scrolling down, we need to click on “Published referendum returns”. The
AEC is obliged to publish financial information such as donations and expenditure before the end
of 24 weeks after voting day. Noting this was updated 3 April 2024. It should also be noted
that the disclosure threshold for this referendum was $15,200, This means many donations are not
visible, because only those above the threshold need to be disclosed. It can be a little bit dodgy
in that there is nothing to stop anyone making multiple small donations to avoid disclosure.
Luckily, our big woke companies wanted people to know what they were donating. That was the whole
point of their donations – Virtue signalling! It certainly wasn’t a very good business decision.
Anyway, we’re interested in the Transparency Register. Specifically, Referendum Returns.
There’s two options here, Referendum entities and Referendum donors. Well take a look at the
entities first. We’ll click on the heading “Donations Received” to order by the largest
donations. The organisation Australians for Indigenous Constitutional Recognition,
which ran the Yes23 campaign, received a massive $47.4 million or so, of which it
spent around $43.8 million, by far the biggest beneficiary of donations during the referendum
campaign. The University of New South Wales, which housed the Uluru Statement from the Heart group,
received around $11.1 million in donations. Australians for Unity were the largest No
campaigner receiving around $10.8 million in donations. With the Liberal Party of Australia,
who backed the No campaign, coming in a distant fourth with $1.9 million. There’s
dozens more entities listed, which we won’t go into here, but no matter how you look at it,
the Yes campaign easily outspent the No campaign, and they still lost.
Interestingly, if you sort by Referendum Expenditure, you’ll see that there were two
major No campaigners, Australians for Unity, who we saw before, who spent $11.8 million,
and Advance Australia, who worked with Australians for Unity, who spent $10.4 million. So together
they spent around $22 million, but together they only received around $12 million. So
where did the extra $10 million come from? Well, it didn’t. In its disclosure documents to the AEC,
Australians for Unity said that many of its expenses were double counted,
because it passed on donations to Advance Australia. I don’t know what the AEC are
trying to pull, or if it’s just an accounting mistake, but either way,
the Yes campaign way outspent the No campaign. According to the Guardian, “Yes campaign groups
received more than five times as much in donations as no side in voice referendum”.
When it comes to individual donors, let’s click on Referendum Donors. Let’s sort by Donations Made.
Okay, so we’ve got the Paul Ramsay Foundation who donated $7 million. According to their website,
their purpose is to “help end cycles of disadvantage in Australia by enabling
equitable opportunity for people and communities to thrive”. Coming in second at $4.4 million was
Givia, the Yajilarra Trust. I can’t find much information about them. Australia’s
fourth-largest bank I think, ANZ, donated $2.5 million of your deposits towards a
socially divisive issue. Oil and gas production company Woodside Energy,
$2.1 million. One of Australia’s largest listed companies and the largest bank,
Commonwealth Bank happily spent $2 million of shareholder money trying to divide us up along
ethnic lines. The third-largest bank Westpac, obviously didn’t want to be left out, and donated
$2 mil, as did Wesfarmers, owners of Bunnings, Kmart, Target, Officeworks, just to name a few.
Actually, a whole bunch of Australian companies donated over a million dollars, including my
personal favourite, Woolworths, who donated over $1.5 million.
Why would a supermarket involve itself in trying to promote constitutional change?
Anyway, I think you get the idea. These companies spent millions of
dollars trying to sway your opinion. It didn’t work, but they tried. We’re
Woolworths the fresh food people. You’d think they’d stick to selling groceries,
but no, now politics is apparently part of their business. When you think about it,
it’s not even sensible from a business point of view. More than half of your staff didn’t
support your political stance. As you’re a supermarket, more than half your customer
base didn’t even support you. It was a stupid idea, and simply put, a bad business decision.
What if these companies instead donated their millions directly to Indigenous causes? Wouldn’t
that have been a more effective use of their money if they were truly interested in helping
Indigenous people? I don’t know, maybe that would have been wasted too, but these donations,
this money, was definitely wasted. It essentially went to advertising, right?
Coalition’s Indigenous Affairs spokeswoman Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price commented
on the funding. She said, “The Voice was the priority of the elites, activists and
corporations. The No campaign was supported by everyday mums and dads. Despite the Yes campaign
outspending the No campaign more than two to one, Australians recognised the Voice for what it was:
Albanese’s voice of division. The voice was going to entrench division in our
constitution and not practically help the most marginalised in our community.
Today’s report should send a clear message particularly to those larger corporations;
they should focus on providing for their customers, not telling them what to think.”
“Where did my money go?” I hear some Indigenous people ask. Bluntly speaking,
it was flushed down the toilet.