The Communist Party of Australia has joined with unions to march in “Yes” campaign parades across the country ahead of the referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
“The commos out in force for the Yes Campaign,” said author and outspoken “No” vote advocate Nyunggai Warren Mundine on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Thousands of Australians have taken part in Yes marches across the continent, with the Yes23 Campaign asserting that up to 80 percent of Aboriginal people support The Voice.
Meanwhile, hundreds of No campaigners gathered this week at an event in Adelaide where Opposition Indigenous Minister Jacinta Price, South Australian Senator Kerrynne Liddle, and Mr. Mundine spoke.
In the polling world, about 51 percent of Australians surveyed are leaning towards “No,” according to Essential.
If the referendum is successful, the Labor government’s Voice to Parliament will see a constitutionally enshrined advisory body “make representations” to the executive and legislature on issues deemed to impact Indigenous people, as well as an alteration to the preamble.
If the vote is successful, the government will then design what the advisory body will look like, with Labor maintaining that the body will not have veto power, and will merely make suggestions to Parliament.
Those supporting the move see a Yes vote as a way to meaningfully involve Indigenous people in decision-making.
“The very least we can do is support a ‘Yes’ vote and walk together to begin redressing historic injustice,” said the Electrical Trades Union, which attended a Yes march in South Australia, a key battleground for the referendum.
“Australian parliaments have consistently failed to enact laws and policies that support First Nations Australians. At times in our history, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have had to work for free or below legal minimum wages.”
Meanwhile, critics and the Liberal-National Coalition have railed against The Voice and its constitutional changes as a racially divisive move and an unnecessary risk.
“The Yes pamphlet is a fantasy novel about a magical wand called The Voice that will solve all problems. Actually, they can only be solved by economic participation: kids in school, adults in jobs, business creation, and home ownership,” said Mr. Mundine on X.
Individuals Linked to Communist Groups Taking Part in The Voice
Taking a strong stance in the No camp, the conservative political organisation Advance has alleged that some communists sit on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Referendum Working Group, including Thomas Mayo, also known as Thomas Mayor, an issue The Epoch Times has previously covered.Mr. Mayo has ties to the far-left Search Foundation that promotes activism and socialist education programs and was started by the Communist Party in the 1990s.
Mr. Mayo said the revelations have attracted criticism online.
“I’ve never been abused online as much as I am now, and it has coincided with the Coalition’s official No stance. The trolls run the exact same lines as [Opposition Leader] Dutton did yesterday. It’s like Dutton let a whole lot of racists off the leash to [sow] doubt, confusion, and fear amongst voters,” said Mr. Mayo on X in May.
In a video that has since been taken down, Mayo was quoted in The Address to the Search Foundation, Snapshots of Communists in Australia, as saying, “I learned a lot about the importance not just of the Communist Party, [but] about unions to my own people’s struggle.”
Mr. Mayo has since tried to quell the connection of communism to The Voice, saying certain comments were made years ago.
“I’ve been involved in this for a long time, and there’s been many things said in the debates and discussions amongst people,” he told The Sydney Morning Herald in July.
“Those things were said, but they’re not what I believe The Voice will focus on. It’s not what it’s about. It’s about the priorities in our communities—health, education, the environment, all of that stuff.”
Meanwhile, another Referendum Working Group member Teela Reid also said on the Search Foundation’s YouTube program that Australia needed “to get back to these radical roots of the Communist Party, of these organising ... with and response to community activism.”
Voting on the referendum will take place on Oct. 14.
