Duncan Evans Neighbours in a major city have decked out their houses with opposing messages on the Voice to Parliament referendum. The split No house Yes house Dramatic contrast Tensions are...
Duncan Evans
Neighbours in a major city have decked out their houses with opposing messages on the Voice to Parliament referendum.
The split
Stark photos from a quiet street in suburban Brisbane show the sharp divide in Australia between Yes and No voters on the approaching referendum for a Voice to Parliament.
David and Belinda Goodwin, fervent No supporters and members of the local LNP, decked out the porch of their house with a banner arguing for a No vote in the October 14 decision, which would embed a permanent Indigenous-led advisory body into the Constitution.
But their neighbours quickly hit back at the “No house”, painting their own house black with an Aboriginal flag and fixing Yes slogans to their windows.
No house
“This has brought a lot of discussion,” Ms Goodwin told Nine’s A Current Affair last week.
“I’ve had a lot of letters in the letterbox, people calling out, I’ve got a sticker on my car so people will stop and talk.” The Goodwins are a religious family with nine children and Mr Goodwin is a businessman.
Their neighbours were vegans from Melbourne, Mr Goodwin said.
“We’ve got an Australian flag, they’ve got an Aboriginal flag. They’re vegans from Melbourne, we’re a bunch of Catholics with a massive family from Queensland, so I suppose you couldn’t get more contrasting views,” he said.
Yes house
The couple in the “Yes house” have not spoken with media and later released a statement via the official Yes23 campaign.
“We acknowledge that change is long overdue and simply wanted to show that our full support is behind the local mob in Wynnum and all First Nations people,” the statement said. “We are happy for their voices to be the ones that are heard.”
Yes23 campaign director Dean Parkin praised the Yes house as a “great boost” for Yes volunteers working to bring about constitutional change.
Dramatic contrast
The Goodwins said they were happy with the dramatic contrast on display in their street.
“I quite like it actually,” Mr Goodwin said. “At the end of the day, I think that’s what’s good about Australia. We’ve got our view, they’ve got theirs and you want to live in a country where people can express themselves and have free speech.”
Tensions are rising
The Goodwins said relations were stable between the neighbours, but tensions are rising in the referendum campaign as the October 14 date moves closer.
On Monday, emotions flared during the No campaign’s launch in South Australia, with rowdy protesters branding No supporters “wankers” and “racist” as they walked into the Adelaide Convention Centre to hear senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price speak.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Peter Dutton both condemned the vicious rhetoric and called for respectful debate in the Voice campaign.
Twitter and Facebook get the lion’s share of attention, as platforms where political debate as well as political conspiracy theories commonly spread. But TikTok may be where the battle over the voice is most fierce.
More than 8.5 million Australians are active on TikTok, the company says. The platform is now the “default information landscape for a lot of young people”, according to Tama Leaver, a professor of internet studies at Curtin University.
Young people aged 18 to 34 are still more likely than any other age group to vote yes. Yet the official TikTok account from the no campaign Fair Australia is far outstripping its opponents in terms of followers and content views.
Data collected by Guardian Australia shows Fair Australia’s content has almost 21m plays overall compared with about 1m plays on the two official pro-voice accounts, Yes23 and Uluru Statement.
People across Australia are receiving unauthorised pamphlets that make false claims and share conspiracy theories about the Indigenous voice to parliament.
Claims of “apartheid” and a United Nations takeover are among the false information promoted by the materials, copies of which have been seen by Guardian Australia.
Duncan Evans
Neighbours in a major city have decked out their houses with opposing messages on the Voice to Parliament referendum.
The split
No house
Yes house
Dramatic contrast
Tensions are rising
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