Ally Langdon cited as a reason the Voice failed
The tense interview between Ally Langdon and Ray Martin has been cited as one of the key reasons why most Australians voted No in the Voice to Parliament referendum.
The interview, which took place two weeks before the nationwide vote, saw Langdon and Martin butt heads on A Current Affair, where Martin defended his comments about no voters being "ignorant".
During the interview, Langdon, who repeatedly interrupted Martin throughout the conversation, went on to say that the proposed law was confusing, and people "didn't understand it".
Since the defeat of the Voice referendum on Saturday, prominent author and former journalist Martin Flanagan collated the list of reasons the county voted No in a "letter to the 39 per cent".
Flanagan cited the ACA interview as crucial in voters minds, and contributed to the resounding defeat of the Voice.
“Ally said Australians didn’t understand the Voice and, as proof of this proposition, said, ‘I mean, my parents don’t understand it. They’ve looked at it, their group of friends who have looked at it and don’t understand it, that is a massive problem’,” he explained.
He appeared to take a shot at Langdon for using the revelation about her family’s lack of understanding to make a point about the entire Australian population.
Flanagan wrote that the No campaign's slogan “If you don’t know, vote no” was an extremely effective tool in making sure undecided voters voted No, rather than educate themselves, describing it as is “the second most epoch defining campaign slogan I have seen in my adult lifetime, the other being ‘It’s Time’ in 1972,” which was the slogan used by Gough Whitlam in the federal election.
Flanagan then went on to lay some of the blame squarely at Langdon's feet: "To commemorate the 2023 slogan, I would like to establish a media award named after Ally Langdon from A Current Affair.
"Ally grilled Ray Martin after he said dinosaurs were voting NO. Ally said Australians didn’t understand the Voice and, as proof of this proposition, said, 'I mean, my parents don’t understand it. They’ve looked at it, their group of friends who have looked at it and don’t understand it, that is a massive problem.'"
"The prize for my media award is a cartoon with a group of dinosaurs looking up at a billboard saying “If You Don’t Know, Vote No”. It’s not just the Voice referendum – it’s all the other things we don’t want to know about. We’ve got an overpopulated, overheating planet with two global conflicts raging as we speak. Major environmental catastrophes could have hundreds of millions of people on the move, the effect of climate change on the world’s agricultural regions could cause widespread famine etcetera etcetera. But back to you in the studio, Ally. Tell us what do your parents and their friends think."
According to Flanagan, the Yes vote failed due to "Trump-like tactics" from the No side, as he accused them of tactfully confusing and besieging Australians to “make the whole thing dull and heavy” so no one had “energy to explore the Yes case”.
He went on to say that a lack of organisation within the Yes team and a lack of continuation of momentum that was prevalent at the beginning of campaigning were also contributing factors to the Voice defeat.
Image credits: A Current Affair