Voice to Parliament No campaigners accused of asking volunteers to spread ‘fear and misinformation’

The No campaign has been accused of asking volunteers to spread “fear and misinformation” and “flat out lie” in an effort to convince referendum voters of its agenda. 

Fair Australia, one of the organisations that sit under Advance Australia’s No camp, have been providing training to its volunteers making cold calls to Australians. 

Former ACT Liberal staffer Chris Inglis, who ran one information session, told Fair Australia volunteers to refrain from saying they are from the No campaign, as it would “scare people” and “throw them”. 

The script provided to volunteers encouraged them to say those who designed the Voice proposal were “campaigning to abolish Australia Day and want to use the Voice to push for compensation and reparations through a treaty”. 

On October 14, Australians will vote on the establishment of a constitutionally enshrined Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament.

The body would be independent and would offer advice to the government on matters that affect First Nations Australians. It would have no ability to veto government decisions nor would it oversee funding.

Mr Inglis’s comments were first reported by the Nine newspapers. The ABC has independently obtained a copy of the recording.

In the recording Mr Inglis told volunteers if callers asked for details of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, of which the Voice is derived, to persuade them to head to the Fair Australia website. 

During the call, Mr Inglis also referred to Victoria as “Dan [Andrews] concentration camp”, while reflecting on a previous campaign experience one of the volunteers on the call had during the Victorian state election.

Mr Inglis also agreed AEC commissioner Tom Rodgers was “sneaky” in response to a discussion about crosses not being a valid response on the ballot paper – which the AEC has confirmed is a long-standing Australian voting policy that has been in place since 1988.

He also added that co-architect of the Uluru Statement, Noel Pearson wasn’t “huggable”.

‘Fear and misinformation, deliberate tactic’: Uluru statement architect

Mr Pearson told the ABC that the No campaign calling Australians and “putting the message of fear and misinformation out there” was a “deliberate tactic”. 

He said the No campaign was “relying on ignorance and relying on people not seeking democratic information”. 

“If we live in a democracy, we seek information if we don’t know about something,” Mr Pearson said. 

“This is a test of our democracy no less.

“We have to define a campaign that for once says we are rational human beings with positive hearts and we can prevail over the trolls of social media and these kinds of phone strategies.”

When asked if No campaigners were being told not to identify themselves as No callers straight away, a Fair Australia spokesperson said: “Every single volunteer is asked to identify themselves as calling from Fair Australia, and any suggestion to the contrary is a flat-out lie”. 

“We make no apologies for our volunteers being as persuasive as they possibly can be,” it said in a statement. 

Education Minister Jason Clare described the strategy of the No campaign as one to “flat out lie”. 

“If the No campaign are so confident that what they’re saying is right, why do they have to lie to the Australian people? This is a sign of just how low the No campaign is willing to go,” Mr Clare said. 

The script given to No campaign cold callers also included that the Voice might “push for compensation and reparations through a treaty”.

“The lie that the Voice is about compensation … the Voice is an advisory committee,” Mr Clare said. 

“I think Australians are smart and I think they’ll see through this BS.

“The same people who told us during Mabo that you would lose your backyard, that your Hills Hoist would get ripped up and taken out, are the same people saying this.

“That was BS, and so is this.”