Are Some Yes Voters Lying?

I’m sure you’ve seen celebrities posting pictures of themselves with the word Yes written on their hand in support of the upcoming Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum. Tom Gleeson, one of Australia’s favourite comedians, according to his own website. Non-binary actor Kath Ebbs. TV presenter and comedian Rove McManus. Australian comedian Celeste Barber. Independent MPs, the so-called Teals, alongside the Prime Minister all writing Yes on their hand in pen. Taxpayer money hard at work, hey? Even the Chinese Communist Party are in on it with their Little Red Yes Book. Okay, that last one was made up, but it may as well be true, right? All the little children holding up their Yes books. The message is clear, just vote Yes. Yes! Because, you know, that’s how modern-day Australian democracy works. Politicians tell us to vote Yes. Big companies tell us to vote Yes. Celebrities are telling us to vote Yes. But you know what I think? I think there’s no way to prove how they’ll vote. They can tell us they’ll be voting Yes. They can write it on their hand and post it to Instagram. But when it comes to actual voting day when they’re in the polling booth, they can write whatever they want. Nobody will know except for them. Sometimes I think half these celebrities are just doing this for completely self-serving interests. Perhaps they’re doing it to protect their employment. Perhaps they’re doing it so they’re not accused of being racist. Perhaps they’re doing it out of fears of being cancelled. We certainly don’t see any celebrities writing No on their hand. Well, not mainstream celebrities. But as I said, how they actually vote in the polling booth is for their eyes only. Nobody will know. Current polling suggests that the Yes vote will fail, but if it fails by a lot more than expected, then we can only assume that some of these celebrities and other Yes supporters have been lying. They’ve just been telling people what they think they want to hear, that they support the Yes campaign. But in actual fact on polling day, they write the opposite. We won’t know, and they won’t have to prove it. Will you be letting celebrities influence your voting? Or, like me, will you just ignore them and use your own brain? Vote Yes? No!

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Allégro by Emmit Fenn