The No campaign announces new target following successful takedown of the Voice, leader celebrates resounding victory for Australia

A fresh rallying call has been announced by the Voice to Parliament No campaign for its supporters as it shifts its focus to tackling the government’s bill on misinformation.

Following the release of an open letter from Indigenous leaders who ended their week-long vow of silence post the defeat, more information has been disclosed regarding the campaign’s new message.

Asserting that ‘Australia has decisively said no to division’, Matthew Sheahan, the executive director of Advance, highlighted that only 39 percent were swayed by the Yes campaign.

‘That is a resounding defeat in anyone’s books.’ 

Advance was behind the Fair Australia No campaign, which joined forces with Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Nyunggai Warren Mundine to down the Voice. 

‘No wonder they’ve gone into a week’s mourning. You and I destroyed their divisive agenda.

‘Australia handed them a flogging that will sting for decades, believe me.’

READ MORE: What Yes leaders really mean with open letter slamming No voters 

But Mr Sheahan warned the Yes camp is ‘regrouping’. 

‘Why do you think they’re already talking about new laws to make ‘misinformation’ a crime?’

A proposed misinformation bill would give the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) stronger powers to deal with ‘content that is false, misleading or deceptive’. 

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland described these new powers, which would include information gathering and record keeping abilities, as a means to ‘create transparency around efforts by digital platforms to respond to misinformation and disinformation’.

The Human Rights Commission and the Australian Law Council are among firms concerned about the scope of powers the bill would provide.

Mr Sheahan called out the Labor party, the Greens and the Teal independents for ‘lining up… to call for new laws that will criminalise and police what you say’. 

‘They think the only way they can win is if they silence their opponents. But you and I are already ahead of the game.

‘ADVANCE is campaigning right now on this next front. Every time they squeal ‘misinformation, disinformation’, they are really saying, ‘you are too stupid to make up your own mind’.

‘They think that if you oppose their radical vision of Australia, you’re ‘a dinosaur or a d**khead’, as Ray Martin put it. 

‘They just can’t accept the fact that Australians thought dividing us by race in our national rulebook was a bad idea.’

Mr Sheahan’s message to supporters came as Yes campaign group, the Uluru Dialogues, shared an open letter claiming to be ‘the collective insights and views of a group of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders, community members and organisations who supported Yes’. 

‘The truth is that the majority of Australians have committed a shameful act whether knowingly or not, and there is nothing positive to be interpreted from it. We needed truth to be told to the Australian people,’ the letter read.

This appears to be a reference to the next stage of the Uluru Statement from the Heart – which calls for truth-telling through a Makarrata Commission.

The Makarrata Commission, which would combine treaty-making ambitions with truth-telling, was considered the ‘culmination of the agenda’ of the Uluru Statement, of which a constitutionally enshrined Voice to Parliament was merely part one. 

The letter called for schoolchildren to be taught about the struggles of Indigenous Australians, saying a lack of knowledge and racism contributed to the referendum defeat.

‘That so many Australian people believe there is no race or division on race in the current Australian Constitution speaks to the need for better education on Australian history and better civics education,’ the statement said.

In a direct challenge to non-Indigenous Australians, the letter said: ‘Australia is our country. We accept that the majority of Australians have rejected recognition in the Australian Constitution. 

‘We do not for one moment accept that this country is not ours. Always was. Always will be. 

‘It is the legitimacy of the non-Indigenous occupation in this country the requires recognition, not the other way around. Our sovereignty has never been ceded.’