SUPPORT FOR A CONSTITUTIONALLY ENSHRINED FIRST NATIONS VOICE TO PARLIAMENT: EVIDENCE FROM OPINION RESEARCH SINCE 2017 F. MARKHAM AND W. SANDERS
Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research ANU College of Arts & Social
Sciences CAEPR WORKING PAPER 138/2020
Series note
The Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR) undertakes high-quality, independent research to further the social and economic development and empowerment of Indigenous people throughout Australia.
For 30 years, CAEPR has aimed to combine academic and teaching excellence on Indigenous economic and social development and public policy with realism, objectivity and relevance.
CAEPR maintains a substantial publications program, including Research Monographs, Discussion Papers, Working Papers and Topical Issues.
The CAEPR Working Paper series exists to disseminate preliminary research findings, to share ideas about a topic, or to elicit discussion and feedback. All Working Papers are subject to internal peer review.
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CAEPR is located within the Research School of Social Sciences in the College of Arts & Social Sciences at the Australian National University (ANU). The Centre is funded from a range of sources, including ANU, the Australian Research Council, industry and philanthropic partners, and Australian state and territory governments.
As with all CAEPR publications, the views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not reflect any official CAEPR position.
Professor Tony Dreise Director, CAEPR Research School of Social Sciences College of Arts & Social Sciences The Australian National University, November 2020
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CAEPR LINKS Support for a constitutionally
Click here to open bookmarks, and to access quick links to the enshrined First Nations Voice CAEPR website, including:
• Discussion Papers to Parliament: Evidence from • Working Papers opinion research since 2017 • Research Monographs • Topical Issues F. Markham and W. Sanders • Census Papers
• Commissioned Reports Francis Markham is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR), Research School of Social Sciences, College of Arts & Social Sciences, the Australian National University. Will Working Paper No. 138/2020 Sanders is a Senior Fellow at CAEPR.
DOI 10.25911/5fb398ee9c47d ISSN 14423871 Abstract ISBN 978-1-925286-54-0 The Uluru Statement from the Heart, produced by the National An electronic publication downloaded Constitutional Convention in May 2017, contained a major proposal for from
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Acknowledgments
This paper began in response to a simple question from Tony Dreise that the authors were unable to answer. We appreciate his provocation, and hope that he is satisfied with our resolution.
We are grateful to Reconciliation Australia for providing us with a portion of the questionnaire for the Australian Reconciliation Barometer 2018, and for their comments on a draft manuscript. We thank the Crosby Textor Group for providing the unpublished wording to their survey question.
We are also obliged to Mandy Yap, Seán Kerins and Julie Lahn whose comments on a draft improved the final manuscript.
All findings and views reported in this paper are those of the authors and should not be attributed to any other party.
Acronyms
ABCVC ABC Vote Compass
ACVS Australian Constitutional Values Survey
ANU Australian National University
CAEPR Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research
CT Crosby Textor
ER Essential Report
JSCCRATSIP Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples
NP Newspoll
RBGPS Reconciliation Barometer General Population Sample
TAI The Australia Institute
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Contents
Series note ii
Abstract iii
Acknowledgments iv
Acronyms iv
Tables and Figures vi
Introduction 1
Published opinion research since 2017 5
Levels of support, opposition and neutrality: Are they changing? 11
Follow the leader? Changing attitudes by party voting intention 15
A majority of voters in majority of states? 18
Concluding comments and caveats 20
Appendix: Confidence intervals 23
References 28
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Tables and Figures
Table 1 Characteristics of published opinion research exploring support for a First Nations Voice to Parliament undertaken June 2017–June 2020 10
Table 2 Attitudes towards a First Nations Voice to Parliament in opinion research since 2017 11
Fig. 1 Uncommitted positions on a First Nations Voice to Parliament in opinion research since 2017 12
Fig. 2 Support for a First Nations Voice to Parliament among committed respondents in opinion research since June 2017 13
Table 3 Support for a First Nations Voice to Parliament compared with support for constitutional recognition 14
Table 4 Attitudes towards a First Nations Voice to Parliament by party voting intention in opinion polls and surveys 16
Fig. 3 Support for a First Nations Voice to Parliament among committed respondents by party voting intention 17
Table 5 Attitudes towards a First Nations Voice to Parliament by state in opinion research since 2017 19
Fig. 4 Support for a First Nations Voice to Parliament among committed respondents by state 19
Table A2 Attitudes towards a First Nations Voice to Parliament in opinion research since 2017, 95% confidence intervals indicated in parentheses 24
Table A3 Support for a First Nations Voice to Parliament compared with support for constitutional recognition, 95% confidence intervals indicated in parentheses 25
Table A4 Attitudes towards a First Nations Voice to Parliament by party voting intention in opinion polls and surveys, 95% confidence intervals indicated in parentheses 26
Table A5 Attitudes towards a First Nations Voice to Parliament by state in opinion research since 2017, 95% confidence intervals indicated in parentheses 27
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Introduction
In December 2015, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten established a 16-member Council to advise them on ‘progress and next steps towards a successful referendum to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Constitution’ (Referendum Council, 2017, p. 46). Over the next year and a half, the Referendum Council produced a 15 -page Discussion Paper, then convened 12 First Nations Regional Dialogues and a National Constitutional Convention. This last was held at Uluru on May 23–26, 2017, the three days leading up to the 50th anniversary of the previous successful constitutional alteration referendum relating to Aboriginal Australians. The result of this process of deliberation and dialogue was the Uluru Statement from the Heart, a 440-word statement of propositions and possibilities devised by participants at the National Constitutional Convention, almost all of whom were First Nations people.
The Uluru Statement sought two reforms in Australian political institutions: ‘the establishment of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution’ and ‘a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations and truth-telling about our history’ (Referendum Council, 2017, p. i). Initial responses to the Statement from the leaders of the political parties ranged from Shorten saying we should keep an ‘open mind’ and Turnbull expressing caution about the ‘challenges of constitutional change’, to Senator Rachel Siewert, Greens spokesperson on First Peoples issues, urging the Government to ‘start the process outlined in the statement’ (Dziedzic & Conifer, 2017). The Referendum Council’s Final Report, published on June 30, 2017, reinforced the position that there should be significant reforms in Australian political institutions, including both extra-constitutional reforms (the Makarrata Commission) and one (the Voice to Parliament) requiring constitutional change:
We propose these reforms because they conform to the weight of views of First Peoples expressed in the First Nations Regional Dialogues as well as those of the wider community. With focussed political leadership and continued multiparty support for meaningful recognition, the Voice to the Parliament proposal can succeed at a referendum (Referendum Council, 2017, p. iv).1
When the Turnbull Cabinet met to decide its response in October 2017, Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion and Attorney-General George Brandis reportedly supported a constitutionally enshrined Voice, while the Prime Minister opposed it (Viellaris, 2017). The media statement released by these three on 26 October dismissed the idea of a First Nations Voice to Parliament with four harsh arguments:
1. This ‘constitutionally enshrined additional representative assembly’ which ‘only Indigenous Australians could vote for or serve in’ would be ‘inconsistent’ with the ‘fundamental principle’ of ‘equal civic rights’ on which ‘the two chambers of our national Parliament’ and our ‘democracy is built’ (Turnbull et al., 2017, p. 1). 2. The First Nations Voice would ‘inevitably become seen as a third chamber of Parliament’, if it had functions that were more than ‘advisory’, as the Referendum Council recommended (Turnbull et al., 2017, p. 1). 3. The Referendum Council ‘provided no guidance as to how this new representative assembly would be elected or how the diversity of Indigenous circumstance and experience could be fairly or democratically represented’ (Turnbull et al., 2017, p. 1). 4. And finally, ‘the Government does not believe such a radical change to our constitution’s representative institutions has any realistic prospect of being supported by a majority of Australians in a majority of
1 The Report actually listed three ‘extra-constitutional proposals’ for institutional reform: the ‘establishment of a Makarrata Commission’, a ‘process to facilitate Truth Telling’ and an ‘extra-constitutional statement of recognition’ enacted by ‘legislation passed by all Australian Parliaments’ (Referendum Council 2017: 2, 37).
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States’, a reference to the requirements of s128 of the Constitution for passing an alteration referendum (Turnbull et al., 2017, p. 2).
Each of these arguments has since been contested through different interpretations of principles, history and public opinion. Two prominent contestors have been Indigenous lawyers and members of the Referendum Council, Noel Pearson and Megan Davis, whose contributions we discuss. Another source of contestation has been a 2018 Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples (JSCCRATSIP) of the 45th Commonwealth Parliament. This Committee, with three Indigenous members,2 published a report in November 2018 (JSCCRATSIP, 2018).
Our aim in this paper is to examine the fourth of the Turnbull government’s objections to a First Nations Voice to Parliament: the claim that it would fail to win a double majority in a constitutional alteration referendum. This contention has been frequently reasserted over the three years since the Constitutional Convention, including by Turnbull in retirement.3 In this paper we explore support for a constitutionally enshrined First Nations Voice to Parliament, as revealed in published public opinion research conducted since June 2017, and ask:
1. What proportion of Australians support, oppose or are undecided about this reform proposal that emerged from the Referendum Council process? 2. Are levels of support, opposition and neutrality changing over time as the reform idea continues to be debated? 3. How do levels of support, opposition and neutrality vary among those intending to vote for different parties? Are these patterns changing over time? 4. Also, given the s128 requirement that a constitutional alteration referendum be supported by a majority of voters in a majority of states, what is the level of support, opposition and neutrality in each of the six Australian states?
This paper does not delve into the important question of Indigenous attitudes to a First Nations Voice to Parliament.4
Contestation over a Voice to Parliament, 2017–2020
Before detailing the opinion research published since June 2017, it is useful to understand how the proposal for a constitutionally enshrined First Nations Voice to Parliament has been sustained as a live political issue from 2018 to 2020, despite the Turnbull Government’s forceful rejection of it in October 2017. To do this, we focus briefly on contributions from two of the eight Indigenous members of the Referendum Council, Noel Pearson and Megan Davis, and the work during 2018 of the JSCCRATSIP.
2 The Committee was co-chaired by Senator Patrick Dodson and Mr Julian Leeser MP. The remaining members were The Hon. Linda Burney MP, Senator Jonathon Duniam, Senator Malarndirri McCarthy, Ms Cathy McGowan AO MP, The Hon. Dr John McVeigh MP, Mr Llew O'Brien MP, Senator Rachel Siewert, The Hon. Warren Snowdon MP, and Senator Amanda Stoker. 3 In his memoir published in April 2020, Turnbull justified opposing a Voice by repeating the ‘near impossibility of persuading the Australian people to vote for any contentious change to the constitution’ (Turnbull, 2020, ch. 43). 4 A diversity of views have been advanced by prominent First Nations figures. Dissenters include Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe who opposes constitutional reform because she does ‘not recognize [the] occupying power or their sovereignty’ (Taylor, 2020a; see also Coe et al., 2017). There are also those who believe that campaigning for a Voice is a distraction from other priorities like treatymaking (Mansell, 2019; Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance, 2020) and conservatives who believe that the call for a constitutionally-entrenched national Voice is too ambitious (Mundine, 2017). However, it appears that dissenting views are held only by a small minority of First Nations people. The one piece of opinion research on the views of the Indigenous people towards a constitutionally-entrenched First Nations Voice to Parliament of which we are aware is the 2018 Reconciliation Barometer, which surveyed an online panel of 497 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people over the period July 17–August 28, 2018. Reconciliation Australia report that this survey ‘may not be truly representative of the overall Indigenous population’ (Reconciliation Australia, 2019, p. 7). Notwithstanding this caveat, 87% of respondents reported that the constitutional protection of an ‘a representative Indigenous Body’ was very important or fairly important, although the importance of such numbers is unclear given that decision-making within Indigenous polities is not necessarily majoritarian. The most important indicator of First Nations support for the Voice remains the deliberative process that led to the Uluru Statement and the drafting of the Final Report of the Referendum Council (Referendum Council, 2017).
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In December 2017 Noel Pearson contributed an essay to The Monthly simply titled ‘Betrayal’ (Pearson, 2017). This recounted his efforts since 1999 to draw Coalition leaders into his ‘radical centre’ of Indigenous public policy and constitutional recognition. In 2012, through work on the Expert Panel on Constitutional Recognition of Indigenous Australians, Pearson advocated replacing the existing ‘race’ provisions with a new power relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, plus a ‘Section 127A Recognition of Languages’ and a ‘Section 116A Prohibition of Racial Discrimination’. When this last was rejected by constitutional conservatives like Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, who became Prime Minister in September 2013, Pearson began developing an alternative idea that the Constitution be altered by the ‘incorporation of a requirement that indigenous [sic] peoples get a fair say in laws and policies made about us’ through the establishment of a new representative body (Pearson, 2014, pp. 66–67).5 Despite early positive reactions from Coalition Prime Ministers Abbott and later Turnbull, neither followed through with clear support of this idea. Pearson at the end of 2017 described his despondency and anger with them both. Neither, he said, was ‘worthy of their ambitions…held only for themselves and not the country’ (Pearson, 2017, p. 9). Pearson saw his ‘righteous anger at injustice’ as ‘fuel for future justice’ and that the idea of a First Nations Voice would continue as ‘the agenda for the future’ (Pearson, 2017, p. 9).
From 2017, the Indigenous lawyer, academic, and member of both the Expert Panel and the Referendum Council, Professor Megan Davis took the lead in publicly pursuing this agenda. She declared the Uluru Statement ‘a game changer’, ‘the beginning of the process’, which was ‘deliberately issued to the Australian people, not politicians, because it is we, as a united people, who can unlock that potential in a referendum’ (Davis, 2018a, pps. 15, 45). Where Pearson had sought to sway key conservative politicians, Davis was addressing the Australian public, concluding her account of ‘The long road to Uluru’ with the final words of the Statement from the Heart:
In 1967 we were counted, in 2017 we seek to be heard. We leave base camp and start our trek across this vast country. We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future (2018a, p. 45).
By March 2018, a new Joint Select Committee was being appointed in the 45th Commonwealth Parliament to ‘consider the recommendations of the Referendum Council (2017), the Uluru Statement from the Heart (2017)’ and the work of an earlier parliamentary committee in 2015 and the Expert Panel in 2012 (JSCCRATSIP, 2018, p. xiii). Its Final report in November 2018 discussed extensively ideas for ‘designing a First Nations Voice’ and its ‘legal form’. The 11-member Committee made four recommendations, the first of which focused on ‘a process of co-design’ for ‘The Voice’ and the second of which then urged consideration of ‘options to establish The Voice’ in ‘a deliberate and timely manner’ (2018, pp. xvii–xviii).6
The publication of the Final report of the Joint Select Committee drew a response from Opposition Leader Shorten which reinforced Labor’s strengthening commitment to a Voice.7 Noting proudly that Labor had three Aboriginal parliamentarians on the Committee, Shorten (2018) continued thus:
5 Some proponents trace the origin of the idea of a Voice in the demand for Indigenous representation in Parliament to William Cooper in the 1920s and 1930s (e.g. Mayor, 2019; Pat Anderson in Smith, 2020). However, the specific contemporary formulation of the Voice proposal was first publicly prosecuted by Pearson in his Quarterly Essay (2014) and in two parliamentary submissions (Cape York Institute, 2014, 2015). Pearson’s personal advocacy of a Voice to Parliament is said to originate with a letter to Prime Minister John Howard in October 2007 in which he ‘argued for a set of structural reforms including…an Indigenous representative body to interface with the Australian Parliament’ (Morris, 2018, p. 45). 6 Two members of the Committee added individual contributions. One of five Coalition members, Senator Amanda Stoker, added ‘Additional comments’ which expressed ‘scepticism’ about constitutional enshrinement, while also supporting the Committee’s four recommendations. Greens Senator Rachel Siewert added a ‘Minority Report’ which called for an unequivocal endorsement of constitutional enshrinement, and for a Referendum to be held prior to the form of the Voice to Parliament being co-designed (JSCCRATSIP, 2018, pp. 187–198). 7 In a speech at the Garma Festival on August 5, 2017, Shorten had stated clearly Labor’s support for the idea (Shorten 2017).
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A Voice would not be a third chamber of parliament. It would be a mechanism for First Nations people to have a greater say in the policy issues that impact on their lives.
We have nothing to fear from working with First Nations people to address the many complex issues that affect the first Australians.
Labor has made clear that we will work with the Government, but will not wait for them.
If bi-partisanship cannot be reached, we will look to legislate a new body as a first step on the pathway to enshrining it in the Constitution.
We will move quickly following the election to agree on a process with First Nations People – including a clear pathway to a referendum. We will also work with them in establishing a Makarrata Commission for agreement-making and truth telling.
Labor’s commitment to a First Nations Voice was, by September 2018, in contrast with that of the Coalition government, whose new Prime Minister Scott Morrison had reiterated opposition to the Voice in terms similar to those of his predecessor. On September 26, 2018, Morrison had insisted to Radio National’s Fran Kelly that a Voice would provide a ‘third chamber’ of Parliament and that he thought ‘two chambers is enough’ (Kelly, 2018).
The Coalition Government’s opposition seemed to soften in early May 2019 when the 2019–2020 Budget allocated $7.3 million ‘for the co-design of options for a Voice to Parliament for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ (Frydenberg & Cormann, 2019, p. 154). After the Coalition’s win in the 2019 federal election on 24 May, constitutional recognition and the Voice were linked by the newly appointed Indigenous Minister for Indigenous Australians, Ken Wyatt. In a National Press Club address on July 10, 2019, the Minister spoke of developing a ‘consensus option for constitutional recognition to be put to a referendum during the current parliamentary term’ and of ‘working to achieve this through a process of true co-design’ (Wyatt, 2019a).8
The encouragement Wyatt gave to those looking for a constitutionally enshrined First Nations Voice to Parliament was initially diminished by reports that the Prime Minister would veto such a proposition (G. Brown & Taylor, 2019). At this time, the Government position was that it would support a Voice to Government, but not one that was constitutionally enshrined. However six months later, in the annual Closing the Gap address to Parliament in February 2020, Morrison noted that while the co-design process would ‘not make recommendations as to the legal form of the voice – constitutional or legislation’, his Government would ‘consider…this matter after the process of co-design is completed’ (Morrison, 2020, p. 974).
Running parallel to these manoeuvrings by parliamentarians has been the development of a campaign to build support for a First Nations Voice to Parliament among the general public. Led most prominently by Davis, this campaign has continued to pressure politicians to support a constitutionally enshrined Voice (Davis, 2018b, p. 11). Public campaign activities have included petitions, public events, statements of support from civil society groups and corporations, and touring the Uluru Statement around the country (Mayor, 2019). Most recently, the ‘From the Heart’ campaign was launched in May 2020 by Pearson’s Cape York Institute, funded by corporate
8 The foreshadowed co-design process began publicly in October 2019, with the Minister announcing a ‘process that will develop models to enhance local and regional decision-making and provide a voice for Indigenous Australians to government’, plus the establishment of a Senior Advisory Group and two co-design groups to develop these models (Wyatt, 2019b). The membership of these groups was announced through a series of later media releases (Wyatt, 2020). The ability of these groups to make recommendations about constitutional enshrinement was circumscribed through their terms of reference (National Indigenous Australians Agency, 2020), which also set a final reporting date of late 2020. The process appears to be on track to report at the end of 2020, with the Senior Advisory Group holding its final meeting prior to delivering an interim report on October 14, 2020 (Langton & Calma, 2020). The feedback and revision process is likely to continue for some time over the coming year.
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donors, aiming to ‘build awareness of the Voice to Parliament’ through social media campaigning (From The Heart, 2020).
These events and activities since 2018 have maintained a First Nations Voice to Parliament and its potential constitutional enshrinement as a live political issue. One consistent argument against enshrinement has been the view that a constitutional alteration referendum on the matter would not succeed. The frequent repetition of this belief has prompted us to examine public opinion research relating to this central reform idea proposed by the Referendum Council and the National Constitutional Convention in 2017.
Published opinion research since 2017
To identify published opinion research, we searched for media reports using the Factiva database of newspaper articles, as well as undertaking a more targeted search of Essential Research’s online archive of polls. Using this method, we identified 12 published polls. We have had no access to private polling, to custom cross tabulations or unit record data, and so we are limited here to summarising and synthesising results that are already on the public record.
In this section we briefly describe each of these polls.
Essential Report on ‘Uluru Statement’, June 2017
The Essential Report is a weekly omnibus poll drawn from an online panel of around 100 000 voters, with approximately 7000–8000 panel members invited to respond each week (Essential Research, 2017a). Its poll undertaken during the week June 1–5, 2017, receiving 1013 responses, asked respondents:
Last week the ‘Uluru Statement’ was released, calling for a number of policy measures relating to Indigenous Australians. Do you support or oppose the following measures?
• Enshrining an Indigenous voice to parliament in the constitution • Negotiating a treaty between the federal government and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples • Creating a treaty commission to negotiate treaties between various levels of government and different Indigenous language groups or tribes • Creating a truth and reconciliation commission.
Valid responses included: ‘Strongly Support’; ‘Support’; ‘Neither Support nor Oppose’; ‘Oppose’; ‘Strongly Oppose’; and ‘Don’t Know’.
Australian Constitutional Values Survey, August 2017
The Australian Constitutional Values Survey is an academic study that examines public attitudes towards Australian political institutions. It has been conducted in 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2017. The 2017 survey drew 1526 responses during August 3–10, 2017 from an online panel of Australian citizens and permanent residents aged 18 years and over, provided by OmniPoll (A. Brown et al., 2017). It asked respondents:
It’s been suggested the Constitution should be changed in some way to recognise Australia’s Indigenous peoples – that is, Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders. Would you support or oppose the following changes?
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• A change to the Constitution to officially recognise the history and culture of Australia’s Indigenous peoples • A change to the Constitution to set up a representative Indigenous body to advise the Parliament on laws and policies affecting Indigenous people.
Valid responses included: ‘Strongly support’; ‘Tend to support’; ‘Tend to oppose’; ‘Strongly oppose’; and ‘Can’t say’.
Essential Report on ‘Uluru Statement’, November 2017
A second Essential Report undertaken during November 3–6, 2017 replicated the questions from the June 2017 poll (Essential Research, 2017b). It received 1025 responses.
The Australia Institute Poll on ‘First Nations National Constitutional Convention’, December 2017
Commissioned by The Australia Institute (TAI), Research Now polled an online panel of 1417 Australians during December 5–7, 2017 (TAI, 2018). Respondents were asked:
At the 2017 First Nations National Constitutional Convention, 250 Indigenous leaders presented the Australian government with the Uluru Declaration [sic]. It recommended ‘establishment of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution’. This would be a new Indigenous representative body sitting outside of Parliament and provide advice on Indigenous issues to legislators in Parliament.
Should a new First Nations Voice be enshrined in the Constitution?
Valid responses included: ‘Yes’, ‘No’ and ‘Don’t know / not sure’. Responses were cross-tabulated by sex, State and voting intention.
Newspoll on ‘Bill Shorten’s Plan’, February 2018
Between 15 and 18 February, 2018, Newspoll conducted a survey of voters, receiving 1632 responses (Benson, 2018). They asked respondents:
Bill Shorten has pledged to create an indigenous9 advisory body to give indigenous people a voice to parliament. On balance, are you in favour or opposed to Bill Shorten’s plan to give indigenous people a voice to parliament?
Reported responses included: ‘In favour’; ‘Opposed’ and ‘Uncommitted’. Responses were cross-tabulated by voting intention.
Essential Report on ‘Government Priorities’, February 2018
A third Essential Report undertaken during February 22–27, 2018 received 1028 responses (Essential Research, 2018). It asked about support for an Indigenous Voice using different wording and response options to the previous Essential Reports. Specifically, it asked:
9 We do not correct the mis-capitalisation of the demonyms ‘Indigenous’ and ‘Aboriginal’ in survey questionnaires as it is unclear if they are telephone scripts or questions presented to respondents through text-based interfaces.
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What is your view about the following issues and whether they should be a priority for the Government to address? • Meeting the Close the Gap indigenous health targets • Establishing an indigenous ‘voice’ to advise the Parliament • Including aboriginal recognition in the constitution • A treaty with indigenous Australia • Australia becoming a republic • Changing the date of Australia Day.
Valid responses included: ‘I support this and it should be a high priority’; ‘I support this but it is not a high priority’; ‘I don’t support this’; and ‘Not sure’.
Reconciliation Barometer, July 2018
Every two years since 2008, Reconciliation Australia has commissioned a Reconciliation Barometer. The Barometer surveys a representative sample of the Australian population and a sample of the Indigenous population ‘to measure the progress of reconciliation between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and non-Indigenous Australians’ (Reconciliation Australia, 2019, p. 3). It includes a range of questions relating to ‘race relations, equality and equity, institutional integrity, unity and historical acceptance’ (Reconciliation Australia, 2019, p. 5). We limit our analysis to the general population sample of the Reconciliation Barometer.
The 2018 Reconciliation Barometer drew 1995 responses from the Australian general population during July 16–30, 2018. The 2018 Reconciliation Barometer was the first to be undertaken after the First Nations Regional Dialogues and the National Constitutional Convention. It asked both samples the following series of questions related to Voice and constitutional change (although we report results only for the general population sample)10:
• Is it important or not for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to have a voice/say in matters that affect them?
• And are the following actions important or not for Australia as a nation? o To establish a representative Indigenous Body, to share the views of Indigenous Australians regarding Indigenous affairs and policies o To protect an Indigenous Body within the Constitution, so it can’t be removed by any Government o To remove racial discrimination from the Constitution – like Section 25 that says people can be banned from voting based on race o To formally recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and cultures in the Constitution
Reported responses were limited to: ‘Very important’; ‘Fairly important’; ‘Fairly unimportant’; and ‘Not important at all’.
ABC Vote Compass on ‘amending the constitution’, May 2019
In the lead up to the May 2019 federal election, ABC Vote Compass provided a different sort of data source on public attitudes. Rather than attempting to compile a random sample of voters, Vote Compass compiled
10 The Reconciliation Barometer 2018 survey instrument was not published with the final report. Bold type is in the original. These questions are reproduced from an extract from the survey instrument provided by Reconciliation Australia on August 7, 2020. It is reproduced with their permission.
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responses from a very large convenience sample of visitors to the ABC Website. Visitors were enticed to complete the survey on the basis that it would explore ‘how your views align with those of the candidates’ (Vote Compass, 2015).11 To account for the non-representative nature of the Vote Compass sample, multilevel regression with poststratification is used to stratify and weight demographic groups (see Park et al., 2004). Even with this methodology, it is likely that Vote Compass skews towards relatively motivated and informed members of the public within stratification categories. Results were reported from 368 097 responses over the period April 10–28, 2019 (Higgins & Collard, 2019).
The ABC Vote Compass presented respondents with a series of 30 propositions about political issues with which they could express agreement or disagreement. Proposition 29 stated:
Australia should amend its constitution to establish a representative Indigenous body to advise Parliament on laws and policies affecting Indigenous people.
Respondents could report their position as: ‘Strongly disagree’; ‘Somewhat disagree’; ‘Neutral’; ‘Somewhat agree’; ‘Strongly agree’; or ‘Don’t know’. It was also possible to skip answering specific questions, although the number of skips was not reported. Responses were further disaggregated based on ‘party vote’.
Essential Report on ‘Labor Policies’, May 2019
A further Essential Report conducted during the campaign for the federal election (May 2–6, 2019) reported on whether 1079 respondents supported or opposed ‘Liberal/National Policies’ and ‘Labor Policies’ (Essential Research, 2019a). A Voice to Parliament was among the listed Labor policies. Specifically, respondents were asked:
Here are some policies proposed by Labor. To what extent do you oppose or support each? • Extend Medicare to cover cancer and aged dental treatment • Waive up-front fees for 100,000 students to enable them to attend TAFE • Have a target for at least 50% of Australia’s energy to be generated from renewables by 2030 • Reverse cuts to penalty rates • Introduce a mechanism for First Nations people to have a greater say in policy issues that impact on their lives to parliament, often referred to as an indigenous voice • Reduce tax concessions for investors and self-funded retirees.
The report did not contain the full range of valid responses, but instead only identified responses that were ‘Strongly support’ or ‘Somewhat support’ (tabulated by voting intention). It is unclear whether neutral or uncommitted responses were valid, making it difficult to gauge the strength of opposition to the listed policies.
Essential Report on ‘issues affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’, June 2019
Another Essential Report was conducted during June 19–23, 2019 in advance of NAIDOC week (Essential Research, 2019b). It asked 1079 respondents about their support for and prioritisation of various Indigenous Affairs policies. Respondents were asked an almost identical question to that asked in February 2018, although the wording of the introductory statement was slightly changed:
11 https://votecompass.abc.net.au/
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What is your view about the following issues affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and whether they should be a priority for the Government to address?
• Meet the ‘Close the Gap’ indigenous health, education and employment targets • Include aboriginal recognition in the constitution • Establish an indigenous ‘voice’ to advise the Parliament • Agree a treaty with indigenous Australia • Australia to become a republic • Change the date of Australia Day • Change the words of the National Anthem.
Respondents could report one of the following views: ‘Support, and should be a priority’; ‘Support, but not a high priority’; ‘Don’t Support’; or ‘Not sure’.
Crosby Textor Group on changing the Constitution, March 2020
In March, 2020, political consultants the Crosby Textor Group (CT Group) undertook polling commissioned by the From the Heart campaign, an initiative of Pearson’s Cape York Institute funded by corporate donors to advocate for a constitutionally enshrined Voice to Parliament (Snow & Archibald-Binge, 2020). CT Group surveyed 2000 Australians asking:12
And if a referendum were held today, how would you vote on the proposal to change the Constitution to set up a new body comprising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that gives advice to Federal Parliament on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issues?
Responses were reported as: ‘Yes to changing the constitution’; ‘No to changing the constitution’; ‘Don’t know’.
CT Group on changing the Constitution, June 2020
A CT Group poll in June 2020 repeated their question from March 2020, reaching 2000 respondents (Taylor, 2020b).
Characteristics of published opinion research
These opinion research methods are summarised in Table 1. It shows that eight of the 12 polls explicitly linked the Voice idea to constitutional change in their question wording. Four of these 12 were held in 2017, either before or just after this idea was rejected by the Turnbull Coalition Government. Two polls (ER-3 in February 2018 and ER-5 in June 2019) asked separately about the priority of a Voice and constitutional recognition, without linking the two issues. The Reconciliation Barometer in mid-2018 asked questions about attitudes towards a variety of issues related to Indigenous–settler reconciliation, including a Voice to Parliament. The ABC Vote Compass and ER-4 were held during the context of the campaign for the May 2019 election. Finally, two CT Groups poll were held in 2020 as part of the campaign for a constitutionally-enshrined Voice to Parliament.
All but two of the polls allowed respondents to indicate that they didn’t know their position on the issue (‘yes’ in column 5). Three gave respondents the option of indicating that they had a neutral position at the mid-point between support and opposition (‘yes’ in column 4). In the discussion that follows we refer to respondents
12 The CT survey question was provided by the Crosby Textor Group. It is reproduced with their permission.
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choosing either of these categories as ‘uncommitted’. A single poll (Reconciliation Barometer General Population Sample (RBGPS)) pushed respondents to choose between identifying a constitutionally entrenched Voice as important or unimportant, without offering either a neutral midpoint or a ‘don’t know’ option.
Finally, it is noteworthy that questions were framed in very different ways in different surveys. These frames ranged from a detailed explanation of the First Nations Constitutional Convention in the survey commissioned by TAI, to a partisan framing of the Indigenous Voice as part of ‘Bill Shorten’s Plan’ in the Newspoll, to voting intentions in a hypothetical referendum ‘held today’ in the case of the CT Group polls.
Table 1 Characteristics of published opinion research exploring support for a First Nations Voice to Parliament undertaken June 2017–June 2020
Poll Fieldwork dates Framing Includes Includes Mentions Sample neutral don’t constitu- size know tional change ER-1 June 1–5, 2017 The Uluru Statement Yes Yes Yes 1013 ACVS August 3–10, 2017 Constitutional recognition No Yes Yes 1526 ER-2 November 3–6, 2017 The Uluru Statement Yes Yes Yes 1025 TAI December 5–7, 2017 Uluru Declaration No Yes Yes 1417 NP February 15–18, 2018 Bill Shorten’s Plan No Yes No 1632 ER-3 February 22–27, 2018 Priorities on Indigenous No Yes No 1028 issues RBGPS 16–30 July, 2018 Constitutional changes No No Yes 1995 ABCVC April 10–28, 2019 Representative Yes No Yes 368 097 Indigenous advisory body ER-4 May 2–6, 2019 Labor policies Unclear Unclear No 1079 ER-5 June 19–23, 2019 Priorities on Indigenous No Yes No 1013 issues CT-1 March, 2020 Changing the constitution No Yes Yes 2000 CT-2 June, 2020 Changing the constitution No Yes Yes 2000
Note: The Poll column gives a unique abbreviated name for the poll. ER indicates ‘Essential Report’; ACVS indicates the Australian Constitutional Values Survey; TAI indicates The Australia Institute; NP indicates Newspoll; RBGPS indicates the Reconciliation Barometer General Population Sample; ABCVC indicates the ABC Vote Compass, and; CT indicates the Crosby Textor Group.
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Levels of support, opposition and neutrality: Are they changing?
The results reported in Table 2 suggests a considerable degree of support for a First Nations Voice among the Australian public since 2017.13 Strong support or agreement with propositions about the Voice has ranged from 18% to 34%, while between 25% and 43% have indicated support with weaker conviction. The column of this table labelled ‘Total Support’, adds the percentage of respondents indicating strong support for a First Nations Voice with those whose support was qualified (e.g. those who ‘somewhat agree’ with the proposition, and those who support the proposition but feel it is not a policy priority or only ‘fairly important’). Across the 10 published polls, the total level of support for a First Nations Voice has never been below 43%, and has reached as high as 77%.
Conversely, opposition to a First Nations Voice has never been recorded above 32%, and has been as low as 14%. Fewer respondents indicated strong opposition (7–14%) than indicated some opposition (7–21%), mirroring the pattern of strong and lesser levels of support.
Table 2 Attitudes towards a First Nations Voice to Parliament in opinion research since 2017
Poll Support Neutral Oppose Don’t know / Support- Can’t say to-oppose ratio Strongly Somewhat Total Somewhat Strongly Total support support support oppose oppose oppose (A) (B) (A/B)
ER-1 18 26 44 27 7 7 14 14 3.1
ACVS 24 37 61 17 14 30 9 2.0
ER-2 20 25 45 28 7 9 16 11 2.8
TAI 46 29 24 1.6
NP 57 32 11 1.8
ER-3 31* 37* 68 21* 21 11 3.2
RBGPS 34† 43† 77 15† 8† 23 3.3
ABCVC 64 13 22 § 2.9
ER-4 43 Unreported Unreported
ER-5 29* 37* 66 21* 21 13 3.1
CT-1 49 20 31 2.5
CT-2 56 17 28 3.3
Note: Rows may not sum to 100 due to rounding. For 95% confidence intervals, see Table A2 in the appendix. * In these surveys, ‘Strong support’ refers to ‘Support, and should be a priority’, ‘Somewhat support’ refers to ‘Support, but not a high priority’ and ‘Somewhat oppose’ refers to ‘Don’t support’. † In the RBGPS, ‘Strongly support refers to ‘Very important’, ‘Somewhat support’ refers to ‘Fairly important’, ‘Somewhat oppose’ refers to ‘Fairly unimportant’, and ‘Strongly oppose’ refers to ‘Not important at all’. § ABC Vote Compass allowed respondents to ‘skip’ answering a question, but the number of respondents who chose to skip this question was not reported.
13 Given the heterogeneity of these survey methods and questions, we do not give prominence to sampling error in our presentation (sometimes popularly described as the ‘margin of error’). Nevertheless, we include 95% confidence intervals around estimates in all Figures and provide 95% confidence intervals for estimates presented in Tables A2–A5 in an appendix to this document.
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Proportions of respondents indicating neutral or ‘don’t know’ positions on a Voice vary considerably between polls. Two polls in 2017, ER-1 and ER-2, allowed both neutral and ‘don’t know’ responses, resulting in high proportions in these combined uncommitted categories of 41% (27 + 14%) and 39% (28 + 11%). Most other polls allowed only one category of uncommitted response (mostly ‘don’t know’) and thereby discouraged respondents from reporting neutrality.14 The percentage of respondents who report being neutral or uncommitted on a Voice is graphically summarised in Fig. 1. While these dropped after 2017 to no higher than 13%, they jumped back up to around 30% in the latest CT poll in February 2020, possibly because of its framing in the specific terms of voting intentions in a hypothetical referendum ’held today’ rather than the vaguer sentiment of ‘support’.
Fig. 1 Uncommitted positions on a First Nations Voice to Parliament in opinion research since 2017
ER 1 40 ER 2
CT 1 30 Response options CT 2 a Don’t know only TAI a Neutral & Don’t know 20 a Neutral only ABCVC ER 5 a Forced choice NP ER 3 10 ACVS Per cent with uncommitted positions Per 0 RBGPS
2018 2019 2020
Notes: Vertical lines indicate 95% confidence intervals based on sample sizes only (i.e. not taking survey design or non-sampling error into account). ER-4 is excluded from this chart as insufficient information was published for inclusion.
Restrictions on the allowable responses to survey questions can encourage respondents to declare a position of either support or opposition for a Voice. The RBGPS in July 2018 took this furthest by disallowing any neutral answer (hence it sits at 0 on the y-axis in Fig. 1).15 The resulting ‘forced choice’ produced a support level of 77%, with 34% of respondents believing that a Voice was ‘very important’ and 43% agreeing that it was ‘fairly important’. The opposition level in RBGPS was just 23%, with 15% of respondents believing a Voice was ‘fairly unimportant’ and just 8% ‘not important at all’ (see Table 2). This support-to-oppose ratio of 3.3 is the equal highest among committed voters in all polls.
14 Survey methodologists have found that the inclusion of ‘no opinion’ and ‘neutral’ options in surveys allows respondents to avoid making the cognitive effort required to determine their attitude to a proposition (Johns, 2005; Krosnick et al., 2002). It is likely, therefore, that the inclusion of additional neutral or uncommitted response options decreases reported support and reported opposition, and increases reported neutral or uncommitted responses. 15 This question design was selected to ensure that respondents provided an answer to this question rather than avoiding engaging cognitively with the proposition by answering ‘don’t know’ (Reconciliation Australia, pers. comm., September 11, 2020).
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Levels of support among committed respondents of around 75%, a ratio of 3 support to 1 oppose, have been common since 2017 as shown in Fig. 2. Eight of the 11 polls which give data for both support and opposition have ratios around this figure, with levels of support among committed respondents being at least 70%. The remaining three polls in 2017 and early 2018 had over 60% support among committed respondents, and hence were close to a ratio of 2 respondents supporting a Voice for every 1 opposed (see Fig. 2). While other polls were not as prepared as the RBGPS in July 2018 to force respondents to choose support or opposition, all revealed substantial majority support/oppose ratios about a Voice among committed respondents. A trend line added to Fig. 2 among the 11 data points suggests that support, compared to opposition, has increased since 2017.
Perhaps more interesting than the overall trend emerging in public opinion is the differing trends among different groups. In the next section, focusing on attitudes to a First Nations Voice by party voting intention, we will suggest that positions of party leaders can affect opinion among party followers. But before turning to those issues, we first focus on how attitudes to a Voice compare with attitudes to constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples when conceived of and asked about separately.
Fig. 2 Support for a First Nations Voice to Parliament among committed respondents in opinion research since June 2017
80 RBGPS CT 2 ER 1 ER 3 ER 5 ER 2 ABCVC CT 1 70 Mentions ACVS constitutional enshrinement NP No TAI 60 Yes
Per cent support among committed voters Per 50 2018 2019 2020
Notes: The grey trendline marks an unweighted line of best fit. Vertical lines indicate 95% confidence intervals based on sample sizes only (i.e. not taking survey design or non-sampling error into account). ER-4 is excluded from this chart as insufficient information was published for inclusion.
Four of the 12 identified opinion surveys asked separately about a First Nations Voice and about ‘constitutional recognition’ of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples: ACVS in 2017, ER-3 and RBGPS in 2018, and ER-5 in 2019. Responses are summarised in Table 3, in a similar format to Table 2. In the ACVS this separation of the two issues can be seen as echoing and maintaining earlier approaches to constitutional recognition from before May 2017, which had not involved the idea of a First Nations Voice to Parliament.16 In the last three studies however, this separate mode of questioning needs to be interpreted more as reflecting Coalition Government rejection of the enshrined Voice idea from October 2017.
16 Support for this earlier model of constitutional recognition has been the subject of more detailed opinion research than support for a First Nations Voice. See, e.g., Gray and Sanders (2015).
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ACVS in August 2017 revealed levels of support that were 10% higher for constitutional recognition (71%) than for a First Nations Voice (61%). Conversely it also revealed 9% more opposition to a Voice (30%) compared to constitutional recognition (21%). This can be interpreted as respondents still coming to grips with the Uluru Statement’s idea of a constitutionally enshrined Voice, which had been proposed only two months before and to which the Turnbull Coalition government had not yet clearly responded.
By the time of the next two surveys, ER-3 in February 2018 and RBGPS in July 2018, Coalition rejection of the Voice idea had become clear. However rather than increasing the different levels of support and opposition for constitutional recognition and a Voice, movement in public opinion seemed in the opposite direction. Support for a Voice increased to 68% in ER-3 and was by then only 2% different from support for constitutional recognition at 70%. Conversely, opposition to a Voice had fallen to 21% and was by then only 3% more than opposition to constitutional recognition at 18%. These much smaller margins between attitudes to a Voice and constitutional recognition were maintained in the RBGPS, noting that its ‘forced choice’ method pushed both support and opposition levels higher due to the elimination of uncommitted responses (see Table 3).
Table 3 Support for a First Nations Voice to Parliament compared with support for constitutional recognition
Poll and issue Support Oppose Don’t Support- know/ to-oppose Can’t say ratio Strongly Somewhat Total Somewhat Strongly Total support support support oppose oppose oppose (A) (B) (A/B)
ACVS Voice 24 37 61 17 14 30 9 2.0 Recognition 34 38 71 13 9 21 8 3.4
ER-3 Voice 31* 37* 68 21* 21 11 3.2 Recognition 30* 40* 70 18* 18 12 3.9
RBGPS Voice 36† 49† 85† 10† 5† 15† 5.7 Voice in 34† 43† 77† 15† 8† 23† 3.3 constitution Recognition 45† 36† 81† 12† 7† 19† 4.3
ER-5 Voice 29* 37* 66 21* 21 13 3.1 Recognition 33* 37* 70 18* 18 12 3.9
Note: Rows may not sum to 100 due to rounding. For 95% confidence intervals, see Table A3 in the appendix. * In these surveys, ‘Strong support (or similar)’ refers to ‘Support, and should be a priority’, ‘Somewhat support (or similar)’ refers to ‘Support, but not a high priority’ and ‘Somewhat oppose’ refers to ‘Don’t support’. † In the RBGPS, ‘Strongly support refers to ‘Very important’, ‘Somewhat support’ refers to ‘Fairly important’, ‘Somewhat oppose’ refers to ‘Fairly unimportant’, and ‘Strongly oppose’ refers to ‘Not important at all’.
What appeared to be happening in 2018 was the Australian public becoming familiar with the idea that First Nations people wanted a Voice as constitutional recognition, rather than as something separate. Public opinion was adjusting to this preferred Indigenous approach, even though it had been rejected by the Turnbull Coalition Government. This new understanding seemed to be maintained in 2019, after the Coalition Government was re-elected with Morrison as leader. In the ER-5 poll in June 2019, levels of support for a Voice (66%) were just
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4% less than support for more nebulously defined ‘constitutional recognition’ (70%), while levels of opposition were just 3% higher (21% compared to 18%).
Finally, the RBGPS facilitates a further comparison that is relevant to debates about a First Nations Voice. That survey distinguished between two different models for a First Nations Voice by asking two separate questions, the first about the importance of establishing ‘a representative Indigenous Body, to share the views of Indigenous Australians’ and the second about the importance of protecting ‘an Indigenous Body within the Constitution, so it can’t be removed by any Government’. The first question may be interpreted as asking about support for a Voice without taking it to a referendum, while the second question about constitutional protection more closely reflects the proposition of the Referendum Council. While 85% of respondents answered that they believed the establishment of a Voice was important, 77% then endorsed its constitutional entrenchment in the subsequent question (Table 3). In other words, support for a Voice not enshrined in the constitution was only 8% greater than support for one protected through a constitutional alteration referendum.
Follow the leader? Changing attitudes by party voting intention
Five of the 12 opinion studies since June 2017 published attitudes towards Voice broken down by respondents’ party voting intention. Table 4 breaks down support, opposition and neutrality by reported intention to vote for Greens, Labor, the Liberal/National Coalition and One Nation. It shows that attitudes towards the First Nations Voice to Parliament follow a clear left–right alignment. In all five surveys support is highest among Greens voters, then Labor voters followed by Coalition voters, and lowest among One Nation voters. Levels of opposition to a Voice, measured in four of the five surveys, track consistently in the opposite direction, being highest among One Nation voters and lowest among Greens voters.
Another interesting pattern in Table 4 relates to changes over time among respondents intending to vote for the Coalition. In the two surveys conducted in 2017 these respondents were more inclined to support a Voice than oppose it. Indeed, in the ACVS of August 2017 an absolute majority of intending Coalition voters indicated support (55%) for a Voice, outnumbering those opposing by 14%, or a support-to-oppose ratio of 1.3. By December 2017 in the TAI poll, a month after the Turnbull Coalition government had rejected the Voice idea, support among Coalition voters had fallen below an absolute majority to 41%, but supporters still outnumbered opponents. While the TAI poll was hampered by high numbers of respondents not declaring either their party voting intention or their position on a Voice (44%), it is still significant that among intending Coalition voters more respondents supported a Voice than opposed the idea at the end of 2017. By 2018, however, this was no longer the case.
In the Newspoll conducted in February 2018, levels of support for a Voice among intending Coalition voters had dropped to 10% below levels of opposition (38% compared to 48%). The proportion of Coalition voters who would not commit to a position on a Voice had also risen to higher levels than among voters for other parties, having previously been comparable or lower (see Table 4). What appears to have happened here was that intending Coalition voters followed the Turnbull government’s lead in moving away from supporting a Voice.
The framing of the Newspoll in February 2018 as being about ‘Bill Shorten’s Plan’ may not have made it the best survey for interrogating Coalition voters. However, the more neutrally-framed ABCVC the following year confirms that attitudes towards a Voice were changing among intending Coalition voters. This too showed support to be lower than opposition (38% to 42%), and heightened levels of neutrality among intending Coalition voters (19%) compared to those intending to voter for other parties.17 A significant portion of Coalition voters in
17 Previous research has found that neutral or don’t know options are sometimes used to mask socially undesirable opinions in other contexts (Berinsky, 2004; Johns, 2005). It may be possible that this increase in uncommitted positions among Coalition voters reflects opposition that is masked by an unwillingness to appear opposed to Indigenous interests. If this is the case, then the levels of support among committed Coalition voters Fig. 3 may be overstated.
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2018 and 2019 seem to have followed their party leaders in moving away from support for a Voice, having been more open to and supportive of the idea back in 2017 before the Turnbull government had so decisively rejected it.18
Table 4 Attitudes towards a First Nations Voice to Parliament by party voting intention in opinion polls and surveys
Poll Voting intention Support Neutral Oppose Don’t know Support- / Can’t say to-oppose ratio (A) (B) (A/B)
ACVS Greens 80 10 10 8.0
Labor 67 24 9 2.8 Coalition 55 41 4 1.3 Others (inc. One Nation) 45 46 9 1.0 Undecided 52 26 22 2.0 TAI Greens 75 10 15 7.5 Labor 50 26 24 1.9 Coalition 41 35 24 1.2 Others (exc. One Nation) 41 28 31 1.5 One Nation 23 48 29 0.5 Undecided 32 24 44 1.3
NP Greens 87 10 3 8.7 Labor 76 16 8 4.8 Coalition 38 48 14 0.8 One Nation 38 50 12 0.8 ER-4 Greens 65 Labor 55 Coalition 31 Others (inc. One Nation) 37 ABCVC Greens 89 6 5 17.8 Labor 77 11 11 7.0 Coalition 38 19 42 0.9 One Nation 25 17 58 0.4
Notes: Rows may not sum to 100 due to rounding. For 95% confidence intervals, see Table A4 in the appendix.
18 This effect is consistent with the long-standing observation by political scientists that political opinions are often related to party identification (e.g. Belknap & Campbell, 1951), with ‘partisan cues’ from parties and leaders providing an important source of information for the public. Cues from political leaders have been a strong driver of voting patterns in Australian referenda since 1967 (Keir, 2009). Faced with a complex issue of limited salience, some voters rely on the stated positions of favoured political leaders as cognitive shortcuts, allowing them to form an opinion of an issue without expending a great deal of time or effort investigating it (Kam, 2005). However, referendum voting behaviour in Australian referenda may still be patterned by party voting behaviour even in the absence of partisan cues (McAllister, 2001). Among those whose opinion on a proposition is formed on the basis of values rather than party affiliation, the positions of political elites matter because they can shape which values are emphasised in the public debate about an issue (Kam, 2005; Zaller, 1992). An alternative explanation for these diverging trends by voting intention is a sorting effect in which respondents change their preferred political party on the basis of their position on a Voice. However, in other surveys, only a tiny proportion of respondents rank Indigenous Affairs as the issue that they think is most important to Australia, compared to other issues like the economy and jobs (e.g. Gray & Sanders, 2015). Consequently, we think it unlikely that changing voting intentions on the basis of Voice are likely to account for these trends.
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On the left of Australian politics between 2017 and 2018–19 a parallel process seems to have been occurring in which intending Green and Labor voters followed their leaders into stronger support for a Voice. This can be seen in Table 4 as opposing and neutral positions among Labor and Green voters fade during 2018 and 2019 and levels of support for a Voice increase to over 75% and 85% respectively.
These trends are summarised visually in Fig. 3, showing changing levels of support for a Voice by party voting intention over time. As in Fig. 2, it omits uncommitted voters and calculates levels of support just among those with a stated position. It suggests that in 2017 there was enough support for the idea of a Voice for a referendum to have had a good chance of achieving a majority vote (assuming the preferences of uncommitted voters ultimately split in similar proportions as the preferences of committed voters). Followers of both major parties showed a clear preponderance of support for a Voice over opposition in 2017. However in 2018 and 2019, levels of support for a Voice among committed Coalition voters fell below 50%, likely due to the unsupportive positions of Coalition Prime Ministers. This move among Coalition voters could well have been in the opposite direction had their leadership chosen a supportive position on a Voice, at which point a national majority vote in a referendum would have been very likely.
Fig. 3 Support for a First Nations Voice to Parliament among committed respondents by party voting intention
100 ACVSTAI NP ABCVC
80 Voting intention
Coalition 60 Greens Labor One Nation 40
Per cent support among committed voters Per 20 2017 07 2018 01 2018 07 2019 01 2019 07
Notes: Vertical lines indicate 95% confidence intervals based on sample sizes only (i.e. not taking survey design or non-sampling error into account). The TAI and ABCVC polls did not report the number of respondents by voting intention, which is necessary for the calculation of confidence intervals. Consequently, we have assumed that respondents were distributed by voting intention according to contemporaneous national opinion polls archived on the ‘Poll Bludger’ website https://www.pollbludger.net/bludgertrack2019/polldata.htm . 95% confidence intervals for ABCVC are too small to be visible.
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A majority of voters in majority of states?
Section 128 of the Australian Constitution requires not only that ‘a majority of all the electors voting’ approve a proposed constitutional alteration, but also that it be supported by a majority of voters in a majority of states (i.e. at least four of the six states). Hence, the level of support for a First Nations Voice to Parliament within each Australian state also requires consideration. Only two polls, ACVS and TAI, both in 2017, have reported results by state. These are summarised in Table 5.
Both the ACVS and TAI polls showed New South Wales and Victoria to have the highest levels of support for a Voice and lowest levels of opposition. Even with its high level of uncommitted respondents, TAI discerned majority support in these two populous states and support-to-oppose ratios of 2.0 or better. Support-to-oppose ratios were, however, less strong in the four less populous states.
In Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia, the ACVS in August 2017 found majority support for a Voice, but at a support-to-oppose ratio of 1.7–1.8. Four months later TAI, with its higher levels of uncommitted respondents, did not discern clear majority support in these states and found support-to-oppose ratios falling to 1.5 and below. The level of support discerned by TAI in Western Australia fell below the level of opposition (36% compared to 38%), putting in doubt a referendum majority in that state.
For Tasmania, the only data we have is from the ACVS in August 2017, and that is based on a sample of just 65 respondents. This showed the lowest level of support in any state (44%) and the highest level of opposition (49%). However, the small sample means that further research on public opinion in Tasmania would be needed to form a considered view.
While these results for the less populous states are not as positive as for Victoria and New South Wales, they are consistent with past constitutional alteration referenda, where levels of support have been lowest in Tasmania, Western Australia and Queensland in recent decades (Parliamentary Library, 2017, pp. 388–411).
Fig. 4 follows earlier figures in omitting uncommitted respondents and focusing solely on those expressing support or opposition. Among committed respondents, support for a First Nations Voice to Parliament clearly predominate in both these polls in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia (Fig. 4). There was also majority support in Western Australia in the ACVS poll, but not in the TAI poll four months later, with a similar pattern in Queensland. The ACVS sampled too few Tasmanians to draw conclusions about the levels of support in that state, while the TAI poll in December 2017 did not report responses for Tasmania at all.
If these levels of support among committed voters by state could have been extended to uncommitted voters, there would again have been a reasonable basis for building towards a successful referendum in 2017, based on four of six states. However, a successful referendum is best built on anticipated majorities in all six states, as in 1967 (Williams & Hume, 2010). This suggests that more opinion research and advocacy work needs to be focused on the four less populous states. Indeed, the substantial variation in support between Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania evident in Fig. 4 suggests that considerable further research may be needed to measure current levels of support in these jurisdictions.
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Table 5 Attitudes towards a First Nations Voice to Parliament by state in opinion research since 2017
Poll State Support Oppose Don’t know/ Support- Can’t say to-oppose ratio (A) (B) (A / B) ACVS NSW 62 29 9 2.1 Vic 63 28 9 2.3 Qld 60 33 7 1.8 SA 56 31 13 1.8 WA 57 33 11 1.7 Tas 44 49 7 0.9
TAI NSW 50 28 22 1.8 Vic 51 24 25 2.1 Qld 41 33 26 1.2 SA 45 26 30 1.7 WA 36 38 26 0.9
Note: Rows may not sum to 100 due to rounding. For 95% confidence intervals, see Table A5 in the appendix.
Fig. 4 Support for a First Nations Voice to Parliament among committed respondents by state
70
60 Poll
ACVS
50 TAI
40 Per cent support among committed voters Per
NSW Vic Qld SA WA Tas
Notes: Vertical lines indicate 95% confidence intervals based on sample sizes only (i.e. not taking survey design or non-sampling error into account). The TAI poll did not report the number of respondents in each state, which is necessary for the calculation of confidence intervals. Consequently, we have assumed that respondents were distributed between states in TAI in the same proportions as in the ACVS.
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Concluding comments and caveats
We began this paper by describing the work of the Referendum Council and its call in the Uluru Statement from the Heart for a constitutionally enshrined First Nations Voice to Parliament. We also recounted the Turnbull Coalition Government’s rejection of the Voice proposition in October 2017, and how the idea lived on during 2018, 2019 and 2020 through the work of a Joint Select Committee of the 45th Commonwealth Parliament and through the efforts of individual Indigenous leaders, like Professor Megan Davis. Among opponents of the idea of a constitutionally-entrenched First Nations Voice to Parliament, the belief that a referendum would be unsuccessful has been frequently cited as a reason for opposition. This prompted us to examine what public opinion research could contribute to understanding the potential success or failure of a future referendum. We identified 12 pieces of such research since June 2017, and compared them as best we could, despite their methodological idiosyncrasies, and variations in the questions asked and responses allowed.19 Despite those differences, it strikes us that a clear interpretive story can be drawn from this public opinion research.
Levels of support for a Voice since 2017 among the Australian public have been considerable, substantially higher than levels of opposition and neutrality. Most polls indicate that 70–75% of voters with a committed position on the matter support a First Nations Voice to Parliament. Over time there may have been an increase of a couple of per cent in levels of support relative to levels of opposition among committed voters. However, this has not been a uniform shift towards support for a First Nations Voice to Parliament among all sections of the population. It appears that party leaders have had an important role in shaping the opinions of party followers, and that the differing responses of party leaders to the Voice proposition has increased the divergence of opinions on the issue. In the section of this paper on attitudes to a Voice by party voting intention, we have discussed how some Coalition voters followed their party leaders into a position of opposing a Voice during 2018 and 2019, after being initially supportive in 2017. Labor and Greens voters on the other hand have followed their leaders and consolidated their support over time. This basic story is clear to see in Fig. 3.
The implications of this ‘follow the leader’ process in public opinion formation are clear. Had the Coalition leadership supported the idea of a Voice in 2017, rather than rejected it, a majority of their party followers were open to supporting the idea, and more could well have followed over time. There was in the public opinion of 2017 the basis for a successful bipartisan constitutional alteration referendum on a First Nations Voice, had the Coalition leadership come out in support. This did not happen in 2017 and it has not happened since. But the Voice co-design process initiated in 2019 and Morrison’s 2020 Closing the Gap statement to Parliament now leave open this future possibility for the Coalition leadership.
Although little public policy attention has been focused on the issue of a First Nations Voice during 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this issue will, in time, re-emerge. When it does there will be new opportunities for learning from the past and tackling the Voice issue in different ways. We have produced this paper in a spirit of optimism, and hope that its lessons may be heeded when the issue of a constitutionally-enshrined Voice returns to the top of the policy agenda.
The caveats to our positive narrative of a possible successful referendum are threefold. First, we have assumed that uncommitted voters would take a position on the Voice in the future in the same proportions as those already committed. We have no evidence that undecided voters are any less likely to vote in favour of a constitutionally entrenched Voice than the rest of the electorate, but it would be unwise to rule out such a
19 We understand these surveys are not strictly comparable, and that changes between polls may be attributable to survey instrument design, sampling methodology and other ‘house effects’ – as well as changes in public opinion. Rather than trying to control for these differences, we have simply collected all the polling together and leave readers to draw their own conclusions. Our view is that, given the considerable differences between survey methods, the results are remarkably consistent, showing consistent sizable majorities in favour of a constitutionally enshrined Voice among committed voters.
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possibility. In the case of voters who are undecided on the Voice but who have a clear political affiliation, the ‘follow the leader’ process may well influence their decision.
Our second caveat is about what might happen once constitutional alteration legislation has been proposed by Parliament and a referendum campaign is underway. The example of the republic referendum in 1999 suggests that public opinion can shift significantly during the campaign, and that the precise wording of the referendum question is of vital importance (McAllister, 2001). Conversely, public opinion during the more recent successful 2017 plebiscite on same-sex marriage was relatively stable during the campaign, with the outcome largely predictable from the outset (e.g. McAllister & Snagovsky, 2018). Hopefully, a First Nations Voice proposal would follow the latter course, due to substantial work done in the long lead up to a campaign. The gradual decline in the proportion of undecided voters since June 2017 suggests that voters are becoming more confident in their views over time, reducing the scope for such campaign effects. Indeed, it may ultimately be the case that the long road from Uluru to a referendum weighs in favour of a constitutionally-enshrined Voice’s prospects.
Our third caveat relates to attitudes in the less populous states, and particularly in Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania. We noted above how little published opinion research has dissected attitudes at the state level, rather than nationally. But the S128 rules for constitutional alteration make attitudes in these states crucial, with majorities needed in at least two of the four and preferably more. Past referendum results in these states are consistently less positive in recent decades than in New South Wales and Victoria.
Nevertheless, a Coalition leadership which returns to the idea of a constitutionally enshrined First Nations Voice with a more positive frame than in 2017 is likely to sway a considerable bloc of voters towards supporting a Voice. In doing so, it would make the success of a referendum all but assured. With clear conservative leadership, the results of a referendum on a constitutionally-enshrined First Nations Voice could look more like those of 1967 than 1999. The first and crucial step is for the Coalition leadership to decide that this is the way forward, as Holt did after succeeding Menzies back in 1966.
Another scenario is possible in which a future Labor government puts constitutional enshrinement of a First Nations Voice to a referendum, in line with current Labor policy. This could be done either with or without the support of a Coalition opposition leader. Our review of public opinion research since 2017 suggests that such a referendum could be successful, particularly if a Coalition opposition leader was supportive of a Voice, or at least neutral. A negative Coalition opposition leader would present obstacles, particularly if Coalition leaders in some of the four less populous states also took this as a licence to be opposed. The best scenario for a future Labor Prime Minister putting a Voice referendum would be to have a supportive, or at least neutral, Coalition opposition leader.
With his essay in The Monthly at the end of 2017, Noel Pearson appeared to have broken off his attempt to win the support of Coalition leaders for a substantive form of constitutional recognition, like a First Nations Voice to Parliament.20 The key Indigenous leader of the next decade on this issue is likely Megan Davis. A dedicated academic and constitutional lawyer, Davis has been the most prominent advocate for the Uluru Statement from the Heart since 2017. Davis has focused her attention on fostering a people’s movement for a constitutionally- enshrined Voice, attempting to mobilise public support rather than directly persuade political leaders. Our review of opinion research since 2017 suggests that this strategy has a sound base. The public are open to a Voice across the major party divide.
20 Pearson’s advocacy efforts have reportedly continued in recent months away from the public eye (Morton, 2019). He remains a director of advocacy group Australians for Indigenous Constitutional Recognition Ltd. and Pearson’s Cape York Institute administers the From the Heart campaign.
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Although Pearson’s efforts to sway consecutive conservative leaders over many years have to date been futile, his strategy of attempting to win support from Coalition leadership remains attractive to those seeking constitutional change. At some future time, the success of a Voice can be assured through the support of Coalition party leaders. As Pearson recognised 20 years ago, conservative leaders have been key protagonists in successful attempts to change the Australian Constitution.21
We believe that the ‘Davis strategy’ of fostering a people’s movement and the ‘Pearson strategy’ of persuading conservative political leaders are complementary. If public support for a Voice can be sustained and mobilised, this should increase the attraction of the proposition to future Coalition leadership. There are great prospects for a successful Voice referendum if the new generation of Indigenous leaders attracts the support of the new generation of Coalition leaders. There is a basis in public opinion research to believe that a referendum enshrining a First Nations Voice to Parliament could be carried, whichever major party is in government. With bi-partisan support, the success of such a referendum is close to guaranteed.
21 Coalition Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser proposed 4 constitutional alterations in 1977, three of which were carried by referendum. By contrast Labor Prime Ministers Whitlam and Hawke proposed 4 and 6 constitutional alterations respectively, none of which were carried. Only one of Australia’s eight successful constitutional alteration proposals in the last 120 years has been proposed by a Labor government, in 1946.
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Appendix: Confidence intervals
This appendix repeats Tables 2–5 in the body of the text with 95% confidence intervals indicated in parentheses. We have provided confidence intervals in an appendix to assist interested readers, without increasing the difficulty of reading the tables in the main text.
A 95% confidence interval is an indication of the extent of sampling error around a percentage estimated in a survey or opinion poll (the confidence interval for a proportion of 50% is sometimes described as a ‘margin of error’). Studies with larger sample sizes tend to have more precise estimates (i.e. narrower confidence intervals). Conversely, estimates for small subgroups (e.g. levels of support among minor party voters or in less populous states) tend to be quite imprecise.
The 95% confidence intervals presented in this appendix are calculated based on the assumption that all Australian voters have an equal chance of being randomly selected to participate in the survey (i.e. a simple random sample). This assumption is now unrealistic given changes to survey methods in recent years. Consequently, these 95% confidence intervals are likely to be overly narrow. Confidence intervals have been estimated using Clopper and Pearson’s (1934) method.
Furthermore, non-sampling error is likely to be a greater source of uncertainty than sampling error. Differences in who has been sampled and a myriad of survey design issues are likely to introduce considerable uncertainty into the results that is not captured by the statistical construct of the 95% confidence interval. Accordingly, these 95% confidence intervals should be interpreted with caution.
In some cases, the information required to compute an accurate 95% confidence interval has not been published by the pollster. For instance, calculating the level of support for a Voice among those intending to vote for the Coalition requires knowledge of the number of survey respondents who reported this voting intention. This information is not always reported in the publications that we review for this study. In instances like this, we have made reasonable estimates of these numbers to facilitate the calculation of plausible 95% confidence intervals.
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Table A2 Attitudes towards a First Nations Voice to Parliament in opinion research since 2017, 95% confidence intervals indicated in parentheses
Poll Support Neutral Oppose Don’t know/ Can’t say Strongly Somewhat Total Somewhat Strongly Total support support support oppose oppose oppose ER-1 18 (16, 20) 26 (23, 29) 44 (41, 47) 27 (24, 30) 7 (6, 9) 7 (6, 9) 14 (12, 16) 14 (12, 16) ACVS 24 (22, 26) 37 (35, 40) 61 (59, 63) 17 (15, 19) 14 (12, 16) 30 (28, 32) 9 (8, 11) ER-2 20 (18, 23) 25 (22, 28) 45 (42, 48) 28 (25, 31) 7 (6, 9) 9 (7, 11) 16 (14, 18) 11 (9, 13) TAI 46 (43, 49) 29 (27, 31) 24 (22, 26) NP 57 (55, 59) 32 (30, 34) 11 (10, 13) ER-3 * 31 (28, 34) 37 (34, 40) 68 (65, 71) 21 (19, 24) 21 (19, 24) 11 (9, 13) RBGPS † 34 (32, 36) 43 (41, 45) 77 (75, 79) 10 (9, 11) 5 (4, 6) 23 (21, 25) ABCVC § 64 (64, 64) 13 (13, 13) 22 (22, 22) ER-4 43 (40, 46) 43 (40, 46) ER-5 * 29 (26, 32) 37 (34, 40) 66 (63, 69) 21 (19, 24) 21 (19, 24) 13 (11, 15) CT-1 49 (47, 51) 20 (18, 22) 32 (30, 34) CT-2 56 (54, 58) 17 (15, 19) 28 (26, 30)
Notes: Rows may not sum to 100 due to rounding. * In these surveys, ‘Strong support’ refers to ‘Support, and should be a priority’, ‘Somewhat support’ refers to ‘Support, but not a high priority’ and ‘Somewhat oppose’ refers to ‘Don’t support’. † In the RBGPS, ‘Strongly support refers to ‘Very important’, ‘Somewhat support’ refers to ‘Fairly important’, ‘Somewhat oppose’ refers to ‘Fairly unimportant’, and ‘Strongly oppose’ refers to ‘Not important at all’. § ABC Vote Compass allowed respondents to ‘skip’ answering a question, but the number of respondents who chose to skip this question was not reported.
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Table A3 Support for a First Nations Voice to Parliament compared with support for constitutional recognition, 95% confidence intervals indicated in parentheses
Poll and issue Support Neu- Oppose Don’t tral know Strongly Somewhat Total Somewhat Strongly Total support support support oppose oppose oppose
ACVS Voice 24 (22, 26) 37 (35, 40) 61 (59, 63) 17 (15, 19) 14 (12, 16) 30 (28, 32) 9 (8, 11) Recognition 34 (32, 36) 38 (36, 40) 71 (69, 73) 13 (11, 15) 9 (8, 11) 21 (19, 23) 8 (7, 9)
ER-3 * Voice 31 (28, 34) 37 (34, 40) 68 (65, 71) 21 (19, 24) 21 (19, 24) 11 (9, 13) Recognition 30 (27, 33) 40 (37, 43) 70 (67, 73) 18 (16, 20) 18 (16, 20) 12 (10, 14)
RBGPS † Voice 36 (34, 38) 49 (47, 51) 85 (83, 87) 10 (9, 11) 5 (4, 6) 15 (13, 17) Voice in constitution 34 (32, 36) 43 (41, 45) 77 (75, 79) 15 (13, 17) 8 (7, 9) 23 (21, 25) Recognition 45 (43, 47) 36 (34, 38) 81 (79, 83) 12 (11, 13) 7 (6, 8) 19 (17, 21)
ER-5 * Voice 29 (26, 32) 37 (34, 40) 66 (63, 69) 21 (19, 24) 21 (19, 24) 13 (11, 15) Recognition 33 (30, 36) 37 (34, 40) 70 (67, 73) 18 (16, 20) 18 (16, 20) 12 (10, 14)
Notes: Rows may not sum to 100 due to rounding. * In these surveys, ‘Strong support (or similar)’ refers to ‘Support, and should be a priority’, ‘Somewhat support (or similar)’ refers to ‘Support, but not a high priority’ and ‘Somewhat oppose’ refers to ‘Don’t support’. † In the RBGPS, ‘Strongly support refers to ‘Very important’, ‘Somewhat support’ refers to ‘Fairly important’, ‘Somewhat oppose’ refers to ‘Fairly unimportant’, and ‘Strongly oppose’ refers to ‘Not important at all’.
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Table A4 Attitudes towards a First Nations Voice to Parliament by party voting intention in opinion polls and surveys, 95% confidence intervals indicated in parentheses
Poll Voting intention Support Neutral Oppose Don’t know / Can’t say ACVS Greens 80 (78, 82) 10 (9, 12) 10 (9, 12) Labor 67 (65, 69) 24 (22, 26) 9 (8, 11) Coalition 55 (52, 57) 41 (39, 44) 4 (3, 5) Other (inc. One Nation) 45 (43, 48) 46 (43, 49) 9 (8, 11) Undecided 52 (49, 55) 26 (24, 28) 22 (20, 24) TAI Greens 75 (73, 77) 10 (9, 12) 15 (13, 17) Labor 50 (47, 53) 26 (24, 28) 24 (22, 26) Coalition 41 (38, 44) 35 (33, 38) 24 (22, 26) One Nation 23 (21, 25) 48 (45, 51) 29 (27, 31) Other (exc. One Nation) 41 (38, 44) 28 (26, 30) 31 (29, 33) Undecided 32 (30, 34) 24 (22, 26) 44 (41, 47) NP Greens 87 (85, 89) 10 (9, 12) 3 (2, 4) Labor 76 (74, 78) 16 (14, 18) 8 (7, 9) Coalition 38 (36, 40) 48 (46, 50) 14 (12, 16) One Nation 38 (36, 40) 50 (48, 52) 12 (10, 14) ER-4 Greens 65 (62, 68) Labor 55 (52, 58) Coalition 31 (28, 34) Other (inc. One Nation) 37 (34, 40) ABCVC Greens 89 (89, 89) 6 (6, 6) 5 (5, 5) Labor 77 (77, 77) 11 (11, 11) 11 (11, 11) Coalition 38 (38, 38) 19 (19, 19) 42 (42, 42) One Nation 25 (25, 25) 17 (17, 17) 58 (58, 58) Notes: Rows may not sum to 100 due to rounding. The TAI and ABCVC polls did not report the number of respondents by voting intention, which is necessary for the calculation of confidence intervals. Consequently, we have assumed that respondents were distributed by voting intention according to contemporaneous national opinion polls archived on the ‘Poll Bludger’ website https://www.pollbludger.net/bludgertrack2019/polldata.htm .
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Table A5 Attitudes towards a First Nations Voice to Parliament by state in opinion research since 2017, 95% confidence intervals indicated in parentheses
Poll State Support Oppose Don’t know/ Can’t say
ACVS NSW 62 (57, 67) 29 (25, 34) 9 (7, 12) Vic 63 (58, 68) 28 (24, 33) 9 (6, 12) Qld 60 (54, 66) 33 (27, 39) 7 (4, 11) SA 56 (49, 64) 31 (24, 39) 13 (8, 19) WA 57 (49, 64) 33 (26, 40) 11 (7, 16) Tas 44 (32, 57) 49 (37, 62) 7 (3, 17)
TAI NSW 50 (45, 55) 28 (24, 33) 22 (18, 26) Vic 51 (46, 56) 24 (20, 29) 25 (21, 30) Qld 41 (35, 47) 33 (27, 39) 26 (21, 32) SA 45 (38, 53) 26 (20, 33) 30 (23, 37) WA 36 (29, 43) 38 (31, 46) 26 (20, 33)
Notes: Rows may not sum to 100 due to rounding. The TAI poll did not report the number of respondents in each state, which is necessary for the calculation of confidence intervals. Consequently, we have assumed that respondents were distributed between states in TAI in the same proportions as in the ACVS.
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