Sky News presenter Andrew Bolt has brutally broken into the latest Yes campaign advert featuring a young Indigenous boy.
The 30-second advert shows the Aboriginal boy asking Australians to consider a series of simple questions about his future and urging them to vote ‘yes’.
‘Will I grow up in a country that hears my voice? Will I live as long as other Australians? Will I go to a good school?’ the boy asked.
The ad tried to touch the hearts of Australians, but Bolt seemed unmoved as he took the ad apart in his latest News Corp column on Sunday.
The commenter called the unnamed boy “Sam” before saying not to believe the people who told him that only a yes vote makes a good life possible.
His column took a turn when he addressed one of the boy’s concerns about shorter life expectancy and instead told him to “eat healthy and exercise.”
Sky News presenter Andrew Bolt has delivered a cheeky message to the young boy (pictured) starring in the latest Yes campaign advert in support of an Indigenous voice to Parliament
The boy asked if he will “live as long as other Australians” – a reference to the fact that Indigenous men die on average 8.6 years earlier than non-Indigenous men.
Bolt wrote that there is no reason he couldn’t live as long as the average Australian.
‘Just eat healthy, exercise and take good care of yourself. Don’t smoke or drink or do anything dangerous and you should be great,” he wrote.
He added a warning that the Voice cannot magically help him live longer; he has to do it himself.
“Someone in the Yes23 campaign should have done a favor for the worried boy they allowed to star in their new ad for The Voice,” Bolt wrote.
“They should have told him the truth.”
The boy also asked the question: ‘Will I grow up in a country that hears my voice?
Bolt said the boy already has a voice and the fact that he is in the ad, which is part of a $20 million television blitz before the Oct. 14 election, proves it.
He told the boy that if he wanted an even bigger voice, he could become an activist like the people who put him in the ad, or a writer, business leader, preacher or actor.
‘Or become a politician, like the eleven people in our federal parliament who also identify as Aboriginal. What a powerful voice you would have!’
The Sky News presenter also addressed the boy’s question: ‘Can I go to a good school?’
“From how well you speak, I suspect you are probably already at a good school,” Bolt wrote, adding that Aboriginal Labor politician Pat Dodson went to a better school than he did.
He also said the young boy could learn an indigenous language if he wanted to, but that “you can’t beat English if you want to get ahead” in Australia.
The boy was also concerned about being seen off the playing field – a reference to the many Indigenous athletes playing in NRL, AFL and other sports.
Bolt’s response was that there are many other areas where Indigenous Australians have achieved great success, calling prominent No campaigner and coalition senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price one of ‘my own Aboriginal heroes’.
The latest advert for the Yes campaign runs alongside the You’re the Voice advert featuring John Farnham’s famous song
The percentage of Australians in favor of the referendum has fallen for the fifth month in a row and since the last survey Victoria has swung to a majority No, leaving Tasmania as the only state left in the Yes camp
“Don’t rely on anyone telling you that Aboriginal people can only be sports people,” he advises, adding that the Yes23 campaign is led by film director Rachel Perkins, whose father was “the first Aboriginal person to head a government department.”
With less than four weeks to go before the referendum date, the Yes campaign is hoping its latest advert will change the way people plan to vote, as all recent polls say it is heading for a major defeat.
The Resolve Political Monitor’s latest survey found that only 43 percent of voters supported a plan to enshrine the Vote in the Constitution, a drop of 20 percentage points from a year ago.
It remains to be seen whether the advert with the young boy will have the same effect as the advert using the John Farnham song You’re The Voice – that people will like the advert, but it won’t make them more likely to say ‘yes’ to vote.
Labor-oriented advertising expert Dee Madigan wrote in the pages of Nine Newspapers that the ad “empowers the viewer” and that using a child in a TV ad was “smart because parents instinctively listen when they hear a child’s voice – so it penetrates. ‘
The ending line – “yes makes it possible” – is “extremely powerful,” she said, before calling it a “good ad.”