- Oakes said the loss of the referendum was “quite damaging”.
- He labeled the Albanians as an ‘incompetent dill’
Former political journalist Laurie Oakes has branded Anthony Albanese an ‘incompetent dill’ after the failure of the Voice to Parliament referendum.
The former Nine News political editor said he thought the whole referendum debate was “pretty bad” and said it could damage the Prime Minister’s reputation with the public.
“I think it was quite damaging, I think he (Mr Albanese) handled it incompetently and I assumed the voters noticed there wasn’t a lot of competence involved,” Oakes told 2GB’s Afternoons with Deborah Knight.
‘If you handle something as big as the Voice as poorly as he handles it, people naturally assume that you don’t handle other things very well either.
Former political journalist Laurie Oakes (pictured) has branded Anthony Albanese an ‘incompetent dill’ after the failure of the Voice to Parliament referendum
‘And that is the risk that Anthony Albanese runs. He’s going to come out of this Voice referendum looking like an incompetent dill and he might be stuck with that.”
The veteran journalist also gave his opinion on both the Yes and No campaigns.
He said that while the No side’s disinformation was “quite shameful”, the Yes campaign was “unconvincing and pointless”.
“It didn’t explain anything,” he said.
The Voice was decisively rejected on October 14, with 60 percent of Australians voting against.
Every state and territory except the ACT voted against the constitutional amendment to enshrine an Indigenous voice in parliament and executive government.
“While tonight’s outcome is not the outcome I had hoped for, I absolutely respect the decision of the Australian people and the democratic process that led to it,” Albanese said when the referendum failed.
The former Nine News political editor said he thought the whole referendum debate was “pretty bad” and said it could damage the Prime Minister’s reputation with the public.
“As we think about all that is happening in the world today, we can all be grateful that here in Australia we make the big decisions peacefully and as equals, with one voice, one value.
‘What I could promise was that we would go all in, that we would try, and we did.
“Of course, when you do the hard things, when you set the bar high, sometimes you fall short. And tonight we recognize, understand and respect that we have that.”