Think all young people are for the Voice? Check TikTok: you’d be surprised

By Caitlin Fitzsimmons

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The image of Cathy Freeman draped in the Aboriginal flag after her triumph at the Sydney 2000 Olympics is seared into the collective memory of many Australians. But most of the 1.78 million voters under the age of 25 were yet to be born.

Similarly, the 1999 republic referendum is now as far back in history as the 1975 dismissal of Gough Whitlam was at the time.

Cathy Freeman celebrates after winning gold at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.Credit: AP

Freeman’s achievements are legendary and her endorsement of the Voice to parliament this week is a coup for the Yes campaign, but it’s a reminder that the dynamics are different for young voters.

Freya Leach, 20, from Rozelle, whose videos campaigning for a No vote have gone viral on TikTok, says celebrity endorsements do not have the same cut-through with young people because the nature of influence has changed in the social media age.

“We’re not all watching the same couple of TV channels, we’re not all reading the same couple of newspapers,” Leach says. “Who I’m influenced by online might be totally different to who my friends are watching.”

Polls suggest most young voters are strong Yes supporters, but as with older generations, perspectives vary. As well as the conservative No voters like Leach, who ran as the Liberal candidate for Balmain in the NSW state election, young people are also more receptive to the “progressive No” argument. This is the position put forward by the likes of independent senator Lidia Thorpe that an advisory body does not go far enough and a treaty between First Nations peoples and non-Indigenous Australians should come first.

In the latest Resolve Political Monitor survey, 58 per cent of voters aged 18 to 35 supported a Yes outcome in the referendum to enshrine an Indigenous consultative body in the Constitution. As of the close of polls last Monday, there are 4.59 million voters under the age of 35 out of a record 17.68 million electors overall. Of those, 534,000 are new to the electoral roll, including 313,000 who have turned 18 since enrolments closed for the 2022 federal election.

Other voters are drifting away. The Resolve polling shows support for the Voice is only 42 per cent among those aged 35 to 54, and just 31 per cent among those aged 55 and over.

Knowing that youth are their greatest asset, the Yes camp this week launched a social media campaign asking young supporters to call an older relative to talk about the Voice.

The Uluru Youth Dialogue co-chairs Bridget Cama, a 28-year-old Wiradjuri woman, and Allira Davis, a 26-year-old Cobble Cobble woman, launched the #RingYourRellos campaign and video at an event in Sydney on Wednesday.

“Young people led the climate change action movement and young people led the marriage equality campaign,” Davis says. “There’s a lot of appetite for young people wanting to make change within their communities.”

Connor Shaw, 25, a Yes supporter who travelled from Melbourne for the event, told the attendees about calling his father to discuss the Voice.

“To be honest, I wasn’t really sure how it was going to go,” Shaw says. “Me and Dad, we’re kind of known in the family for pretty intense political debates. What was really meaningful about this conversation was, we both realised that the Voice is beyond politics. I was pleasantly surprised that the conversation went really well.”

From left: Yes campaigners Connor Shaw, Bridget Cama and Allira Davis at the launch of #RingYourRellos on Wednesday.Credit: Rhett Wyman

Social researcher Rebecca Huntley, director of data and strategy agency 89 Degrees East, says the #RingYourRellos idea was adapted from the 2017 campaign for marriage equality, but it will be harder to apply it to the Voice. Huntley ran several focus groups on the Voice over the past year.

“Everybody knows what marriage is and everybody knows somebody who’s gay, but the abyss … between non-Indigenous and Indigenous Australians is enormous,” Huntley says.

“In [focus] groups, people would say, ‘I don’t know any Aboriginal people, and even if I did, I don’t know how I could talk to them about this, so I’m just going to get all my information from social media’.”

Huntley says young voters are receptive to the Voice, having grown up with acknowledgement of Country as normal, and the 2008 Rudd apology occurring while they were in primary school. Yet, she says they are also being bombarded with anti-Voice content online, including misinformation and disinformation, especially on Instagram and TikTok.

Laura Gracie, 18, who attended the Sydney Walk for Yes last Sunday with her father Peter, both wearing Berowra for Yes T-shirts, says she learned about the Closing the Gap framework at school.

Gracie, who completed year 12 last year at a private girls school on Sydney’s north shore, believes most of her friends are voting Yes, but adds “it can be hard to gauge because our generation is so worried about being cancelled and things like that”.

Jewoseydi Barry, also 18, is a Unicef Youth Ambassador and Yes supporter who lives in Werribee in Melbourne. She says growing up Muslim from a Senegalese background and encountering prejudice made her sensitive to the hardships of others, including First Nations communities.

Jewoseydi Barry, 18, said the Voice to parliament is a big topic of conversation at her high school.Credit: Chris Hopkins

Barry is still in high school, and she says the Voice is a big topic of conversation for her classmates, especially for those who are 18 and voting for the first time. They talk about it at lunch and recess, in class when relevant, and online. The arrival of the official referendum pamphlets a couple of weeks ago sparked a fresh round of conversations.

“It’s a bit intimidating because the Voice is an issue that is on the behalf of Indigenous people,” Barry says. “A lot of people are worried that the decision that they make might have negative ramifications in the future.”

Social-first news website The Daily Aus has published a lot of content about the Voice, the referendum process and enrolling to vote, starting from the day after the 2022 election when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese committed to the Uluru Statement from the Heart. The outlet posts news stories in bite-size snippets on Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and its email newsletter, and three-quarters of its audience is under the age of 35.

The Instagram account attracts mostly negative comments from Voice detractors, but co-founder Zara Seidler says this is not reflective of the readership.

“Comments on posts are always going to be the loudest people in the room not necessarily the majority, but the questions we’re getting are people just asking for more information or asking to engage with First Nations voices more,” says Seidler.

Earlier this month the Daily Aus polled its own readers on the Voice and more than 5000 responded, with 83 per cent saying they would vote Yes.

Naarm Law Students for Voice, based at the University of Melbourne, has also been sharing fact-based information online and at in-person seminars in schools, universities, hospitals, libraries and companies.

Centre: Palawa woman Maggie Blanden, one of the leaders of the Naarm Law Students for Voice, with facilitators, Nyul Nyul woman Niamh Whitford (left) and Ngemba/Wiradjuri woman Josie Mortimer (right).Credit: Paul Jeffers

One of the leaders of the initiative is Maggie Blanden, 23, a Palawa woman from Tasmania living in Melbourne, who observes that 18-year-olds are a bit uncertain about what it all means, while university students are highly engaged.

“They’re all really keen to learn, and they’ve got a lot of questions to ask, which can be very challenging sometimes,” Blanden says.

On TikTok, she encounters arguments based in disinformation, such as the line that there should not be a Voice because there was no Indigenous Army in the Vietnam War. She suspects bot activity, but responds with factual information about how many Indigenous people have served in the Australian Army.

On the Yes side, young people say the official campaigns such as Yes23, Uluru Statement, and From the Heart are influential, and leaders and members of the Uluru Youth Dialogue.

Outsider content can sometimes cut through too. Chloe Grayling is a country lifestyle blogger from South Australia whose usual content involves fluffy cows and DIY renovations. A week ago, she posted a TikTok video about having read The Voice to Parliament by Thomas Mayo and Kerry O’Brien “so you don’t have to”, and stated her support for the Voice. The video took off and has clocked up about 360,000 views in a week.

On the conservative No side, Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price is influential, and TikTok users report videos from Fair Australia, one of the official No campaigns, are popping up continually.

Robbie DeVine, 21, who is involved in Liberal student politics at Western Sydney University in Campbelltown, says Pauline Hanson’s satirical cartoon videos, many of which cover the Voice, are also popular with young people.

DeVine says people his age talk about the Voice socially, but the conversation might involve asking a friend if they’ve seen a particular social media post or video, so the lines between the online and offline worlds are blurred.

Robbie DeVine from Western Sydney University is a young Liberal and a No voter.Credit: Steven Siewert

“They can collate the ideas that they’re getting from TikTok or from Instagram and so on, and get a real-life perspective,” DeVine says. “You’ve got that whole social aspect of you don’t want to disagree with your friends, you don’t want to be the black sheep.”

Leach started doing her anti-Voice videos after the NSW election in March, a mix of videos articulating her reasons for voting No, and more light-hearted content such as one where she spins around on a chair and lip-synchs “I know you’re lying” in response to Albanese saying the Voice referendum is not about treaty.

“You can’t take yourself too seriously on social media,” Leach says. “It’s OK to have a bit of fun with it.”

Freya Leach has made viral TikTok videos opposing the Voice to parliament.Credit: Brook Mitchell

One of her more serious videos, which points out some Yes proponents want the Voice to lead to treaty and reparations, has chalked up more than 650,000 views. Another that featured Senator Price as a guest star has had about 220,000 views. Yet many of the comments are rebuttals from Yes voters, making it unclear how the TikTok algorithm is spreading the content.

Some Indigenous young people with large social media platforms appear to be staying out of the Voice discussion altogether or posting general appeals to engage in respectful debate. Some activists who previously used their platforms or media appearances to speak about the issue, on both the Yes and No side, have also stepped back.

Huntley says she doesn’t blame them because “sticking your neck out on this can sometimes be all downside”. With three weeks to go before referendum day, the national helpline for First Nations people has been inundated with calls from people distressed by racism and abuse.

Yet the black sovereignty movement, as represented by Thorpe in the Senate and many radical activists outside of parliament, has already made its mark. Huntley says the progressive No argument has swayed some young voters from Yes to No, or from a solid Yes to a soft Yes.

Kaninna Langford, 25, a musician and Yorta Yorta, Djadja Wurrung, Kalkadoon and Yirendali woman who lives in Melbourne, has been on this journey.

“I started out as No then I was persuaded to the Yes [side] because I was afraid we would never get any better [deal] and then I remembered my sovereignty and returned to NO,” Langford says.
“I don’t trust the Australian government do to the right thing by us. They never have.”

Jesse Smith, 23, a Quandamooka man living in Sydney, the convener of the Greens First Nations network and a friend of Thorpe, argues a No outcome would help maintain momentum to fight for real power, such as dedicated seats in parliament.

Liora Hoenig, Ngarrendjeri woman Ella Rigney, and Alice Whittlesea at the Sydney Walk for Yes.

“I’m not opposed to a voice to parliament, but the Voice proposed by the Labor Party is a powerless advisory body,” Smith says.

In some circles though, this debate is over.

Cammeraygal man Benjamin McGrory, 24, the Indigenous officer at the University of Sydney, says the progressive No argument was active on campus, but has now died down. At a recent meeting of the Student Representative Council, the left passed a motion that “if you’re anti-racist, you’ll vote Yes”.

Alice Whittlesea, 22, who attended the Sydney Walk for Yes says she will vote Yes with the majority of Indigenous people.

“I just think as a white person, it’s not my choice to vote No,” Whittlesea says. “If Aboriginal people want to vote No, that’s their choice. But for me as a white person … I couldn’t imagine voting No to something that could be such a positive change.”

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