Here, as a national exclusive and the humble thanks of a grateful nation, are Brown’s Awards for Meritorious Service to the No case, for those who, by 16 October, will bring about a decisive win for common sense and for the No case itself. The recipients are deserving of the highest position in the No’s panoply of folk heroes as they are all leaders of the Yes camp whose collective performance has been so appalling, destructive and divisive that they have virtually guaranteed that the No case will win.

The Beginner’s Award

The No case got off to a flying start when Anthony Albanese launched the Yes campaign by drawing on the endorsement of the towering presence of the African-American basketball hero and gambling spruiker Shaquille O’Neal who announced that the Voice was exactly what we need to free ourselves from colonial oppression. Why the opinion of a non-Australian should carry any weight on a purely Australian issue is a mystery. Why, when the issue was supposed to be about self-reliance and personal responsibility, was it an advantage to have the dubious endorsement of a gambling advocate? Nevertheless, it got the campaign off to a good start for generating the first discernible body of No voters.

The Leader’s Award: Anthony Albanese

Next, our prime minister deserves praise for galvanising the No vote. Surely, we have to give him the Leader’s Award for generating so many No votes. He makes it plain that he will not even read the founding documents that are clearly part of the Uluru statement. After the quivering chin and the silly hats, he then put the weakest arguments imaginable for the Voice: that it is moderate and gracious and that the people are not entitled to any details; that there is no need for a constitutional convention or to set it up by legislation. Above all, he has shown the singular arrogance that no one else has any merit in the argument. Truly, an Oscar-winning  performance on how not to bring the voting public to your side in a contentious argument.

The Constitutional Expert’s Award

This award goes to the cheer squad of academic lawyers who have somehow got themselves recognised as ‘experts’ on this issue, even although it is an issue on which expertise cannot have been acquired, simply because it is so new and so full of unanswered questions. Despite that, virtually all of them have closed their minds to the issue in favour of a political solution where there is simply, for them, no other argument. They refuse to answer the most basic constitutional questions about the Voice: can the Voice repeat the same representations until it gets its own way? Can development projects be halted because the Voice might want to oppose them? Does it apply to nationality, land rights, water rights, citizenship, or the dates on national celebrations? How can it be democratic if the Voice will be appointed and not elected? The result: a sizeable body of opinion has emerged that it would be safer to vote No, and they will.

The Laurel Wreath

But the prize for the most significant contribution to the No case must surely go to the most voluble campaigner for Yes, namely Noel Pearson. His guiding principle has been to abuse the No camp and its supporters, to doubt their goodwill and smear their reputations and bona fides. He has smeared the respected indigenous leader Mick Gooda as a ‘bedwetter’, Senator Jacinta Nampijina Price as being trapped in a ‘redneck celebrity vortex’, ‘punching down on blackfellas’, Peter Dutton as Judas and an ‘undertaker preparing the grave to bury’ the Uluru statement. Presumably, his thinking was that if you denigrate an opponent enough, some of the mud will stick and the audience will agree with you and vote Yes. But of course the people are minded to do the exact opposite. Voters have concluded that if the Yes case has nothing to contribute but ridicule and contempt, with no serious intellectual reply to the legitimate concerns of No advocates, it must be pathetically weak on the merits and perhaps there is merit on the No side. Indeed,  the Voice creates separatism; two nations under the one constitution, one with its own chapter in the constitution, superior and pre-emptive rights to consultation denied to all other races, the right to be consulted on every action a government can take and the right to appoint themselves as the sole spokesmen for the indigenous community. In particular, it must surely be obvious by now that the Voice is , as Pearson calls it , the ‘first door’ for a treaty, reparations and so-called truth telling. Little wonder he has generated so many No votes.

The Camp Followers Award

Pearson has also generated his own band of followers the chief of whom is Marcia Langton, one of the official architects of the Voice. For her, all ‘hard No’ voters are racists, ‘spewing racism’ and ‘racist nonsense’ with a special shoutout for ‘racist’ social workers and police, labelling conservatives like Jacinta Price and her mother as ‘coloured help’, and wanting a ‘slow, painful death’ for Mark Latham. Unsurprisingly, this and other such extreme abuse appears to have simply led to a ‘slow, painful death’ for the Yes campaign.

The Citizen’s Award

Finally, a unique prize goes to the People. They have seen through the Voice, have not been swayed by emotion, want real answers, will not allow their country to be divided and split into warring tribes and who love and respect Aboriginals and know they will not be advanced by pitting them against the bulk of the population. That is why the good sense of the people has prevailed. The people have reflected that the Voice is risky, that it is a formula for chaos and division and that all Australians will benefit from keeping to our own constitution exactly as it is.

The result: an all-round thank you to the Yes camp. Their divisive case, propped up by the paucity of their arguments and their abuse, have produced a now probably unshakeable majority for No.