I write this column five days before the Voice referendum vote on 14 October. Some readers of the hard copy issue of this wonderful Spectator Australia publication will already know the result of this most important of constitutional referenda in this country’s history. At the risk of sounding immodest I believe I may have been the first person to say, in print, that this Albanese grotesque deformity of a s.128 constitutional amendment proposal would lose.  That was back when it was first announced and the polls showed support for the unexamined proposal at upwards of 70 per cent in favour. My view from the start was that there was no way average Australians would go for this exercise in unequal citizenship, undetailed emoting and steroid level application of identity politics performance art. Of course, the way most Australians had simply succumbed during the thuggish, heavy-handed lockdown years (where, as world leading Stanford University epidemiologist Professor Jay Bhattacharya says, the biggest source of disinformation came from governments and the public health caste and where we now know no-lockdown Sweden got near-on everything right and we did not, including on cumulative excess deaths from the start of that whole sorry exercise in government over-reach and brutality) introduced a soupçon of doubt into my usual confidence about the good sense of the average voter. Still, I shrugged it off and reckoned the average punter had learnt his or her lesson as far as genuflecting at the altar of the expert class went. So right out of the blocks I was very confident this referendum would lose and I said so. Tell the punters the details of this thing and it will lose, that was my view from day one. And having made that hostage-to-fortune prediction way back when I feel it is incumbent on me – five days out – to make a final pre-poll prediction, with thanks to all those who made the desired result possible.

So my guess, my poll-aided guess, is that the No side will win the national vote comfortably and we will also (I risk being overcome by hubris here I know) win in every state, even Tasmania. Won’t that be delightful? Wanting to be magnanimous in victory I give the Yes side a comfortable win in the jumped-up city council jurisdiction of PSEL (the ‘P’ is silent and it stands for Public Service Employee Land), aka the ACT.  You can’t win them all ladies and gentlemen. But a rather resounding win for the No side it will be. That’s my hostage-to-fortune prediction.

Of course, that result will make the No side some pretty upset constitutional enemies amongst the lawyerly caste, many judges, the preponderance of the corporate class (who, never forget, gave tens of millions of dollars of shareholders’ monies – yours and my monies – to the Yes side on a party political constitutional issue which was unforgiveable and should not be forgiven), the leaders of the churches and charities, virtually all the top bureaucrats and university vice-chancellors, and far too many of the Liberal party MPs in this country. Don’t be put off by any of that. Remember the words of the great man, Winston Churchill: ‘You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.’

And speaking of famous quotes on that topic Napoleon once said, ‘Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.’ And so all of us on the No side need to acknowledge those on the Yes side who helped make this result possible. I start with the majority justices of the High Court of Australia who decided the Love case in 2020.  When current top judges tried to reassure us all that judicial activism was not a danger should this proposal pass they were clearly taking the piss – anyone reading the majority judgments in Love would have seen an exercise in virtue-signalling identity politics where ‘otherness’ and ‘spiritual connections to the land’ trumped constitutional text and a century of bog-standard federalist practice. The Greg Cravens and Chris Kennys of the world were either wilfully blind or flat out wrong in saying juristocracy, kritarchy and judicial activism weren’t a serious danger should this pass. (Funny, isn’t it, how Mr Kenny never defers to the preponderance of the expert caste on climate issues.) So were all the retired (a few not retired) top judges who came out of the closet and nailed their colours to the Yes side. And we knew for certain we had it won when Malcolm Turnbull proudly switched over to Yes .

We on the No side also need to thank the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for opting, every time he had a choice to make, for the most sweeping, all-encompassing, democracy-enervating model going. And for not taking the hour it would have taken him to read the background Uluru Statement documents. Thanks Albo.

I also don’t want to omit giving a hearty acknowledgement to all those in the great and the good expert class who simply could not resist seeing, acting as though, and describing those who disagreed with them as racists, moral cripples, uninformed deplorables, the characterisations grew even more uncharitable than these. I refer to top silks; sitting judges; leaders of the Yes campaign and politicians on the Yes side. Heck, even a few supposed conservatives, Sky TV and the Australian regulars, and Liberal party MPs.

And then there were the aforementioned CEOs of the big corporations who disgracefully took sides on a party-political issue such as this. I won’t forget and neither should the Liberal party. Alan Joyce and Qantas may have been the worst of a very bad lot, what with even opting to fly Yes leaders around for free and not No leaders. If Dutton had the cojones of a Maggie Thatcher he’d be signalling that a return to office of the Libs will see a lot of government business moving over to Virgin. Just sayin’. And let’s not forget that many charities also gave big money to the Yes side – to be clear they used money given to them by you and me for their stated charitable purposes and sent it on to the Yes camp. Again, I will never again give a penny to any charity that did this, and that includes the universities that came out for Yes (which was over half of them). And I wouldn’t want to finish this list of shame without mentioning the Australian Electoral Commission.  Boy does that need a clean-out.

Let me finish on a very positive note. The conservatives in this country won this vote. The Liberal party (well, most of it) was dragged kicking and screaming to do the right thing by the conservative party base, with help from this publication and a few others. Mr Dutton took too long to come out for No; he placed too much emphasis on focus groups and short-term tactics; but at least he got it right in the end, unlike so many Liberals at the state level. Jacinta Price did yeoman’s service and became a deserved star. Get her into the lower house ASAP!

Yet the biggest credit goes to all the regular Australians who saw through all the bulldust thrown their way by the sneering, condescending, sanctimonious, self-righteous expert class. Democracy is a wonderful thing, and a lot better than rule by experts. I finish with the near-certain prediction that I will be hungover on Sunday morning.