Are you sick of this referendum campaign?
If you are you’re not alone.
Many hard No folk it seems are sick of feeling lectured by the hard Yes folk, who are sick of seeing their carefully thought out arguments fall on plugged ears.
But if you’re undecided, I bet you’re even more over it.
You’re so popular right now! Millions of dollars, thousands of person hours and terabytes of information – some of it even true – are being pelted at you by both sides of what would technically be a debate if there was more listening going on.
You could be forgiven for just wanting it to go away.
Of course, it will go away – for most of us on Monday 16th October, Yes or No will make no difference to our work day, our to-do list, our households, our bills.
Most of us have nothing concrete or immediate to lose, whatever the outcome.
But a shout out to you if you’re undecided.
You are in doubt, which is a much trickier place to be in, and it could be said you’re actually treating this referendum in a more democratic spirit by refusing to jump to conclusions.
You could have given yourself an early break and signed up to the comforting certainty of a hard vote, but you didn’t.
Maybe amid the madness of this campaign, doubt about the referendum is the sanest position to take.
Anyone claiming certainty about the outcome of a Yes or No result is deluded. No one knows what will happen. And if you don’t know….well…that’s not easy is it?
Of course, as the comeback line to the No campaign’s devastatingly effective slogan says, you could find out more.
But the problem for many with that is the Dunning-Kruger effect, where finding out more makes you realise how little you know.
Either you have to do university qualifications in constitutional law and become an expert in Indigenous Affairs, or you have to trust people who are those things.
And trust, the most precious commodity I know, is being burned up deliberately by some in politics and media in pursuit of power.
Depending on which politicians’ soundbites or posts you are assailed with, you can get truths, misinformation (unintentional untruths) disinformation (deliberate untruths) or a baffling mix of the above.
And depending on where you get your news, it can seem that every expert for Yes is met with an equal and opposite expert for No.
So you’re probably sick of experts now too.
I’m no expert in politics or Indigenous Affairs. But as a therapist I am an expert at helping people think.
I also help people stop overthinking some things.
As both sides compete for your vote there’s so much to think about, and yet it doesn’t need to be overthought.
Put it this way: You’re in doubt, so the question you need to answer is about the benefit of your doubt.
Given that no one knows for certain what the outcome of the referendum will be, where should the benefit of your doubt go?
Here I need you to be the expert.
In your life, when you aren’t sure who’s right, has it turned out better to give the benefit of the doubt to people with more to lose or less?
That’s a genuine question, and only you can answer it.
And I can only answer for myself.
In undecided times in my life I have learned that the benefit of the doubt best goes to those with more to lose.
But you have lived differently, and will have your view.
Then the next thing you need to do to work out how to vote is to decide who has more to lose from this referendum.
If there’s a Yes outcome, how much will the No campaigners lose? How much will everyone else lose?
If there’s a No outcome, how much will the Yes campaigners lose? How much will everyone else lose?
For example – just my opinion – I think that the 3% of us that this referendum is for, the majority of whom support Yes, have so much to lose.
The effect of a No outcome would be terrible for so many of them. I also think the rest of us would lose, each in our own little way, if we miss this step towards reconciliation.
That may be just a little for each of us non-Indigenous Australians, but it adds up to a lot to lose.
When I look on the other hand at the minority of that 3%, allied to a large coalition of non-indigenous people supporting No, I think they really have much less to lose.
Many are the same people who railed against Climate Action and Marriage Equality – to them this is just another culture war.
The effect of a Yes outcome for these people would I think be less terrible. I think they would quickly find other things to think about, and fight over.
So I’ll vote Yes, not because I’m certain it’ll turn out better, but because my life has shown me the benefit of the doubt should go to those with the most to lose.
Your life might have shown you something different. But that’s your business, no one else’s.
No need to overthink it, just give the benefit of your doubt to those your life has shown you it should be given to, and get back to that life.
What have you got to lose?
My Doctor's Handwriting 