The Canberra politicians and the establishment media do not trust you.

In fact they think you’re stupid.

That’s the undeniable lesson of the last two weeks.

It started with the government approving $9.5 million for a “facts of the Voice” campaign. They insist it is not a de-facto ‘yes’ campaign but that’s because they think you’re stupid.

Do you really think their “information on the voice proposal” is going to be anything other than laundering ‘yes’ campaign messages? It’s absurd to think it would be anything else.

But Albo and the Canberra bubble bureaucrats reckon you’re mugs and they can just pull one over you.

And then yesterday we got the most egregious and disgraceful attempt to stack the deck.

The Australian Electoral Commission is exploring having a formal “fact checking” and “misinformation” arrangement with the ABC and RMIT fact checkers.

That would be the AEC who falsely accused ADVANCE of breaching electoral law last election and only admitted it after the accusation was out there and the election was over.

And it’s the ABC and RMIT fact checkers who have repeatedly gotten things wrong. 

They claimed it's false that the divisive Voice confers special rights on one group of Australians over the rest even though the whole explicit purpose of the Voice is to give an extra ‘voice’ to Indigenous Australians – one that other Australians won’t have.

That’s a special right in all but name.

The “fact check” was so bad a leading Australian barrister demolished it in The Australian.

Crickets from RMIT and the ABC in response.

Because, again, they think you’re mugs.

So the AEC – who attacked ADVANCE and got it wrong – and the ABC RMIT Fact Checkers – who’ve repeatedly attacked ADVANCE and got it wrong – are apparently going to work together to combat “misinformation”.

Do you think they’re going to fact check obviously false claims that Indigenous Australians have never had a voice?

Or plainly misleading claims that this is a ‘modest’ proposal?

You know the answer.

This all sounds suspiciously like the government is trying to set up a ‘Department of Truth’ to decide what you can and can’t say during a referendum!

This is the game they’re playing: they will go through every utterance of those who oppose the voice with a fine tooth comb and label anything and everything misinformation – which will get it censored online and in the media.

Then they’ll let ‘yes’ activists say whatever they want, make any claim they want, and say nothing.

That’s because they know the Voice is a dangerous and divisive idea. They know if you understood the power it would have and how it’s the first step towards more division and separation through treaties.

So they’re stacking the deck in every possible way so you don’t get a fair look at what’s being proposed.

They don’t trust ordinary Australians to hear the arguments and decide for themselves.

This is deeply anti-democratic (and from the AEC no less) and dangerous and simply adds to the division the Voice is already causing.

The AEC’s independence and trustworthiness will be torched if they go through with this. It’s not their job to police debate or to launder the ‘yes’ campaigns preferred narrative.

It’s their job to set up booths and count votes and it would be a shame if this disgraceful foray into thought policing compromises our faith in the ballot box.