Winning and losing constitutional referendums is quite simple: if you are going to change the rule book, both sides of the game have to agree.
“But you are just a political scientist!” The then British prime minister was not particularly impressed by my statistical model three months before the 2016 referendum onI had written an academic article that said, statistically speaking, “the government would lose the referendum by four points”.
Governing means disappointing. And the longer you are in power the more people feel let down. It is called burning through political capital. If you have been in office for a long time more people will be disappointed and vote against you in referendums. Remember, the otherwise electorally successful Bob Hawke lost the four referendums in his fifth year of power in 1988.
So, why have only 18 per cent of the 44 referendums to date passed in Australia? And why have 84 per cent of the 38 referendums in the Republic of Ireland, to take but one comparable example, been approved? Compared with what I have seen in the more than 30 referendums I have observed at close quarters in the past 25 years, the debate in Australia is neither shrill nor sensationalist.
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