What we learned: Sunday, 13 August
With that, we will wrap the blog for now. Thanks for joining us, with today’s news dominated, understandably, by that heart-stopping Matildas win.
Here were the major events of the day:
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, will take the prospect of a Matildas public holiday to national cabinet on Wednesday. He’s promised to ask the states to sanction a public holiday if Australia wins the World Cup. The Nationals leader, David Littleproud, is against it, citing the hurt it would cause businesses.
A fire burning out of control near Alice Springs prompted an alert from NT Fire and Rescue. The fire, around Tjoritja, Simpsons North, was spreading on one or more fronts and residents were urged to monitor the situation.
Three men have been stabbed at a gentlemen’s club in Melbourne’s CBD. Two groups of men were believed to have had an altercation at the Men’s Gallery on the corner of Lonsdale and King streets on Sunday morning, police said.
And the minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, told the launch of the Multicultural Australia for the voice campaign the Coalition’s position on the voice is “as clear as mud” and “completely confused”. Burney said the positivity of the yes campaign was “extremely important”.
Updated
All Australians needed to achieve yes referendum campaign success: Burney
Linda Burney says support from Australians of all backgrounds is needed to achieve constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians through a voice to parliament.
The minister for Indigenous Australians said Yes23 had a multicultural coordinator running forums around Australia, and materials were also being developed into dozens of languages:
That is to make sure that people with a language other than English get the accurate information.
We see multicultural Australia as our brothers and sisters in this particular effort to unify this country, to bring this country together.
Burney said there was “a great affinity between the multicultural community and First Peoples in this country”. She added:
We know it is fundamental to get the right message, the accurate messages out to the multicultural communities because we know that many of them are being targeted by the no campaign with nothing short of misinformation.
Burney did not name any individual she accused of spreading misinformation.
Warren Mundine, who leads the Recognise a Better Way group that is part of the no campaign, has previously spoken about efforts to tap into the “unheard majority” who he argued were often ignored, and in particular to engage with Australians who were born overseas, or whose parents were.
Mundine has previously told Guardian Australia:
We’re very respectful of them and we go and listen to them, and they want to hear what we’ve got to say.
Steve Khouw, a former Liberal party member who is campaigning for a no vote, has also previously said the government’s voice proposal was “really divisive”.
For more on those efforts, see this recent story by Sarah Collard:
Updated
