83% of First Nations people support

the Voice @ulurustatement announced on Twitter. It was the result of a "YouGov" poll...or was it?

Remember those advertisements which said something like "Eight out of ten dentists recommend...."? Yes, they may have found eight dentists who would recommend a certain brand of toothpaste but is it eight out of ten of all dentists? Of course it isn't. The "statistic" is meaningless. 

The statement on Twitter was even worse than that. There are no "First Nations" people. First Nations may be the correct term in Canada but it is not the correct term here. There have never been "nations" here. There are tribal areas and tribal groupings but they have never been nations. So why do they use that term? Is it to try and suggest something that is not actually the reality? I don't know and it puzzles aboriginal people I know.

But lets move on to the actual "poll". The very fact that it was "conducted" by YouGov should ring alarm bells. Their methods are far from "scientific". Conducting any sort of social science research is highly problematic and this sort of "on-line research" is only helpful if you can manipulate it in order to get the results you want. And of course this is what was done here. 

We are of course now on Warren Mundine's "Myth number six" - the idea that the proposed Voice will speak for aboriginals. It won't. It can't. The idea that twenty-four people - chosen, not elected - can speak for such a diverse group of people with an even more diverse range of needs is nonsense. Only a tiny minority of aboriginals join the community organisations which supposedly speak for them and the proposed working of the Voice will reduce that still further.

The 83% support comes from a survey of what appears to be one thousand, one hundred and eighty-six people who "identify" as aboriginal. It is difficult to find out much more but they appear to be urban dwellers who are sufficiently well educated people with access to a computer and the political "savvy" to participate in such a poll. Now even if everyone who participated in the survey stated they supported the Voice it is still just 00.00135% of the group for whom the Voice is supposed to speak. (I am being generous and rounding up rather than down.)  

It might be that the results of the survey would be the same or close to the same if every person who identified as aboriginal was asked - but how likely is that? We cannot put figures on that.

Like the old "eight out of ten" dentists advertisement we are being told something is true for everyone when it is only true for those who were chosen to be asked. 

My concern here? That many aboriginal people will have even less opportunity to be heard than before.