Why Australia’s Aboriginal referendum failed: Finnish ex-president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Ahtisaari dead

In Australia’s historic ‘Voice’ referendum on Saturday, a clear majority of around 60 percent of participants spoke out against the plan to give Aboriginal people a constitutionally anchored advisory body in parliament. 18 million people were eligible to vote, including 530,000 indigenous peoples.

What exactly the referendum was about and what arguments the No supporters used to make the referendum fail.

What was the referendum about?

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese supports the referendum. The stated goal of his social democratic Labor government is to improve the reality of life for indigenous people, who continue to face severe discrimination today. Indigenous people make up about four percent of the population and live on the margins of society in many places. Their life expectancy is significantly lower than that of white Australians and infant mortality is higher, but at the same time they have poorer access to education and the labor market.

How does the referendum change the situation?

The official Australian government website explains the referendum as follows:

In concrete terms, ‘the voice’ would have been present in the form of a committee. This would have advised Parliament and Government on issues affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The aim would have been to ask the voice for a written statement at the earliest possible stage in the development of legislative and policy proposals. The committee would have its own resources to develop and investigate this statement.

The members of the body would have been chosen by the indigenous people themselves, These should have been Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. Under one design, each state would have had its own representation.

To ensure that all indigenous peoples were taken into account, the Stem is said to have consulted communities and regional bodies.

The panel’s advice would be intended for Parliament not binding been, and the committee would have done the same no veto power held.

The long road to recognition

The recognition of First Nation Peoples in the Constitution has been debated for more than a decade. The first concrete steps were taken in 2010 with the establishment of an expert committee on the recognition of indigenous peoples in the constitution.

In 2017, First Nations called for a voice to be enshrined in the constitution with a petition, the ‘Uluru Statement from the Heart’. It was developed after conversations with more than 1,200 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from across the country. The Uluru Declaration was created in the form of a work of art and presented to the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition in August 2017.

In the Uluru Declaration, Indigenous people refer to the fact that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the first sovereign nations on the Australian continent. According to their culture, the continent has been theirs since creation, and according to science for 60,000 years.

For them, sovereignty over the land is a spiritual idea. It is a connection between them and Mother Nature – the land on which they were born, to which they are connected and to which they will one day return. This connection is the basis for land ownership and can continue within the Australian state, they emphasize:

The indigenous people wonder: how is it possible that a people has owned land for 60,000 years and this sacred connection suddenly disappears from world history in the past 200 years?

They continue:

“Racial division” and disinformation

Anthony Albanese fulfilled a campaign promise with the referendum – the first in Australia in 24 years. Successful at first: according to surveys, ‘the vote’ was still supported by a majority last year. That suddenly changed drastically this year.

In particular, the conservative opposition around frontman Peter Dutton had aroused massive opposition to the plans in recent months, thereby changing opinion in the country. One of the most cited arguments against “the vote” was the perceived racial divide. For example, Dutton argued:

According to an election poll by The Sydney Morning Herald, 22 percent of all voters found this a convincing argument.

But there were also Aboriginal people who argued for a ‘no’ to ‘the vote’. For example, Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Senator Lidia Thorpe – but for different reasons. Price, a member of the centre-right opposition party, argued that “the vote” would further marginalize Aboriginal people. As a solution, she instead advocates changing traditional ways of life that are harmful or incompatible with a complex modern world.

Her answer to the question of whether the indigenous population would suffer negative consequences from colonization caused particular concern. During a press conference in mid-September, Price answered this question with “no.” She stated:

At the other end of the spectrum is Lidia Thorpe. She also campaigned for a no to the ‘vote’, but because the measure did not go far enough. She therefore belonged to the progressive ‘no’ camp. Instead of a ‘voice’, she first calls for an agreement between Indigenous people and the Australian government. Australia is the only former British colony that does not have an agreement with its indigenous population.

“Why aren’t we given power?” she asked. Aboriginal lawyer Michael Mansell, who worked as a lawyer, also opposed the ‘Voice’. The ‘Vote’ could neither pass a law nor, for example, prevent a racist law from being passed in parliament, the lawyer told the New York Times before the vote.

This is how three camps emerged in the election campaign: the yes campaign, the conservative no and the progressive no. It became increasingly difficult for the Yes campaign to defend itself against the other two – very loud – camps. Furthermore, according to an ABC News analysis, the details of the vote were not communicated clearly enough. The two ‘no’ camps would have benefited from this. The Conservatives in particular conducted their election campaign with the slogan:

The spread of disinformation probably played another important role. According to Reuters, influencers who opposed the measures during the pandemic were at the forefront. On a Facebook page with more than 142,000 followers, right-wing extremist senator Pauline Hanson stated in an interview: that “the vote” would transform the Australian Northern Territory into a breakaway black Aboriginal state.

A disappointing result for the indigenous population

On October 14, a majority of 60 percent finally voted against the referendum. A shocking result for many Aboriginal people. “The ‘no’ shows my children, who are proud members of the Birpai people, that the world around them doesn’t want them or doesn’t care what they have to say,” wrote Indigenous journalist Jack Latimore on Sunday in the Sydney Morning Herald. The Minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, tearfully called it a “sad day for Australia”.

It will likely take years for the consequences of this cancellation to become fully clear, wrote Indigenous commentator Lorena Allam in the Australian Guardian. “But it is already abundantly clear that the outcome is deeply hurtful to First Nations people.” Ultimately, the referendum was also a vote on the right of Indigenous peoples to exist in their own lands, “and our fellow Australians voted to reject us,” Allam said. “Imagine what that feels like today.”

In an emotional speech, Prime Minister Albanese said he respected the outcome but would remain committed to reconciliation and bridging the divide in society.

With material from the SDA and DPA news agencies.