Happy referendum day!
Best of luck to all those doing their civic duty today – may your queues be short and your democracy sausages filling.
I’ve spent the last few weeks travelling across the country to report on the referendum. The result was our series Understanding the Voice, which you can watch on Instagram or Youtube, or listen to wherever you get your podcasts.
If you don’t have time for the video but you would like a last-minute refresher on what we’re voting on, you can find simple answers to common questions at TDA’s Voice hub.
In the meantime, I wanted to use today’s newsletter to reflect on the significance of this moment in Australian history.
Today marks the end of a months-long referendum campaign. For many, that will be a relief. The debate has been noisy and often ugly.
This toll has fallen heaviest on First Nations people – as TDA reported earlier this week, calls to the dedicated First Nations crisis support line 13YARN about racism, abuse and trauma have doubled compared to last year.
At the root of all this is the dynamic of the referendum itself. Like in the same-sex marriage plebiscite of 2017, a majority is being asked to decide on something that affects a minority.
Several of the First Nations people I have interviewed during the referendum campaign have emphasised that weight of numbers. The feeling of being the 3% (the population share of First Nations people) but with policy outcomes shaped by the 97%.
The First Nations leaders who first called for a constitutional Voice in the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart had these numbers in mind. In fact, they saw this as the entire purpose of the Voice – a solution to what the authors of the Statement called “the torment of our powerlessness”.
The federal government has passed more laws that specifically apply to First Nations people than they have about any other group. The Uluru authors saw a permanently-enshrined Voice as a way to give the 3% a greater say in these laws.
The irony was that the path to establishing such a Voice was always going to have to pass through the 97%. Tonight, or perhaps in the coming days, we will learn whether it will clear that hurdle.
Some First Nations people will be hoping it doesn’t, although they are a minority and their reasons differ sharply.
Some are ‘progressive no’ campaigners, who see any attempt to ‘reconcile’ with Australian governments as doomed to fail. Governments built on the back of colonisation, they argue, can never be trusted to address the ongoing injustices flowing from colonisation. Instead, they want to pursue treaties (agreements) with those governments, which they say should hand back real decision-making power.
Other ‘conservative no’ campaigners say First Nations people should not want to be treated differently to anybody else. Jacinta Nampijinpa Price claimed during the campaign there was no ongoing harm from colonisation and believes the entire Indigenous Affairs portfolio – for which she is the Shadow Minister – should not exist.
That is very much a minority position among First Nations people. Not only do polls suggest more than 80% support a Voice, but most First Nations ‘no’ advocates agree the status quo must change, including Price’s fellow conservative, Nyunggai Warren Mundine. So too do Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton.
Where they diverge is on the question of whether the Voice will meaningfully change the status quo. If the referendum succeeds, we may find out the answer to that question.
If it fails, we will face a different question: what is next? If we do not see the Voice as the answer, what will we do instead to close the gaps most ‘yes’ and ‘no’ campaigners agree must be closed?
There are no easy answers to that question. But the worst outcome would be not to answer it at all. However Australia votes today, we should remain determined to improve outcomes for First Nations people.
A message from our sponsor
Sadly, I didn’t go on a holiday somewhere warm this year. Instead, I chose to spend my time looking at photos of other people somewhere warm. I don’t recommend it.
But if I had travelled, Up’s Overseasy setup would have saved me a lot more money than the ‘tap and hope’ strategy I have used previously.
Up doesn’t hit you with currency conversion fees or extra ATM fees when you use an Up card overseas, so you can pay with confidence. It also displays your purchases in both Australian and foreign currency to save you the mental maths.
The Daily Aus acknowledges the Gadigal peoples of the Eora Nation who are the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work. We acknowledge and pay respect to the past, present and future Traditional Custodians and Elders of this nation and the continuation of cultural, spiritual and educational practices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.