If we deny the role of racism in this referendum, we don’t know ourselves

They asked for so little. In the end, we couldn’t give them even that much.

The size of the ask, the depths of the problem and the scale of defeat cannot be ignored in any reasonable analysis of the referendum. Asked to support a non-binding advisory body, to improve the life chances of an overwhelmingly disadvantaged people, we issued a decisive No.

Illustration: Jim Pavlidis. Credit:

Perhaps the most telling moment of the entire campaign came early, when Peter Dutton said the Coalition would hold a referendum on recognition alone: “We went to the last election and a number of elections before that with that as our policy and that will be our policy going into the next election as well.”

A policy that has been on the books for years but never delivered: is there a greater symbol of the hollowness at the heart of the supposed goodwill of Australians towards Indigenous people? We want to help, we say, just tell us how! Oh, that’s not a good option. No, not that either. Your people are dying, you say? Let’s wait a while.

As Marcia Langton, descendant of the Yiman and Bidjara people, said on Saturday night, a majority of Australians said no to an invitation with “a minimal proposition”. Or as novelist Melissa Lucashenko, of Goorie and European heritage, said, “white Australia doesn’t want to give blackfellas anything, even when it’s nothing”.

I came across that quote in a piece by journalist Lorena Allam, descended from the Gamilaraay and Yawalaraay nations. Having refused to give Indigenous Australians a formal Voice, the least we can do in the immediate aftermath is listen to their voices now.

But this points directly to the complexity of the problem. Unfortunately, what non-Indigenous people say and do is at the heart of the disastrous lack of fairness in this country. Stupid, damaging “solutions” are imposed on people who know they won’t work, and who then suffer the consequences. The massive disadvantage faced by our First Peoples can only be fixed if the rest of us change the way we do things. This is what the Voice was about, of course: but we did not want to change.

Many Australians take comfort from the idea that they are not the ones to blame for the plight of Indigenous Australians: they were not here when the country was invaded. In 2023, we had our chance to act and did not take it. We are now undeniably complicit in the pain suffered by Indigenous people. The great problem is that too many of us do not believe this pain even exists. This is an absurd denial of reality. As Nova Peris put it, the suffering in this country is “disgusting”. To this, she said on SBS on Saturday, Australia had pulled the shutters down, saying, “We choose not to hear you. We choose not to see you.”

It is true that this referendum, like all referendums, was effectively doomed from the moment Peter Dutton said No. Referendums do not succeed without bipartisan support, midterm votes under Labor never. This means that conclusions about broader meanings are complicated.

But these conclusions are not based only on the result. We witnessed the debate. We heard the racism. We heard the lies told to damage not only the Voice but the picture Australians have of Indigenous people: the effort given to propping up stereotypes of grasping, thieving schemers, out for your land, out for your government. We have seen the media coverage, which has given these lies too much credence and the truth only occasional look-ins.

This debate has unleashed dangerous forces. In all the talk of “misinformation”, we should not skip over the fact we are talking specifically about racist misinformation from certain sections of the No camp, or at least misinformation designed to play on prejudice. We are talking about flagrant lies designed to divide the nation by race. What emboldens those who tell such lies is some media’s failure to call them out; in some cases its collaboration. As a nation, we have proved ourselves incapable of having a mature conversation about Indigenous Australians – which also means a conversation about the rest of us.

I have been struck by the widespread conclusion, based on polling, that Australians were persuaded by the argument that the Voice would divide the country. Voters may well say this was what persuaded them. But it is likely that most were instinctively against the idea; of the reasons they were able to choose between to justify their choice, this one sounded most attractive. Understandably: it enabled people to preserve their good opinion of themselves. They were not voting from racial prejudice, dear me no: it was the opposite! They were voting against Indigenous Australians because they hated racism. We are a country that does not know itself.

Not all the news is bad. Tens of thousands volunteered for Yes. Four in 10 Australians voted Yes. As Dean Parkin, of the Quandamooka peoples, said on Saturday, this was not a swing of any sort – the proposal started with zero votes. This is “the creation of a base”. Some good change has come; now it must continue. Those who are serious about a decent media must keep Indigenous stories in the news. And the prime minister must find another way of delivering what he promised: listening and acting.

The last word should go to Indigenous people who supported the Voice and who made a combined statement after the result. “Much will be asked about the role of racism and prejudice against Indigenous people in this result. The only thing we ask is that each and every Australian who voted in this election reflect hard on this question.”

Sean Kelly is author of The Game: A Portrait of Scott Morrison, a regular columnist and a former adviser to Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd.

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