The year our Voice broke: The fallout from the failed referendum

“It’s gone.” That’s what Mick Gooda said to me plaintively half an hour into counting the votes to enshrine a First Nations Voice to parliament in our constitution on October 14, 2023.

I’d started that day – a year ago today – with a high level of optimism that Australia was going to do this, that Australia would get this right, that Australia would make history. How wrong I was. Instead, the failed referendum has left a trail of hurt and confusion for non-Indigenous and Indigenous Australians like me.

Yes23 campaign director Dean Parkin addresses supporters at Wests Ashfield in Sydney after the defeat. Credit: Getty

After more than 200 years of colonisation, many First Nations Australians feel more disillusioned than ever and rejected in their own lands. The impact of this rejection has been absolutely extreme on our people: our hearts, our minds and our souls.

The Voice was an opportunity to unite the country and put us on a collective path to recognising the world’s oldest civilisation, something all Australians should be proud of. Instead, it was marked by misinformation, disinformation and racism. It weaved division and disunity into an already fragile social fabric.

At its worst, the referendum campaign involved personal attacks and perpetuated racial stereotypes. Many of us experienced attacks from extremists who were emboldened to bring their ugly and unacceptable behaviour into the public domain.

The referendum result was very specific: What was defeated was a proposal to change the Australian constitution to create a First Nations Voice that could make representations to the parliament and the federal government on matters relating to First Nations people. The outcome did not wind back our human rights protections or diminish the need for genuine representation, truth-telling and agreement making. It strengthened the urgency to realise them.

Ironically, despite the referendum’s failure, an ANU study conducted soon after found that 87 per cent of voters said it is important for First Nations Peoples to have a say in matters that affect them. Evidence shows that participation in decision-making leads to positive outcomes for Indigenous communities. It’s in that community-controlled sector – where our organisations design and deliver services to our own people in a culturally secure way – that we see real change and self-determination.

Equally critical is truth-telling. The Voice campaign exposed a profound lack of understanding of our colonial history and the enduring disadvantage it has caused Indigenous communities. Truth-telling is about holding a mirror up to ourselves as a nation and acknowledging past injustices to help us all heal.

A recent UNSW and Reconciliation Australia poll found that 94 per cent of non-Indigenous Australians are “motivated to participate in truth-telling to learn about the ongoing impacts of colonisation on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples today”.

I strongly support the establishment of a national truth-telling body to carry out the process outlined in the “truth” pillar of the Uluru Statement of the Heart. I applaud the truth and treaty work being done in the states and territories. But without national political leadership to support these efforts, the harm created by the weaponisation of First Nations peoples’ lives, which we saw throughout the referendum campaign, will continue.

Thirty years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and the Bringing Them Home report, the nearly 400 recommendations sit on shelves – many unimplemented. Our people continue to die in jails, and our children are still being taken from their families at unprecedented rates. Fifteen years since the government endorsed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – a mechanism that if fully implemented would better protect and progress the human rights of First Nations Peoples – there is no legislative commitment to comply with it.

The injustices our people have endured need to be heard and shared. If we don’t hear their voices, we will never begin to understand their experience or their trauma. If we don’t try to understand, things won’t change, and we can’t move forward as a nation.

One year on from the referendum, this country is crying out for a reframed and reconciled relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians – one that is grounded in truth, justice, and healing.

Katie Kiss.

Doing what we’ve been doing is not working. It’s driving us further apart. We must unite around our shared Australian values of equality, respect and fairness, to rightfully recognise and realise even the most basic human rights of First Nations Peoples.

I want my children to feel that they have hope in the community that they live in. That they lose hope is my greatest fear.

Katie Kiss is a Kaanju and Birri/Widi woman. She is Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner with the Australian Human Rights Commission.