Time to move on from the voice

A year on from the decisive defeat of the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum it is time for its advocates to accept the will of the people. And it is time for them to focus on what matters most: ensuring all Indigenous Australians have the economic opportunities and access to public services that are birthrights of all. But it is not time, it never will be, to lament that the government did not support the voice by censoring its critics. To blame the referendum loss on negativity in the No case misses the point.

Writing in The Weekend Australian in July, voice strategist Megan Davis described the defeat as due in part to “plain old inertia and fear of change”. A less patronising way of making the point is that since Federation voters have declined to change the nation’s legal foundation unless convinced it is essential. And to suggest, as voice advocates also do, that No voters were gulled by rumours and barely concealed racist rhetoric goes way beyond finding a reason the referendum failed – it implies millions of Australians were incapable of making up their own minds on the issue before them.

This is a dangerous direction indeed for any political debate in our democracy. But it is the path that remarks by Professor Davis point towards. As James Dowling reports in The Weekend Australian, she told a Sydney audience on Thursday that voice advocates wanted the Albanese government to pass legislation against “lies and disinformation” during the referendum. “We want freedom of speech, but we need to balance that with upholding principles of democracy and democratic rights,” Professor Davis said.

In the way the marketplace of ideas is polluted by social media blather and bile she has a point, just a very small one, compared with a foundation of our freedom – democracy and free speech go together. As No campaigner Nyunggai Warren Mundine told Paul Kelly, it was “absolute nonsense” to say the referendum was defeated because of racism. In an exclusive interview Indigenous senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, the No campaign’s spearhead, says the way forward should include an audit of Indigenous affairs spending, reform of the existing structures and an inquiry into bodies such as land councils to confront “corruption and fraud” brought to her attention by traditional owners who believed land councils were not representing their interests.

The challenge for Indigenous leaders now is to accept the voice was and is politically unsellable and to join the parties of government in creating a national unity ticket on policy and service delivery for Indigenous Australians within our existing constitutional framework.