To be shocked that Australia voted NO on this referendum?

[koalaknickers]

"The Voice to Parliament was proposed in the Uluru Statement from the Heart, a 2017 document crafted by Indigenous leaders that set out a roadmap for reconciliation with wider Australia.

Australia's Indigenous citizens, who make up 3.8% of the country's 26 million population, have inhabited the land for about 60,000 years but are not mentioned in the constitution and are, by most socio-economic measures, the most disadvantaged people in the country."

Australia rejects Indigenous referendum in setback for reconciliation (msn.com)

I have family out there. I just assumed that they would have voted YES. I hope they did. Perhaps I should ask them.

Saddened but not surprised, unfortunately.

🙄

Let's hope this thread doesn't get derailed

No it involved more than that.

I worked in Australia in 1998. I taught in a school in Melbourne where there were 53 languages other than English spoken as a first language. At the time it was so removed from my own experience in Scotland, where we had Polish speakers but little else. I experienced a true community which was supportive, open & progressive. So, no, I didn't see much racism.

There were no indigenous pupils- purely catchment I think- and the only indigenous people I did see were in the city centre, so I didn't have a personal connection & I was young & didn't ask enough questions.

I’m also wondering this. As someone who regularly had this slur shouted at me and my family in the 80s, I haven’t heard it for years. I’ve no doubt that there is a certain kind of person who still uses the word, but I can’t say I’ve heard it on TV programmes.

Are you Australian?

I voted no.
I’m not racist, and my vote was not a personal attack on the Indigenous population.
In my opinion, a referendum and changing the constitution is a very serious act and is not easily undone. The wording of the change was so vague. The prime minister refused to outline exactly what the voice would actually look like when implemented - no amount of research can answer questions that the government refused to answer.
For example, how many will be part of the voice? How will they be elected? Will they be consulted for every bill or just ones directly impacting specifically the indigenous community? What is it actually going to cost the taxpayers? What accountability is there for the voice members and how will they measure their impact?

Maybe I’m overly cynical, but I am so over politicians (from all political parties). They over promise, under deliver, spend squillions of money that seems to never benefit the average Australian citizen (ie 400 million on a referendum that was never going to get through, 10 million just announced to donate to Israel) and they walk away incredibly wealthy with lifelong perks and freebies. Meanwhile, the average Australian is struggling to choose between healthcare and food, between heating and housing. The inner city dweller live a vastly different life to rural and remote Australians.

The majority of people I know voted No. It wasn’t because they don’t respect the Indigenous or that they don’t want good outcomes for these communities. It was because no one truly understood what Yes would mean for the country on a truly practical level and after the last twenty years of lies, no one has any faith in the government.

The irony is that there is talk that the Government will bring in a version of the voice anyway…which then just raises the question of why waste 400 million on a referendum if you could a) bring it in anyway and b) don’t actually care what your citizens want or don’t want…

As a white brit, I was subjected to racism* when I worked in Australia, so this doesn't surprise me in the least.

Has anyone seen the documentary The Australian Dream? It shines a real light on racism in Australia.

I just hope this episode will pave the way forward for real changes to be made to help improve the lives of Aboriginal people, because they do not deserve to be second class citizens.

*unsure if this is the right word but was definitely discriminated against for my britishness!

i was also surprised and disappointed although i understand that it wasnt even binding, so the Voice may be listened to but not actioned.

I am not Australian. My family lived there for a while when I was a kid and I have first-degree relatives born there and I keep in touch with them so Australia is on my mind a lot.

I'm disappointed but not surprised. I've been shocked in the past at the experiences of friends who've moved here at what a small-c-conservative and intolerant country Australia can be. I guess it's yet another case of the privileged feeling that the elevation of others is their loss/oppression.

I have a friend who is Indigenous and she's devastated. I was also shocked when she told me she's treated as if she's won one of life's prizes for marrying a white man.

When the Australian soap opera Neighbours introduced its first non-white family in 1993 – the Lims from Hong Kong – their first major storyline was to be accused of eating another neighbour’s dog.

Admittedly, the person doing the accusing was Julie Martin, a character known for being obnoxious, and described by the official Neighbours book as “unbearable”. Eventually, in a triumph for race relations, they were vindicated. After six weeks, they were written out. The dog, Holly, stayed around for five more years.

Australian television – both scripted and not – has been overwhelmingly white and Anglo-Saxon, more so than the population.

Whitewashed: why does Australian TV have such a problem with race? | Australian television | The Guardian

When and where is it used? I've never ever seen or heard it used on TV or in everyday life.

Also it's Aboriginal or Indigenous, it's correct to capitalise just as you would English or French.

No. It’s similar to the Brexit vote.

Brexit happened because people hated the status quo and the “yes” campaign spun a tale of nonsense convincing them that Brexit would make everything better.

In Australian, most voters are happy with the status quo and the “no” team spun a tale about having your land rights taken away and all sorts of nonsense.

Also, the voting threshold for a referendum is much higher in Australia. 4/6 states need to have a majority yes vote (not 50% overall).

Awww, that storyline was horrible. So blatantly racist as well.

i think i read there population of indigenous people in Australia is 3% so very small

I knew the B word would find its way on here.

@kinkytoes I'm an Australian and when I first moved to the UK in the 1990's every time I spoke in the office morning meeting it was repeated back to me by the boss in an exaggerated Aussie "Ocker" accent. I would never in a million years call this racism, just misplaced humour verging on bullying.

YABU. Just because people don’t think the same way as you it doesn’t mean they’re wrong. That’s the entire reason most countries have a democracy, so people can have their voices heard. Would you rather live in a dictatorship?

I voted Yes but my idealist self would have preferred to vote No as I didn't want a Voice to parliament, I want a Treaty.

I'm really disappointed at the result and definitely agree Australia has issues with racism, but polling showed a (pretty big) majority of people supported the idea of The Voice before the referendum campaign actually began (attached a screenshot of the graph below). That instinctive majority for "yes we should probably support this" went off a cliff, for all the reasons with the campaigns some pp have mentioned above. So I don't think it's right to attribute it just to straightforward racism - the instinct was to support, then it fell apart.

That's not to deny the racism that does exist, but handled differently this could have been a real moment for healing, and it has just made everything worse

It was inevitable that the Australians would vote this down, their referendums usually fail and the aboriginal people only make up a tiny fraction of the population - most people don't think about them much or really care either way. The other main issue was that it wasn't clear what voting "yes" actually meant. Generally people vote for what they think is best for them, not what's best for a group of people that they themselves will never be.

Just because a law or constitutional change sounds like its something right-thinking people would support, it doesn't mean that right-thinking people should support it if it's not clearly defined what the likely outcome will be. As with that MP guy who blocked the "on the nod" upskirting vote in the UK parliament - he wasn't pro-upskirting, he just felt that a law which could result in a prison sentence and placement on the sex offenders' register ought to at least have a discussion before being voted through.

Not even going to describe this 50 second video. Just wow!

From an outsider observer's opinion, with a long term interest in studying politics and political systems:

• it seems like the proposed solution of 'The Voice' wasn't going to fix the issues. Wrong answer to the problem
• mandatory voting is a good thing, IMHO, when choosing people (MPs, councillors) to represent you. It's not good when making people vote on something they don't know anything about/don't care enough about
• in this case it was hard to work out what it would mean in practice, as pp have said, but it did feel like it would constitutionality segregate the population and confer different rights, and purely from a theoretical standpoint, that feels odd for any country to adopt

I hope it gives momentum to people who were on both sides to find another way because I think the objectives behind it are important, there just needs to be a different way to address them.

Take a look at Jacinta Nampijinpa Price's speech to The Press Club.
https://www.youtube.com/live/hrinfhtFDlc?si=BEi2YFcAkIEV6dhX
It would have persuaded many, unfortunately.

@Teddleshon yeh you're right it's not the right word at all. Apologies.