The 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice referendum was a
constitutional referendum
A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a direct vote by the electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a representative. This may result in the adoption of a ...
held on 14October 2023 in which the proposed
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice was rejected. Voters were asked to approve an
alteration
Alteration(s) may refer to:
* Alteration (music), the use of a neighboring pitch in the chromatic scale in place of its diatonic neighbor.
** Alteration, in the mensural notation used by renaissance music, the lengthening of a breve, semibreve or ...
to the
Australian Constitution
The Constitution of Australia (or Australian Constitution) is a constitutional document that is supreme law in Australia. It establishes Australia as a federation under a constitutional monarchy and outlines the structure and powers of the ...
that would
recognise Indigenous Australians in the document through
prescribing a body called the
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice that would have been able to "make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples". The proposal was rejected nationally and by a majority in every state, thus failing to secure the
double majority required for amendment by
section 128 of the constitution. The
Australian Capital Territory was the only
state or territory with a majority of "yes" votes.
Background
On 21 May 2022, the
Australian Labor Party won government, with party leader
Anthony Albanese
Anthony Norman Albanese ( or ; born 2 March 1963) is an Australian politician serving as the 31st and current prime minister of Australia since 2022. He has been leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) since 2019 and the member of parlia ...
becoming
Prime Minister. During his victory speech, Albanese committed to holding a referendum to enshrine an Indigenous Voice to Parliament in his government's first term of office, acting on the 2017 request of Indigenous leaders for such a body made with the ''
Uluru Statement from the Heart
The ''Uluru Statement from the Heart'' is a 2017 petition by Australian Aboriginal leaders to change the constitution of Australia to improve the representation of Indigenous Australians.
The statement was released on 26 May 2017 by delegates t ...
''.
Parliamentary process
The government settled on and announced the text of the question on the ballot and the actual amendment on 23 March 2023.
These were formally approved by parliament through the passage of the Constitutional Alteration (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice) Bill 2023 (Cth). The bill was examined and endorsed by the Joint Select Committee on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice Referendum, subject to two dissenting reports authored by Liberal and National party members respectively.
The
Liberal Party of Australia report put forward several changes, including the deletion of sub-section 128(ii) (to reduce a risk that representations from the body must be considered), a new section 77(iv) (to allow the parliament to control the applicability of judicial review under section 75(v) of the Constitution), the addition of the words "and the legal effect of its representations" to sub-section 128(iii) (to clarify the power Parliament has to legislate regarding the Voice), and the replacement of the words "executive government" to "ministers of state" (to reduce the possible ambit of people to whom the Voice may make representations). The
Nationals' report, on the other hand, rejected the proposed bill entirely.
Following the passage of the bill, the referendum date was announced by the Prime Minister on 30 August 2023. The referendum was officially triggered on 11 September 2023 with the issuing of a
writ by the
Governor-General
Governor-general (plural ''governors-general''), or governor general (plural ''governors general''), is the title of an office-holder. In the context of governors-general and former British colonies, governors-general are appointed as viceroy t ...
to the
Australian Electoral Commission.
Question and proposed amendment
Referendum ballot papers asked voters:
[ ]
The proposed amendment to the Constitution was the insertion of the following chapter:
Chapter IX Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples
129 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice
In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia:
# There shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice;
# The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;
# The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.
Voting and referendum mechanisms
Double majority
For any amendment of the Constitution to proceed, it must receive a
double majority of votes: that is, a majority in each of a majority of the states (i.e. at least four of the six states), as well as a majority overall (i.e. including votes in the territories).
Voters
Voting in the referendum was mandatory for all eligible
Australian citizens
Australians, colloquially known as Aussies, are the citizens, nationals and individuals associated with the country of Australia. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or ethno-cultural. For most Australians, several (or all) ...
(and some
British subjects
The term "British subject" has several different meanings depending on the time period. Before 1949, it referred to almost all subjects of the British Empire (including the United Kingdom, Dominions, and colonies, but excluding protectorates ...
). A total of 17,676,347 voters were registered on the electoral roll, and therefore required to either vote in person, by post or by phone. This was 2.6% larger than the electoral roll of the 2022 election.
Cost
The
Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) estimated the cost of the referendum would be about $450 million, where the federal government had supplied $364 million in the most recent budget to deliver the referendum. Funding for the referendum was provided to the AEC and
National Indigenous Australians Agency in the
October 2022 Australian federal budget, with a total distribution of $75.2 million (excluding Contingency Reserves) over two years (FY202224).
* $52.6 million for the Australian Electoral Commission to prepare for and deliver the referendum
* $16.1 million for the Australian Electoral Commission to increase the percentage of eligible First Nations people enrolled to vote
* $6.5 million for the
National Indigenous Australians Agency to support preparations for the referendum, including the relevant governance structures
There is an additional $160 million of the federal Contingency Reserve available to deliver the referendum.
In May 2023 the government announced a total of $10.5 million in the
2023 budget to improve mental health services for Indigenous people in the lead-up to the referendum.
[
]
Official pamphlet
The government originally attempted to remove the requirement for an official yes/no pamphlet along with other proposed changes to the referendum process in the Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Amendment Bill 2022 (Cth), arguing that a physical pamphlet was outdated and that information could instead be distributed online or via television. Instead, the government proposed funding an education campaign to inform Australians about the referendum and to "counter misinformation". However, the pamphlet was ultimately retained in order to secure bipartisan support for the bill. Following this, parliamentarians of both houses who had voted for and against the constitutional amendment bill drafted, for inclusion in the pamphlet, 2,000-word essays detailing their ''Yes'' and ''No'' cases, with the text of each essay approved by a majority respectively of the ''Yes'' and ''No'' supporters. This approach was criticised by organisations such as The Greens, who wanted these statements to be independently fact-checked, as there was no legal requirement for the pamphlets to be truthful. After the pamphlets were released, several media organisations analysed the claims in both essays, with many characterising some in the no case as "false" or "misleading". No campaigners disputed this however, arguing that fact checkers were labelling claims as "false" that remained subject to debate.
The yes/no pamphlet was published on the AEC website on 18 July 2023 and on 11 August 2023 it began to be posted to households.
Key dates
Key dates in relation to the voting process for the referendum were:
* 11 September – Writ issued
* 11 September – Applications for postal voting opens
* 18 September (8pm) – Close of electoral roll (17,676,347 people were enrolled at the close of the roll)
* 25 September – Remote voting commences
* 2 October – Early voting centres open in Northern Territory, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia
* 3 October – Early voting centres open in Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia.
* 11 October (6pm) – Applications for postal voting closes
* 14 October – Referendum day
* 27 October – Last day for receipt of postal votes
* 6 November – Writ returned
Proposed design of the Voice
Positions
Political parties
The following tables summarise the positions of registered political parties at the federal level. Disagreement between federal party rooms and state-level party branches within the Liberal–National Coalition is discussed below.
Parliamentary parties
Non-parliamentary parties
Different stances within the Coalition
Nationals leader David Littleproud announced on 28 November 2022 that his party would not support the Voice, with Senator for the Northern Territory Jacinta Price
Jacinta Yangapi Nampijinpa Price (; born 12 May 1981) is an Australian politician from the Northern Territory. She has been a Australian Senate, senator for the Northern Territory since the 2022 Australian federal election, 2022 federal election ...
speaking out strongly against it. The decision led to Andrew Gee leaving the party to sit as an independent.[, ] The Nationals oppose the Voice on a federal level and in two states ( South Australia and Victoria), although the party supports it in New South Wales,[ and Western Australia.]
Federally, the Liberal Party opposed the Voice, with leader Peter Dutton repeatedly asking for more information before they could make a decision, before deciding on 5 April 2023 to reject the Voice. The Liberals offered an alternative proposal and do support the constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians. Only backbenchers have been allowed a conscience vote on the issue, while members of the Coalition Shadow Ministry are obliged to oppose the Voice. Despite the Liberal Party's federal position, the party is supportive of the Voice in New South Wales and Tasmania. The Western Australian branch was initially supportive, but changed their position in August 2023. On 3 September, Dutton committed to hold a second referendum on Indigenous recognition if the Voice referendum failed, while also expressing support for his party's election proposal for a series of legislated local bodies (without a national one).
Former Liberal MP, and Indigenous Australians Minister, Ken Wyatt
Kenneth George Wyatt (born 4 August 1952) is a former Australian politician who was a member of the House of Representatives from 2010 to 2022, representing the Division of Hasluck for the Liberal Party. He is the first Indigenous Australian el ...
, quit the Liberal Party on 6 April 2023, in response to the Federal Liberal Party's opposition to the Voice. Later, Julian Leeser (the member for Berowra) resigned from the Shadow Cabinet to support the Voice and campaign for an improved wording, although he did not quit the party and still remains in Parliament as a Liberal backbencher
In Westminster and other parliamentary systems, a backbencher is a member of parliament (MP) or a legislator who occupies no governmental office and is not a frontbench spokesperson in the Opposition, being instead simply a member of the " ...
.
Since the resignation of Dominic Perrottet
Dominic Francis Perrottet ( ; born 21 September 1982) is an Australian politician who is currently serving as the 46th premier of New South Wales and leader of the New South Wales division of the Liberal Party of Australia. He assumed office ...
(a supporter of the Voice) as leader of the NSW Liberal Party after he led the party to defeat at the 2023 state election, most of the support for the Voice from Liberal members has come from Tasmania or from backbenchers, despite state branches refusing to bind their party or frontbenches by a stance (despite the federal Coalition binding its shadow ministers to oppose the Voice). Of other state Liberal leaders, New South Wales leader Mark Speakman
Mark Raymond Speakman (born 6 November 1959) is an Australian politician. He has served as the New South Wales Attorney General since January 2017 in the second Berejiklian ministry since April 2019, and in the first arrangement of the Perrott ...
supports the Voice, while Western Australian leader Libby Mettam
Elizabeth Mettam (born 3 May 1977) is an Australian politician. She has been the Liberal member for Vasse in the Western Australian Legislative Assembly since a by-election held on 18 October 2014. She is the leader of the Western Australian L ...
initially supported the Voice, but then began opposing it due to the state's controversial Aboriginal heritage laws. The Liberals for Yes campaign was launched in 2023 as an attempt to attract support for the Voice from centre-right, liberal conservative individuals.
Similar to New South Wales, the Victorian Liberal Party
The Liberal Party of Australia (Victorian Division), branded as Liberal Victoria, and commonly known as the Victorian Liberals, is the state division of the Liberal Party of Australia in Victoria. It was formed in 1949 as the Liberal and Countr ...
has allowed its members a conscience vote on the issue. The Victorian branch has not yet declared its stance on the Voice. However, party leader John Pesutto
John Pesutto (born 5 September 1970) is an Australian politician and lawyer serving as the leader of the Opposition in Victoria, holding office as the leader of the Victorian Branch of the Liberal Party of Australia. He has been a member of t ...
confirmed his personal stance and other members have voiced their personal opinions ( see below).
Independents
Former prime ministers
Newspaper endorsements
Legal commentary
Campaign
Campaigning for both sides of the question started in early 2023. Some of the groups and individuals involved are listed below.
Yes
*Uphold and Recognise (2015) was founded by lawyer Damien Freeman and Coalition spokesperson on Indigenous Australians, Julian Leeser (who is no longer with the group).[ It is chaired by Sean Gordon, who is co-convenor of the Liberals for Yes group,] and has been a member of the First Nations Referendum Working Group, and includes former Indigenous Australians minister Ken Wyatt
Kenneth George Wyatt (born 4 August 1952) is a former Australian politician who was a member of the House of Representatives from 2010 to 2022, representing the Division of Hasluck for the Liberal Party. He is the first Indigenous Australian el ...
as a board member. It follows a centre-right approach.[
*The Uluru Dialogue (2017) is a collective that includes creators of the '']Uluru Statement from the Heart
The ''Uluru Statement from the Heart'' is a 2017 petition by Australian Aboriginal leaders to change the constitution of Australia to improve the representation of Indigenous Australians.
The statement was released on 26 May 2017 by delegates t ...
'', along with various academics and lawyers based at the University of New South Wales; it is chaired by Megan Davis
Megan Jane Davis is an Aboriginal Australian activist and international human rights lawyer. She was the first Indigenous Australian to sit on a United Nations body, and was Chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Davis is Pro vice ...
and Pat Anderson.[
* From the Heart (2020) operated under the auspices of ]Noel Pearson
Noel or Noël may refer to:
Christmas
* , French for Christmas
* Noel is another name for a Christmas carol
Places
* Noel, Missouri, United States, a city
*Noel, Nova Scotia, Canada, a community
* 1563 Noël, an asteroid
*Mount Noel, Britis ...
's Cape York Institute
The Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership, also known as the Cape York Institute, is an Australian public policy organisation which researches and implements welfare reforms to reduce social inequalities between Indigenous and Non-Indig ...
in north Queensland
North Queensland or the Northern Region is the northern part of the Australian state of Queensland that lies just south of Far North Queensland. Queensland is a massive state, larger than many countries, and its tropical northern part has been ...
.[
*Australians for Indigenous Constitutional Recognition is a group of prominent Australians co-chaired by the director of the Business Council of Australia, Danny Gilbert, and Aboriginal filmmaker Rachel Perkins. Board members include Noel Pearson; Tony Nutt, former principal adviser to prime minister John Howard;][ and author and Indigenous Maritime Union of Australia official Thomas Mayo. This group ran the Yes23 campaign.
*Parliamentary friends of the Uluru Statement (launched on 13 February 2023) is a non-partisan group co-chaired by Labor's Gordon Reid; Liberal Bridget Archer; and Independent Allegra Spender.][
According to Mayo, all of these campaign groups were working towards the same goal.][
*The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Catholic Council, based on a framework and foundation of subsidiarity.
*Jack Beetson, co-founder and executive director of Aboriginal education initiative Literacy for Life sat on the referendum working group.
]
No
*Advance
Advance commonly refers to:
*Advance, an offensive push in sports, games, thoughts, military combat, or sexual or romantic pursuits
* Advance payment for goods or services
* Advance against royalties, a payment to be offset against future royalty p ...
(formerly Advance Australia), a conservative lobby group, has set up a ''No'' campaign which includes new social media advertising campaign titled "The Voice is Not Enough" (or just "Not Enough"), aimed at a young demographic and targeting the "progressive no" vote, suggesting that the Voice would be too weak, or is not the main priority for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. A number of people have accused Advance of misrepresenting their views and using photographs of them in its campaign without their permission. Advance has been funded by millionaires such as Jet Couriers founder Brett Ralph, Kennards Self Storage
Kennards Self Storage is an Australian self storage company.
History
In 1973, Kennards Hire established Australia's first self storage facility at the rear of its Moorebank, Sydney branch. Initially branded as Kennards Mini Storage it was re ...
head Sam Kennard, building material scion Rodney O'Neil, health company chief Marcus Blackmore and fund manager Simon Fenwick. In addition, the group has created a "Referendum News" Facebook page showing anti-Voice posts, and has advertised on Facebook and Instagram
Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...
. According to University of Technology Sydney political scientist Jeremy Walker, Advance also collaborated with fossil fuel companies and Atlas Network
Atlas Network, formerly known as the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, is a non-governmental 501(c)(3) organization based in the United States that provides training, networking and grants for libertarian, free-market, and conservative groups ...
affiliates including the Centre for Independent Studies, Institute of Public Affairs and LibertyWorks to promote the ''No'' campaign.
*Australians for Unity, created on 11 May 2023, led by Warren Mundine and Jacinta Nampijinpa Priceboth Indigenous Australians. This is a merger of two key former campaigns:
**Recognise a Better Way was led by Mundine and included former Nationals deputy PM John Anderson John Anderson may refer to:
Business
*John Anderson (Scottish businessman) (1747–1820), Scottish merchant and founder of Fermoy, Ireland
* John Byers Anderson (1817–1897), American educator, military officer and railroad executive, mentor of ...
, and former Keating government minister Gary Johns
Gary Thomas Johns (born 29 August 1952) is an Australian writer and former politician. He was a member of the House of Representatives from 1987 to 1996, holding the Queensland seat of Petrie for the Australian Labor Party (ALP). He served as ...
.[ The campaign, launched in January 2023, was set up by a group called the Voice ''No'' Case Committee. The committee included four Indigenous members: Mundine; Price (who left the group in February 2023 to join Advance][); founder of the Kings Creek Station Ian Conway; and owner of Kemara enterprises Bob Liddle. Price officially deleted her membership of the Voice ''No'' Case Committee from the Senate register of pecuniary interests on 13 August 2023 (although she had never disclosed her interest before).
**Fair Australia was a ''No'' campaign led by Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (who was originally part of the Recognise a Better Way group][) under the auspices of ]Advance
Advance commonly refers to:
*Advance, an offensive push in sports, games, thoughts, military combat, or sexual or romantic pursuits
* Advance payment for goods or services
* Advance against royalties, a payment to be offset against future royalty p ...
.[
*Blak Sovereign Movement, including Senator Lidia Thorpe, who spoke at the ]National Press Club
Organizations
A press club is an organization for journalists and others professionally engaged in the production and dissemination of news. A press club whose membership is defined by the press of a given country may be known as a National Press ...
on 16 August.
Advertising and media
The government launched its official advertising campaign about the referendum in May 2022, to provide information about what the proposal is, what the Voice would do and how it would be set up, and to encourage Australians to prepare themselves for it. The AEC (which is an independent statutory authority
A statutory body or statutory authority is a body set up by law (statute) that is authorised to implement certain legislation on behalf of the relevant country or state, sometimes by being Primary and secondary legislation, empowered or deleg ...
) launched its major education phase in August 2023, aimed at helping and educating voters to prepare for the referendum.
An analysis of various contributors to the campaigns published in early August suggested that the ''No'' campaign represented by Advance Australia were using fear as their underlying message, and focussing on prominent ''Yes'' campaigners such as Thomas Mayo and Teela Reid. The Blak Sovereign Movement argued that a treaty should be negotiated ahead of establishing the Voice. The Uluru Dialogue was using a sense of pride to show how the nation would be a better place with the Voice in place. Yes23 emphasised fairness and integrity. The report analysed the relative levels of success of the different approaches.
The ''Yes'' and ''No'' campaigns started advertising on social media in early 2023, and although both had spent around on advertising on Facebook between mid-March and mid-June 2023, it was found that each had targeted different audiences. The biggest spenders were Fair Australia and Yes23. From 3 September 2023, with John Farnham
John Peter Farnham Officer of the Order of Australia, AO (born 1 July 1949) is a British born Australian singer. Farnham was a Teen idol, teen pop idol from 1967 until 1979, billed then as Johnny Farnham, but has since forged a career as an Adu ...
's support, " You're the Voice" was used to advocate for the ''Yes'' campaign as a soundtrack to a video ad. The video for the ''Yes'' campaign, which aired on several platforms, includes the 1983 America's Cup
The America's Cup, informally known as the Auld Mug, is a trophy awarded in the sport of sailing. It is the oldest international competition still operating in any sport. America's Cup match races are held between two sailing yachts: one f ...
yacht race (won by an Australian yacht); the handback of Uluru to its traditional owners in 1985; and the landmark Mabo land rights case in 1992.
At the end of August, the top five items on Facebook and X included several that were critical of the Voice and served the ''No'' campaign. Their analysis showed how negative stories can have the strongest impact on people's attention, and also how far articles on traditional media could reach on social media. At that time, the Yes23 campaign had spent more than any other campaign group; however, they were less geographically focused than spending by ''No'' campaigns. It concluded that while there were many more ''Yes'' than ''No'' ads published, its message was spread over 33 disparate themes, whole ''No'' ads predominantly covered only seven, which were all negative. By the end of September, online advertising by both camps was heavily focused on the Tasmania and South Australia, which were regarded as "battleground" states. Fair Australia started using TikTok in May, and was using it far more extensively and proving more successful than the ''Yes'' campaign by October. ''Yes'' campaigners on other social media such as Facebook, X, and Instagram
Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...
had large followings. This may reflect the fact that the younger demographic on TikTok were more likely to be ''Yes'' voters, and the ''No'' campaign wanted to reach them.
There has been considerable activity in news and other traditional media from both sides of the debate, including TV news (used by around 58% of Australians in 2023), news published online (51%), and in print (19%).
Mass media in Australia
Mass media in Australia spans traditional and digital formats, and caters mostly to its predominantly English-speaking population. It is delivered in a variety of formats including radio, television, paper, internet and IPTV. Varieties include ...
are highly concentrated, with Rupert Murdoch's News Corp Australia
News Corp Australia is an Australian media conglomerate and wholly owned subsidiary of the American News Corp. One of Australia's largest media conglomerates, News Corp Australia employs more than 8,000 staff nationwide and approximately 3,00 ...
dominating the landscape, owning over two-thirds of leading newspapers along with most online news websites; three News Corp outlets occupy the top three positions in the nation, based on popularity and viewership. An interim report commissioned by the Australians for a Murdoch Royal Commission group as part of its "Murdoch Referendum Accountability Project" was published in September 2023. University of Adelaide academic Victoria Fielding and a team of researchers analysed data on reporting and commentary by News Corp about the Voice between July and August 2023, covering '' The Australian'', ''Herald Sun
The ''Herald Sun'' is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper based in Melbourne, Australia, published by The Herald and Weekly Times, a subsidiary of News Corp Australia, itself a subsidiary of the Murdoch owned News Corp. The ''Herald S ...
'', ''Daily Telegraph
Daily or The Daily may refer to:
Journalism
* Daily newspaper, newspaper issued on five to seven day of most weeks
* ''The Daily'' (podcast), a podcast by ''The New York Times''
* ''The Daily'' (News Corporation), a defunct US-based iPad new ...
'', and Sky News Australia. It found that on the whole, news reporting was unbiased and accurate, but the opinion pieces were almost all in favour of the ''No'' vote. The majority of News Corp's content was commentary, not reporting, so when the various articles and videos were examined together, around 70% of the coverage favoured ''No'' arguments. Andrew Bolt and Peta Credlin
Peta-Louise Mary Credlin (born 23 March 1971) is an Australian former political advisor who served as Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister (Australia), Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Tony Abbott for his term from September 2013 to September ...
were the top contributors in favour of a ''No'' vote.
Incidents
In July 2023, a cartoon ad promoting the ''No'' campaign in the lead-up to the referendum was published by Advance Australia in the ''Australian Financial Review
''The Australian Financial Review'' (abbreviated to the ''AFR'') is an Australian business-focused, compact daily newspaper covering the current business and economic affairs of Australia and the world. The newspaper is based in Sydney, New Sou ...
'', featuring caricature
A caricature is a rendered image showing the features of its subject in a simplified or exaggerated way through sketching, pencil strokes, or other artistic drawings (compare to: cartoon). Caricatures can be either insulting or complimentary, a ...
s of Thomas Mayo a signatory and advocate of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, along with, MP and ''Yes'' advocate Kate Chaney
Katherine Ella Chaney (born 21 January 1975) is an Australian independent politician, who was elected to the Australian House of Representatives at the 2022 Australian federal election, succeeding Liberal Party MP Celia Hammond in the division ...
, and her father businessman Michael Chaney. This led to bipartisan condemnation of the ad as "racist". The ''AFR'' later apologised for the ad.
In July 2023, Big W, an Australian chain of discount department stores
A discount store or discounter offers a retail format in which products are sold at prices that are in principle lower than an actual or supposed "full retail price". Discounters rely on bulk purchasing and efficient distribution to keep down cost ...
, announced it would stop its in-store announcements that expressed support for the Indigenous voice to parliament.
In early October, the AEC asked the ''Yes'' campaign to remove a social media post that contained a misleading graphic that could cause ''No'' voters to cast an invalid vote.
In early October, the AEC asked the ''Yes'' campaign to move their signage away from theirs to avoid confusion, because both were of a similar purple colour.
Misinformation and disinformation
Some opponents of the Voice, primarily right-wing
Right-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, authorit ...
and far-right
Far-right politics, also referred to as the extreme right or right-wing extremism, are political beliefs and actions further to the right of the left–right political spectrum than the standard political right, particularly in terms of being ...
politicians and commentators, internet troll
In slang, a troll is a person who posts or makes inflammatory, insincere, digressive, extraneous, or off-topic messages online (such as in social media, a newsgroup, a forum, a chat room, a online video game), or in real life, with the int ...
s, and members of the sovereign citizen movement, have spread misinformation, disinformation and unfounded conspiracy theories regarding the referendum online. This activity is most prominent on Telegram, Twitter and WeChat
WeChat () is a Chinese instant messaging, social media, and mobile payment app developed by Tencent. First released in 2011, it became the world's largest standalone mobile app in 2018, with over 1 billion monthly active users. WeChat has bee ...
. According to independent monitors and fact-checkers, online debate has focused on race, particularly on Twitter. Ben James, editor of the Australian Associated Press
Australian Associated Press (AAP) is an Australian news agency. It was established by Keith Murdoch in 1935.
AAP employs around 80 journalists who work in bureaus in all states and territories of Australia except the Northern Territory. It al ...
' FactCheck team, which monitors content on Facebook, Instagram
Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...
and TikTok, says that the amount of misinformation and disinformation had by early September exceeded that which had been observed on social media ahead of the 2022 Australian election
The 2022 Australian federal election was held on Saturday 21 May 2022 to elect members of the 47th Parliament of Australia. The incumbent Liberal/National Coalition government, led by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, sought to win a fourth conse ...
. Leading Indigenous campaigner Thomas Mayo has been subjected to a great deal of racial abuse
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
. While some misinformation has been observed from people on both sides of the discussion, there was generally more on the ''No'' side – although it is noted that not all of the claims emanated from the official No campaign. Social media experts have observed "bot
Bot may refer to:
Sciences
Computing and technology
* Chatbot, a computer program that converses in natural language
* Internet bot, a software application that runs automated tasks (scripts) over the Internet
**a Spambot, an internet bot des ...
-like behaviour" that spread the same content across social media.
A preprint
In academic publishing, a preprint is a version of a scholarly or scientific paper that precedes formal peer review and publication in a peer-reviewed scholarly or scientific journal. The preprint may be available, often as a non-typeset versio ...
study in September 2023 showed ''Yes'' tweets dominating the Twitter platform, including amplification of misinformation and conspiracy theories created by the ''No'' side, with the ''Yes'' voters trying to fact-check and correct them. Politicians and media were also increasing the themes of "racial division" and "hidden agenda" on Twitter, in particular Sky News Australia. Many of the ''No'' accounts appeared to be recently created and suspicious, although there was little evidence of social bots. The preprint concluded "Overall, our findings reveal a media ecosystem fraught with confusion, conspiratorial sensemaking, and strategic media manipulation".
It was reported that much of the misleading information and disinformation has been promoted by internet trolls linked to the Chinese Communist Party, with China being accused of espionage, attempting to undermine Western influence and attempting to silence Western criticism of human rights abuses in China
Human rights in mainland China are periodically reviewed by the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC), on which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and various foreign governments and h ...
. An analysis by Recorded Future confirmed the findings of Australian Strategic Policy Institute
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) is a defence and strategic policy think tank based in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, founded by the Australian government and funded by the Australian and overseas governments, industry ...
in this regard but found no evidence that Iran or Russia were trying to influence the debate. Chinese social media platforms such as WeChat also prominently spread misinformation and occasionally even racism.
Australian Electoral Commissioner Tom Rogers said that social media had not adequately dealt with misinformation and disinformation on their platforms; of 47 reported by the AEC as being of concern, only 16 had been taken down.[
RMIT FactLab, which had been checking some of the claims made by the ''No'' campaign, including that the ''Uluru Statement'' comprised more than one page, was suspended by ]Meta
Meta (from the Greek μετά, '' meta'', meaning "after" or "beyond") is a prefix meaning "more comprehensive" or "transcending".
In modern nomenclature, ''meta''- can also serve as a prefix meaning self-referential, as a field of study or ende ...
as its key fact-checking organisation in August 2023 because its certification from the International Fact-Checking Network
The Poynter Institute for Media Studies is a non-profit journalism school and research organization in St. Petersburg, Florida, United States. The school is the owner of the ''Tampa Bay Times'' newspaper and the International Fact-Checking Netwo ...
had expired in December 2022. However, it continues its work and is regularly published by ABC News.
Quality of public debate
Concerns were aired about the quality of public debate, by both campaigns and private individuals on both sides of the debate, in some cases describing it as divisive and "toxic". Political commentator Laura Tingle
Laura Margaret Tingle (born 14 February 1961''Who's Who in Australia'', ConnectWeb, 2016.) is an Australian journalist and author.
She is the chief political correspondent of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's ''7.30'' current affairs te ...
described the debate as "bitter", criticising the ''No'' campaign in particular.
Marcia Langton was accused of calling ''No'' voters "racists", after '' The Australian'' published an article headlined "Langton brands ''No'' voters 'racist, stupid; it was shown afterwards that she was referring to the tactics of ''No'' campaigners, not the voters, which she said were "based in racism and stupidity".
There has been racism directed against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, including criticism of unrelated topics such as Welcomes to Country
A Welcome to Country is a ritual or formal ceremony performed as a land acknowledgement at many events held in Australia. It is intended to highlight the cultural significance of the surrounding area to the descendants of a particular Aboriginal ...
, claims that Indigenous people have special treatment, and promulgation of racist stereotypes. "Progressive No" campaigner Lidia Thorpe, who herself has been subject to racist abuse and death threats, exposed a video of a hooded man making racist remarks, burning an Aboriginal flag, and giving a Nazi salute.[ Abuse towards campaigners on both sides reportedly affected the mental health of several people.]
Opinion polling
Despite "Yes" having a large lead in opinion polls initially, public opinion slowly began shifting in favour of "No" in late 2022, with the latter coming out ahead in every poll taken since July 2023 (a month after the Constitutional Amendment bill passed through the Senate).
Early voting
On 4 October, the AEC reported that 903,570 votes had been cast after three days of early voting.
By polling day, 6 million early votes had been cast at pre-poll centres, and 2 million postal votes were expected.
Result
The Constitutional amendment was rejected in both the state and national vote counts, with the Australian Capital Territory being the only state or territory with a majority "yes" vote.
Despite some predictions of a low turnout, the participation rate for the referendum was 89.92%, just higher than the rate for the 2022 election of 89.82%. Similarly, despite concerns about ticks and crosses, the informal voting rate was 0.98%, comparable to the rate for the republic referendum of 0.86% and lower than the typical rate for federal elections of around 2%.
Regions with a high proportion of Indigenous Australians overwhelmingly voted yes in the referendum. Labor MP for Lingiari, Marion Scrymgour suggested that 74% of the 11,000 people that live in the division's remote areas voted yes. The highest vote in support of yes in an Indigenous community was in Wadeye
Wadeye ( ) is a town in Australia's Northern Territory. It was formerly known (and is still often referred to) as Port Keats. At the , Wadeye had a population of 2,280. Wadeye is the 6th most populous town, and the largest Indigenous community ...
, at 92.1%. The Tiwi Islands voted 84% in favour, and Maningrida recorded an 88% yes vote. However, many of these remote communities also had a very low turnout, with Palm Island, which recorded a yes vote of around 75%, having a preliminary participation rate of around 1 in 3. Warren Mundine suggested that the low turn-out in remote communities indicated "that, at best, most Aboriginal people of voting age in remote communities didn't vote at all, and the percentage who voted Yes was less than 30 per cent". Election analyst Antony Green argued that drawing conclusions based on a relation between the vote of an electorate and its recorded Indigenous population was an example of the ecological fallacy as the data could not be used to predict the vote of individual voters.
National
States and territories
Analysis
Analysis of a survey data collected immediately after the referendum was conducted by ANU to attempt to gauge the intention and reasoning of voters. The report found, inter alia, that despite the no vote in this case a majority of voters indicated they would have voted yes on symbolic recognition in the Constitution. The data also suggested that the main reason Australians voted no was due to a dislike of "division" and a scepticism of rights that are only held by some Australians.
The results also demonstrated some evidence of an urban–rural political divide
In political science, the urban–rural political divide is a phenomenon in which predominantly urban areas and predominantly rural areas within a country have sharply diverging political views. It is a form of political polarization. Typically, ...
. The four electorates returning more than 70% of votes in favour of Yes were the namesake electorates centred on the CBDs of Melbourne, Sydney
Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...
and Canberra
Canberra ( )
is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The ci ...
, as well as Prime Minister Albanese's inner Sydney electorate of Grayndler. By contrast, the only five electorates to return less than 20% of votes in favour of Yes — Maranoa, Flynn, Capricornia, Hinkler and Dawson — were all rural electorates in southern and central Queensland.
Analysis by DesmosAU concluded that fear of constitutional change in general was the primary reason for the referendum's failure, with 29% of the electorate opposed to any change and 23% believing it should only be changed "if it doesn't work". They concluded that the referendum would have failed regardless of the proposal without bi-partisan support.
Aftermath
Once the referendum result became clear on the night of 14 October, Yes23 campaign co-chair Rachel Perkins called for a week of silence "to grieve this outcome and reflect on its meaning and significance". After this period, an unsigned open letter was distributed by the public relations firm that had worked for the Uluru Dialogue (a key yes group based at the Indigenous Law Centre of UNSW Sydney
The University of New South Wales (UNSW), also known as UNSW Sydney, is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the founding members of Group of Eight, a coalition of Australian research-intensive ...
) that decried the result as "unbelievable and appalling" and concluded that constitutional recognition would no longer be possible. It also highlighted the role the Liberal and National parties had in the defeat, stating "there was little the yes campaign could do to countervail" the impact of their opposition. Warren Mundine responded to the letter, saying it was a "disgraceful attack on Australia and Australian people".
The result was perceived by many as a significant setback to reconciliation in Australia. Aboriginal academic and pro-Voice campaigner Marcia Langton
Marcia Lynne Langton (born 1951) is an Australian academic. she is the Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne. Regarded as one of Australia's top intellectuals, L ...
declared that Australian voters' rejection of the Voice made it "very clear that Reconciliation is dead".
After the referendum, in which over 64% of South Australians voted against the Voice, state Liberal leader David Speirs cast some doubt on the state based voice. South Australian One Nation MP Sarah Game announced plans to introduce a bill to repeal the ''First Nations Voice Act 2023''.
On 19 October 2023, the Queensland opposition Liberal National Party of Queensland (LNP) leader David Crisafulli announced that they would be dropping their support for a state based treaty. The LNP had previously supported a treaty in early 2023.
The Victorian Liberal Party
The Liberal Party of Australia (Victorian Division), branded as Liberal Victoria, and commonly known as the Victorian Liberals, is the state division of the Liberal Party of Australia in Victoria. It was formed in 1949 as the Liberal and Countr ...
were divided in the aftermath of the referendum over whether to continue supporting the state's treaty process. Alongside their fellow Coalition partners, the National Party of Victoria
The National Party of Australia – Victoria is a political party in Victoria, which forms the state branch of the federal Nationals. It represents graziers, farmers, miners and rural voters.
It began as a political activity of the Victorian ...
, in January 2024 both parties withdrew their support for treaty, leaving Victoria without bipartisan backing for the proposal.
Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the result was a chance to re-consider flying Aboriginal flags equally with the national flag and the tradition of acknowledgment of country prior to official events, as he considered the result a victory against identity politics. Former Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce
Barnaby Thomas Gerard Joyce (born 17 April 1967) is an Australian politician who served as the 17th deputy prime minister of Australia under Malcolm Turnbull from 2016 to 2018 and under Scott Morrison from 2021 to 2022. He was the leader of the ...
reflected that "there's a new type of politics in Australia and it's a little bit Trumpian
Trumpism is a term for the political ideologies, social emotions, style of governance, political movement, and set of mechanisms for acquiring and keeping control of power associated with Donald Trump and his political base. '' Trumpists'' ...
".
See also
* List of Indigenous Australian politicians
* List of Indigenous Australians in politics and public service
* Michael Long's walk from Melbourne to Canberra
* Referendums in Australia
Notes
References
External links
Australian Electoral Commission 2023 referendum website
Constitution Alteration (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice) Bill 2023 (Cth)
{{Australian elections
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
October 2023 events in Australia
Albanese government
Constitutional referendums in Australia
Indigenous Australian politics
2023 elections in Australia