If you were one of the 6.2 million people who voted in support of First Nations people in Australia’s 2023 referendum, you’re probably wondering what went wrong – and what comes next on the road to reconciliation.
The day Australians rejected the proposal to amend the constitution and give First Nations people a voice was a distressing one, even before the referendum result became clear. As polling booths opened their doors across the nation, the majority sentiment became clear.
Alyawarre woman and Uluru Dialogue co-chair Pat Anderson, AO was one many Yes advocates handing out pamphlets at polling booths that day.
“We were sworn at, our hands were slapped away, people refused to meet our eyes and one of our young ladies was even pushed… it was really, really awful and, like all of us, I’m still coming to terms with it,” Anderson says. “I don’t think people understand how hurtful we found that all to be; we weren’t expecting such a cruel and harsh rejection.”
I don’t think people understand how hurtful we found that all to be; we weren’t expecting such a cruel and harsh rejection
The 2023 referendum on the Voice to Parliament, otherwise known as The Voice, was the culmination of more than a decade of work led by First Nations leaders, academics and communities across Australia.
First Nations people have been asking for a voice since colonisation. The process that shaped the Uluru Statement from the Heart and resulting referendum was one of the most inclusive and comprehensive undertakings in Australia’s history. At its core were the regional dialogues, a series of 13 three-day gatherings held around the nation to ensure that the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were at the forefront.
Professor Megan Davis, a Cobble Cobble woman from the Barrungam nation, human rights lawyer, and Co-Chair of the Uluru Dialogue, described the process as “deliberative and led by the people”. The agenda for each meeting was consistent, allowing participants to deeply explore the same set of issues. Workshops were facilitated by local leaders, translators and constitutional lawyers who provided expertise to ensure participants fully understood the legal and political implications of the proposals being discussed.
“The dialogues were a safe space where everyone’s voice mattered,” Prof Davis explains. “It wasn’t just about gathering opinions; it was about empowering communities to drive the conversation and shape the outcome … I was really taken by the generosity of our elders in issuing this olive branch to Australians, saying this is your country too. Let’s work out a way of walking together.”
The consensus reached? Constitutional recognition is needed to empower First Nations people to have a greater say in matters that affect them most.
Lagging behind
Prof Davis was recognised on Australia Day this year with a Companion of the Order of Australia “for eminent service to the law and to social justice, to the national and international advocacy of the rights of Indigenous peoples, and to the community.” Talking to MiNDFOOD from Boston (she is a visiting professor at Harvard Law School), she says Australia fares poorly compared with countries like the US and Canada, which are closest to Australia in terms of common law. Although New Zealand is one of the few countries in the world that doesn’t have a written constitution, Prof Davis says the Treaty of Waitangi is a significant document that provides rights recognition and economic development opportunities for the Maori.
“Australia is definitely pegged last,” Prof Davis says. “All of them have significant recognition of First Nations people and their rights and that has a flow-on effect in terms of health and wellbeing and economic development and all of those things that we struggle with in Australia.”
Indigenous people are 2.5 times more likely to commit suicide than non-Indigenous people in Australia; they are 17 times more likely to be in prison; life expectancy is an average 8 years less; and the statistics on health, employment and youth detention are just as sobering.
It isn’t that no government effort has been made to improve matters, or that indigenous people haven’t been consulted – it has just been largely ineffective. The National Agreement on Closing the Gap began with lofty ideals, for example, when in 2008 it set six national socio-economic targets across areas that have an impact on life outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, then in 2020 added 13 more – with partnerships and shared decision making with First Nations people a key part of the plan.
While five of the 19 targets are on track to be met (childhood education rates and healthy birth weights among them), a 2024 Productivity Commission report found that governments “have largely not fulfilled their commitments under the National Agreement on Closing the Gap” and have “failed to fully grasp the nature and scale of change required to meet the obligations they signed up to under the agreement”.
“Efforts to improve outcomes are far more likely to succeed when Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people lead their design and implementation,” said Commissioner Romlie Mokak in the report, which concluded that progress is unlikely unless government organisations fundamentally rethink their systems, culture, entrenched attitudes and ways of working. “For governments to help close the gap between improvements in the life outcomes of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, they will first need to close the gap between words and action,” Mokak stated.
Why change is urgently needed
Uluru Youth Dialogue co-chair Allira Davis, a Cobble Cobble woman from the Barungum and Birrigubba Nations, deferred her degree to lead the Uluru Youth Dialogues. For Allira (Professor Davis’s niece), the quest to give First Nations people a voice in the constitution is deeply personal. “My dad is in and out of jail and it’s a continuous cycle,” she says. “When we see our brothers and our sisters and our dads and our uncles in and out of jail because they can’t get out of that cycle and they feel more at home in jail… it’s sad.”
Professor Emerita of Criminology at UNSW Eileen Baldry says it’s a national disgrace that indigenous incarceration rates continue to rise, and that there’s a clear need for the underlying causes to be addressed.
“The social determinants of health and justice tell us there are a variety of factors that put Indigenous children and adults onto criminal justice conveyor belts in these large numbers,” Baldry says. Some of these include spending time in out-of-home care as a child, being a victim of violence and abuse, experiencing poverty, racism or discrimination, poor school education, inadequate mental health support and early introduction to alcohol and drugs.
“The more of these factors a person experiences, the worse their health and social outcomes are likely to be and the more likely they are to end up in prison,” Baldry says. “And all of these factors are more likely to affect an Indigenous Australian compared to a non-Indigenous Australian.”
When we see our brothers and our sisters and our dads and our uncles in and out of jail because they can’t get out of that cycle and they feel more at home in jail… it’s sad.
Listening to and acting on First Nations community knowledge and insight to address these problems is critical, but without a formal structure in place, effective solutions may never come about.
“People don’t listen to us, they never listen to us,” says Anderson. “It’s a universal truism that when you make decisions and policies for people, it won’t work unless you involve the people for whom you’re making those laws and policies.”
“We need a constitutional change, real structural reform using the ‘big laws’, as people described it in the regional dialogues,” she explains. “All the Voice asked for, really, was to be recognised in the constitution so we could sit down with the government of the day and talk through all the issues that we have and find solutions.”
Lessons in the loss
Along with pushing the slogan ‘if you don’t know, vote no’, Anderson says misinformation and scare tactics were rife during the referendum’s ‘no campaign’. “They were saying all kinds of things about us, which, unfortunately, the general public accepted without question. That was also disappointing.”
Prof Davis says post-referendum research shows that the majority of Australians who voted, and particularly no voters, didn’t know what the Uluru Statement From the Heart was. “They didn’t know there was a series of First Nation regional dialogues that led to the Uluru Statement, and they didn’t know that the Voice came from First Nations people.”
It hasn’t been easy to bounce back. “It certainly was a very difficult year last year,” says Prof Davis. “Having worked on something 24/7 for 12 years, it’s been tough. It was tough to see the campaign roll out the way it rolled out, and it was tough to see the racism that was visited upon so many First Nations people … but the greatest thing, you know, the thing that really got us out of bed last year was the 6.2 million Australians who voted yes.”
Going forward, instead of relying mostly on the media and social media to get their message across, First Nations leaders will be engaging more with local communities face-to-face, forming collaborations and partnerships, and drawing on the help of “our 6.2 million friends to do that work across 151 electorates that we couldn’t do before because we were so small in number,” Prof Davis says.
Young activists
The referendum may have come and gone, but Allira says Indigenous communities are still facing the same issues. Despite her deep disappointment at the time, she is more motivated than ever to create change. “The empowerment and self-determination of our communities is where it’s at,” Allira says. “We need our communities to feel like they have a say in the matters that affect them and if we have to go to another referendum, then we have to go to another referendum.”
“We have so many amazing black youth out there who just really want to make change and that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to provide them the platform and the opportunity to be at the table and create networks and keep going.”
In the works are a national civics education module, Uluṟu Statement education rollout, a listening tour of First Nations communities, a documentary, webinars on “where to from here for recognition and reconciliation”, and more.
Allira is hopeful of seeing real change in her lifetime in the form of a constitutional voice. “I have hope, and I feel powerful when I say that,” she says. “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been here for over 65,000 years and we’re not going anywhere. We might be a small minority, but we’re a very important minority for Australia – we’re the traditional custodians of the land and that’s something to really acknowledge and recognise.”
What you can do
- Sign up for updates on the Uluru Statement from the Heart website and learn all you can about Indigenous issues, past and present.
- Make a tax-deductible donation to support the ongoing work of the Uluru Dialogue to continue its community, legal and advocacy work.
- Listen to the HiSociety podcast hosted by Bridget Cama and Allira Davis on Spotify.
- Make the effort to get to know Indigenous families with children who go to your child’s school.
This article first appeared in MiNDFOOD Magazine in June, 2025.
