As I write this at approximately 09:30pm, both requirements for a referendum to change the Constitution per Section 128, being a majority of voters and a majority of states both carrying the change, have failed.
The numbers for this election are very much looking like it will not be carried in any state but stil have a vote of support of about 40% in every state. The numbers also look very much like the 1999 Republic Referendum which also fell 0/6 states but with the ACT voting "yes".
The really obvious question is "what went wrong" and the answer to this is ludicrously simple. Broadly speaking, even though this referendum has been many years in the making, some Australians are extremely selfish and they can convince others to endorse that selfishness.
This is not an election which has fallen down party lines but rather down class lines. Sydney falls almost exactly No/Yes down the Red Rooster line; which means that better well off Sydney voted "Yes", while less well-off Western Sydney voted "No".
The biggest voice that was yelling in this voice was people's wallets. Rather than John Farnham's "You're The Voice" being the actual song of this referendum, the actual anthem of this referendum is an anthem of perceived white lower class social disadvantage from 1982. It was "What About Me?" by Moving Pictures.
Without a doubt, a class dynamic is central to the result. You cannot achieve social change in this country unless class politics is at the centre of the campaign. Sure, a cost-of-living "crisis" is a lousy excuse for voting "no" but that case doesn't even have to be valid or sensible. It probably sounds obvious but people who can't see First Nations' marginalization and exclusion as a priority can't see First Nations' marginalization and exclusion as a priority. It is not an issue for them; and quite frankly what you can not see and do not care about, you are fine with.
Granted that you do not have to be a full-blown racist, bigoted, intolerant, mouth breathing rusted-on Dutton/L-NP supporter, but the data coming out of the election would suggest that if you voted "No" you are more likely to be over 40, and living in the less well-off outer suburbs, the regions, or the bush, and more open to casual racism.
News Corp, Nine Ent Co, and Southern Cross Austereo which is quite agreeable to News Corp, have all traded upon casual racism in this election campaign. The kinds of listeners who leave radio stations like 2GB, 4BC, 3AW, B105, Fox FM, SAFM, 2Day Fm or who leave Sky News on all day long, are more likely to parrot the opinions dished out to them and the media companies know this. I wonder if the tory & working class "No" voters truly understand what's going to happen now that this referendum has been defeated.
Probably about the only thing that will happen is that the cookers will have to drop their conspiracy theories about the vote being rigged, about corrupt the AEC is, and they'll have shiny new pens instead of the sinister pencils that they would have to mark the ballot with. Most likely those people will go back to denying covid is killing people and hating vaccines tomorrow.
On the other side will be the sad silence of the "Yes" voters, who will not be acting like a bunch of juvenile tantrums throwing primitive dolts against the AEC and the electoral system. Like normal civilized people, they will accept the result and must.
If there's one thing to be said about this, it is that progress doesn't always move in a straight line and sometimes, it does retreat. The truth is that race and indigenous relations have likely been set back two generations and given that there have been only two referenda in my lifetime, then this issue will likely not come back in a hurry.
The opening words of the last chaper of Donald Horne's 1964 book "The Lucky Country: Australia In The Sixties" read:
Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck. It lives on other people's ideas, and, although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders (in all fields) so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise.
- The Lucky Country, Donald Horne (1964)
I think that we have proven as a nation that we most definitely not a fair, just, or compassionate people. Australia is a second rate nation of second rate people. Could you have imagined back in March 2023, that when our indigenous sisters and brothers asked for something as simple as a representative group to speak to policy makers, that the majority of the nation would say "No"?
What a pack of truly miserable bastards we are.
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