The referendum became by proxy a vote on Indigenous peoples’ right to exist in our own land… and our fellow Australians voted to reject us. Imagine – just try – how that feels today
Anthony Albanese was fond of saying, during the campaign, “If not now, then when?” On Saturday night he got an answer: never. There won’t be another referendum any time soon to recognise Indigenous people in the nation’s birth certificate. And it was voted down by the people who were never given an honest alternative plan. No ideas, no vision, no explanation of how the status quo is going to materially improve Aboriginal lives.
The question now is: “If not this, then what?” What is the future of the rest of the Uluru statement, particularly treaty-making and truth-telling, which Albanese has said his government is committed to “in full”?
Truth-telling will be the key to leading us to healing and understanding. We need to tell, and listen to, the truth of our nation’s history now the referendum is behind us. It is still there, a festering wrong still to be righted. Until we face it, it will be impossible to convince Australians that we deserve a voice to parliament or anything else – as the author Melissa Lucashenko put it, “white Australia doesn’t want to give blackfellas anything, even when it’s nothing”.
This denial, this history of forgetting, is the problem Australia still has to overcome.
Sunday is a day of reflection. So let’s reflect on the commitment by all of the First Nations advocates in our history who have given their entire lives to the betterment of their people. Some campaigners will be feeling heartbroken today, in despair over a result they fought so hard to avert. I pay my respects to them all. They have given it everything. We wish for your sake the result had been different, that you could rest knowing that you had made things better for your children, so that they wouldn’t have to struggle and go without like you did. We could not ask for more.
But also know that we will not let this drag us down. Like every other time we have been kicked to the curb by the colony, we will get up, we will show up and we will fight on.
After the truth-shower 