Boston Sunday Globe

In Australia, ‘Voice’ referendum fails

Sought to create panel to advise on Indigenous views

- By Rod McGuirk ASSOCIATED PRESS

CANBERRA, Australia — Australian­s resounding­ly rejected on Saturday a referendum proposal to create an advocacy committee to offer advice to Parliament on policies that affect Indigenous people — the nation’s most disadvanta­ged ethnic minority.

The government proposed the first constituti­onal change since 1977 as a step forward in Indigenous rights. But the vote divided Indigenous leaders as well as the wider community.

More than 59 percent of voters opposed the so-called Indigenous Voice to Parliament with almost half the votes counted by Saturday. The loss is unofficial but is not contested.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese

blamed his political opponents’ campaignin­g against the measure for the failure. No referendum has ever succeeded without support of the major parties.

Albanese promised on the day he was elected last year to hold the referendum and accepted responsibi­lity for his government’s decision to proceed despite evidence it was doomed.

“I had a duty, as a conviction politician, to put that to the Australian people,” he told reporters.

Bipartisan support is widely regarded as essential for an Australian referendum’s success. Only eight of 45 referendum­s have succeeded in the constituti­on’s 122-year history.

Voice advocate Tanya Hosch, who spent a decade on developing the model, said she was devastated. “There’s going to be a lot of pain and hurt and dismay and we’re going to need to take a moment to absorb that message and what it says,” Hosch said.

Voice advocates had hoped that listening to Indigenous views would lead to more effective delivery of government services and better outcomes for Indigenous lives.

Opponents said the Voice would divide Australian­s along racial lines without reducing Indigenous disadvanta­ges. They also said it could be a first step toward Indigenous claims for repatriati­on and compensati­on.

Accounting for 3.8 percent of the population, Indigenous Australian­s die on average eight years younger than the wider population, have a suicide rate twice that of the national average, and suffer from diseases in the remote Outback that have been eradicated from other wealthy countries.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton accused Albanese of needlessly creating racial division over a doomed referendum. “The prime minister was warned over the course of the last 16 or 17 months not to proceed with this divisive referendum,” he said.

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