Australia’s failure to enshrine an Indigenous Voice in its founding document is an “embarrassing” moment and should push the country to deal with entrenched disadvantaged facing First Nations people, according to a leading Yes campaigner.
Indigenous advocate Thomas Mayo said the overwhelmingly rejected Voice referendum on October 14 was a painful event for many Indigenous Australians.
“I think it’s embarrassing. It’s hard for Australia to talk about human rights to other countries like China when we still have such a marginalised people,” Mr Mayo said on Tuesday.
“We are one of the only ones who don’t have a treaty with Indigenous people, so it will be very difficult now as far as international relations.”
Mr Mayo’s comments come after Indigenous leaders and organisations broke their week-long silence to grieve the No result on Monday in an open letter that condemned “a shameful act unknowingly committed by the majority of Australians”.
While supporting the general feelings expressed by the letter, Mr Mayo added that he did not sign his name to it.
“It’s a general statement of the feelings of Indigenous people,” he said.
“There’s a lot of pain out there that such a modest proposal was rejected by the Australian people.”
Mr Mayo said it was time to “move forward” and consider an independent advisory body to represent the interests of Indigenous people.
“I think the important thing is what Indigenous people want from the Prime Minister and his government is to now move forward with efforts to close the gap,” he said.
Nationally, only 39.6 per cent of the population voted Yes on the Voice to Parliament referendum, while 60.4 per cent opposed.
Mr Mayo also slammed the No campaign’s “fear mongering” and condemned anti-Voice opponents for “talking about anything other what the actual alternation to the Constitution was”.
He said the media also failed to expose misinformation about the Voice and called for a future analysis into the role social media played in its defeat.
“The Yes campaign could have done some things better, but I think ultimately, you know, when you’ve got a Leader of the Opposition, when you’ve got politicians and people elected that will lie about something that is not about an election of their party,” he said.
“It was about Indigenous people and it was about the national interest, and to make into a political issue was bad.”
Nationally, only 39.6 per cent of the population voted Yes on the Voice to Parliament referendum, while 60.4 per cent opposed.