The context is important here - Australia had a continuous indigenous population for over 60,000 years before white settlement. White Australia never had an agreement with indigenous peoples at large, and through relentless expansion of colonies, spreading diseases like smallpox, introducing alcohol and drugs, forcibly abducting and schooling children, heavy incarceration and a slew of other typical British colonial shit ended up leaving them disenfranchised, alienated, and excluded. Indigenous Australians prior to colonisation had a deep affinity with the land and tended it like custodians, but because they didn’t build towns or farm like Europeans, they were just swept aside without ever really being acknowledged or addressed.

The Voice was asked for as a product of the Uluru Statement of the Heart - not long, worth a read- https://ulurustatement.org/the-statement/view-the-statement/

It was really first and foremost about having an acknowledgement that maybe, just maybe, the settlers cocked things up and that it’d better to fix things together. It’s not asking for anything “more” or extra, it’s about correctly telling history and reframing our national dialogue to be coming from a place of partnership, instead of colonialism, so we could fix some of the very real issues modern Australians face as a result of hundreds of years of callous racism. It was a chance for white Australia and government to really listen and maybe find better ways of doing things.

But now instead we get to try to explain to our kids why 60% of the country don’t think representation or inclusion matters while indigenous Australians will continue to struggle without a government that can listen to them.

From what I read in this article, I’m not even sure it would be properly democratic? Reads like a government advisory body which claims to represent the interests of a specific heritage - pretty strange.

It also doesn’t mention how the body would be made up…who would be on it, how they’d be selected, how long they’d serve, or the kicker - that they even need to be indigenous lol. We also have hundreds of different indigenous groups that this one body is supposed to represent. How would disagreements be handled? How would every single groub be represented?

There just weren’t enough details, and when we asked for details we were told not to worry about the details, just be a good boy/girl and vote yes and let the government take care of it. No surprise it lost.