On Wurundjeri country, in a meeting room in Collingwood, black, red and yellow helium balloons still hang from the roof — remnants of a referendum party that ended in heartbreak.
"Where to now" is a universal question being asked in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities across the country in the wake of the failed Voice referendum.Ask an Aboriginal person how they define reconciliation and the answers are not flags, morning teas and welcomes-to-country. Their answers are land rights, greater autonomy and treaties.
"We left our run late … we needed to start doing work . How many of our citizens out there fully understood what this Voice was? Not a lot." He was on the board of Yes23 and was one of the key Indigenous community leaders who fronted its campaign. He is now grieving the referendum result. "There were influential people on the working group … but there was a total lack of strategic direction," says one of the members, who asked not to be named.
Get-Up — which has a network of experienced First Nations campaigners — was also concerned that not enough was being done to educate and involve Indigenous communities in the campaign. Ultimately Get-Up and Yes23 could not agree on the best way to go forward, and Baldwin-Roberts says her organisation decided to tip its resources and energy into boosting the Yes vote in the bush.
"It's difficult to set up a national body from scratch, really, and to mobilise … I don't think we lost it on the basis of what the Yes campaign did, there was a dishonest campaign that led Australians to believe that they'd lose something. The dominoes fell quickly. By the time Gooda arrived in Perth, most of Australia had voted no on a referendum that would have given Indigenous people a permanent voice to advise the Commonwealth government.
There had been a protracted debate over whether an Indigenous advisory body should speak only to the parliament, or to the executive government — cabinet and ministers. Many Aboriginal communities are still picking up the pieces, but the referendum has revealed there is still work to do on truth-telling, Gooda says.