Voiceless: Division, Distrust and Discrimination at the 2023 Voice Referendum

The referendum on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament in Australia resulted in defeat for the Yes case on October 14, 2023, by a margin of 40% to 60%. The referendum proposed a constitutional amendment to establish a representative body made up of Indigenous Australians to advise federal parliament on matters affecting the Indigenous community. Polling suggested that the referendum would defy the poor record of mid-term referendums, but the No campaign prevailed. Assessments of this defeat are important to understanding future prospects for reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. This article develops several hypotheses about factors driving the No result, testing them with a representative sample of 1204 voters conducted in October 2023. Results suggest that the No vote was driven by Coalition partisanship, low trust in media and politics, and most of all, weaker perceptions of No voters of the discrimination faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.