Uploaded May 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
15 May 2025, 1:00 pm–2:30 pm
This event was organised by the UCL Global Centre for Democratic Constitutionalism.
Speaker: Professor Gabrielle Appleby (UNSW) and Professor Megan Davis AC (UNSW)
Chair: Professor Erin Delaney (UCL Laws)
About the talk
On 14 October 2023, the Australian people voted ‘No’ in a constitutional referendum to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people through a ‘First Nations Voice’. The Voice proposal was to create a new constitutional body that would ‘make representations’ to the Executive and the Parliament on behalf of Australia’s First Nations. It was intended to provide a vehicle for the expression of self-determination for Indigenous people in the Australian state, as well as an enhancement to the practice of Australian democracy.
Reflecting both popular sovereignty and the country’s federal roots, constitutional amendment in Australia requires parliamentary support as well as the support of a majority of voters across the country and a majority of voters in a majority of states. The Voice referendum was defeated by more than 60 per cent of the vote nationally, and did not win a majority in any State.
This seminar provides reflections on the accommodating vision of democracy that the Voice offered for Indigenous people, and Indigenous women in particular, in Australia’s democratic spaces; as well as an analysis of the experience of distorted democracy that contributed to the referendum defeat. The Voice concept was developed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people over the course of more than a decade to mitigate the impact of Australia’s constitutional order and denial of rights, democratic participation and rule of law for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
The No campaign against the Voice referendum perverted arguments about race in the Australian Constitution and the equality of Australia’s democratic institutions that were, ironically, the foundations for the Voice proposal itself. Australia’s regulatory framework within which democracy is conducted was ill equipped to address the distorting influences of disinformation and misinformation during the referendum campaign, leading to the silencing of representative Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices. Ironically and tragically, it was this silencing that the Voice proposal sought to address.
15 May 2025, 1:00 pm–2:30 pm
This event was organised by the UCL Global Centre for Democratic Constitutionalism.
Speaker: Professor Gabrielle Appleby (UNSW) and Professor Megan Davis AC (UNSW)
Chair: Professor Erin Delaney (UCL Laws)
About the talk
On 14 October 2023, the Australian people voted ‘No’ in a constitutional referendum to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people through a ‘First Nations Voice’. The Voice proposal was to create a new constitutional body that would ‘make representations’ to the Executive and the Parliament on behalf of Australia’s First Nations. It was intended to provide a vehicle for the expression of self-determination for Indigenous people in the Australian state, as well as an enhancement to the practice of Australian democracy.
Reflecting both popular sovereignty and the country’s federal roots, constitutional amendment in Australia requires parliamentary support as well as the support of a majority of voters across the country and a majority of voters in a majority of states. The Voice referendum was defeated by more than 60 per cent of the vote nationally, and did not win a majority in any State.
This seminar provides reflections on the accommodating vision of democracy that the Voice offered for Indigenous people, and Indigenous women in particular, in Australia’s democratic spaces; as well as an analysis of the experience of distorted democracy that contributed to the referendum defeat. The Voice concept was developed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people over the course of more than a decade to mitigate the impact of Australia’s constitutional order and denial of rights, democratic participation and rule of law for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
The No campaign against the Voice referendum perverted arguments about race in the Australian Constitution and the equality of Australia’s democratic institutions that were, ironically, the foundations for the Voice proposal itself. Australia’s regulatory framework within which democracy is conducted was ill equipped to address the distorting influences of disinformation and misinformation during the referendum campaign, leading to the silencing of representative Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices. Ironically and tragically, it was this silencing that the Voice proposal sought to address.
