Voice to Parliament Referendum Fails

After a long and fraught campaign, the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum has failed to pass.

Just 90 minutes after polls closed on the east coast of the country, South Australia, New South Wales, and Tasmania were all declared ‘No’. The announcement meant the majority of states would not vote to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing a body called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.

The referendum was expected to fail according to all voter polls ahead of voting day.

The most recent and poll was from the Resolve Political Monitor, which surveyed 4728 people Australia-wide between September 22 and October 4, found 56 per cent said they were against the constitutional change and 44 per cent were for it.

The ABC averaged all the poll results and found Yes support was at 41.2 per cent while No was 58.8 per cent. To put that in context, the Yes support was than it was for the last referendum in 1999, which failed with about 45 per cent support. 

The Yes campaign suffered huge blows in recent months after it seemed a shoo-in to pass. In August 2022 support for Yes was at around 65 per cent.

More to come…

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Aleksandra Bliszczyk is the Deputy Editor of VICE Australia. Follow her on Instagram.