If the Voice fails, what happens next? 

There’s still some way to go until the referendum on establishing an Indigenous Voice to Parliament — it will reportedly be held in mid-October. Yet polling shows the chance of the constitutional amendment passing grows slimmer by the day. 

I will leave to others the critiques of the Yes campaign, the contextualisation of Australia’s possible historical rejection of constitutional change, and the theft by the cost-of-living crisis of the required generosity of spirit from Australians required for it to prevail. 

Instead I’ll consider what happens to this country if the Voice goes down. In particular, what happens to the movement for Indigenous rights, Australia’s international reputation, and the health of our democracy.  

The modesty of the Voice proposal, and the generous and conciliatory tone with which it’s been advanced, is a triumph for the Indigenous Elders and other moderates campaigning for Indigenous rights. Yet as seen in independent Senator Lidia Thorpe’s exit from the Greens due to their support for the Voice, some seeking Indigenous empowerment — many of them younger and thus the future of the movement — see treaty, not a Voice, as the priority. 

If Australia rejects the Voice, the hit to our international reputation will be profound, similar in scope to the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States, and the UK’s decision to “Brexit” the European Union. Indeed, the loss of the Voice referendum will be seen in broad strokes as a slap in the face to this country’s Indigenous peoples. 

No prizes for guessing how the Coalition and its media partners will weaponise such judgments, especially when paired with the inevitable and deserved tut-tutting by international human rights organisations, to stoke the indignation and grievance of No voters, a move that will further polarise the electorate and undermine democracy. 

Australian democracy has some advantages when compared with that of America, including mandatory voting, a parliamentary governance system, and an economy that hasn’t suffered its second credit downgrade in just over a decade due to a “steady deterioration in standards of governance”. But the success of the No vote will embolden conservative media outlets, allowing them to further ignore their obligation to inform voters rather than dividing, confusing and inciting them.

The amplification of such bad-faith “alternative facts” — as well as the unregulated threat of artificial intelligence — is a problem we share with the US. Which is why if the Voice referendum fails, I hope Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will have learnt something about the vulnerability of our people and institutions to the damage caused by hyperpolarisation, and act to mitigate its toxic effects on Australian democracy. 

If he won’t hold a royal commission into the Murdoch press, or the Australian media landscape more broadly, he must at least ensure that journalists, media organisations and media owners understand and fulfil their obligations related to the essential role they play in democracy, and are held accountable when they do not.

Expanding and refining our capacity to restrict the spread and impact of misinformation and disinformation across the media ecosystem must be pursued, including ensuring that much-needed AI regulation prevents the data used to train AI tools from containing falsehoods and misinformation. 

Rather than the Voice referendum being the “unifying Australian moment” Albanese wanted, it has instead proved the ability of morally bankrupt conservative leaders and their toxic media partners to hyperpolarise the Australian community, and weaken democracy.