Rodney Stevens
The Australian people have voted in the first referendum this century with the vote for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament defeated in a result that has disappointed many as 60 per-cent of the nation rejected the proposed constitutional reform, with the local vote in Page above the national average at 68 per-cent.
For the referendum to pass, a national majority of more than 50 per-cent of votes was needed, and a majority of four states needed to vote Yes.
The Australian Electoral Commission has estimated the referendum will cost about $450 million, and the federal government provided $364 million toward the cost in its most recent budget.
While voting continues of more than 2 million postal votes, the result of the referendum was called by ABC election analyst Antony Green at 7.25pm on Sunday.
In NSW, support for the yes vote was slightly higher than the national average, with 40.4 per-cent voting yes (1.811 million votes) compared to the national vote of 39.4 per-cent, while Queensland saw the least support for the constitutional change with only 31.2 per-cent (835,224 people) voting Yes.
The ACT was the only jurisdiction in Australia where the Yes vote triumphed, reversing the national vote with 60 per-cent (158,097 people) supporting the change, with votes from both the ACT and the Northern Territory only counting toward the national vote.
Voting in the local Federal electorate of Page somewhat mirrored the result in Queensland, as 33,222 people, or 31.96 per-cent voted Yes, and 70,717 people, or 68.04 per-cent voted No.
Federal Member for Page Kevin Hogan took to social media saying he was glad the “ill-conceived and ill worded referendum” was over.
“I, like many of us, am very happy the referendum is over,” he said.
“It was an ill-conceived and ill worded referendum.
“The division it caused sits completely at the feet of the Prime Minister.
“Our community voted strongly No, at 68%.
“This is above both the NSW and national average.”
Mr Hogan went onto say the vote wasn’t about racism and closing the gap remains a top priority.
“We are a great country,” he said.
“We are not a racist country.
“Our history is not perfect, and Closing the Gap will and should remain a top priority.
“We are one country, not divided by race.
“We are not Yes or No voters, we are one Australia.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the defeat of the referendum wasn’t the end of the road of attempts to address the disadvantages facing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
“The issues we sought to address have not gone away, and neither have the people of goodwill and good heart who want to address them,” he said.
“And address them we will, with hope in our heart, with faith in each other, with kindness towards each other, walking together in a spirit of unity and healing, walking together for a better future for the first Australians.”
At the local polling booths, the Yes vote was defeated at every locality across the Clarence Valley, the Yamba Public School booth recorded the highest support for the reform with 681 Yes votes and 766 No votes.
Grafton Cathedral Hall, the Jacaranda City’s largest polling booth saw, from 10,701 votes cast, 2,274 people vote Yes and 8,322 vote No, while downriver at Maclean, 5,401 people voted at the Maclean RSL, with 1,428 votes for Yes and 3,916 No votes.
Surprisingly, in a Yes or No vote the number of informal ballots cast was quite high, with 146,197 informal votes counted nationally, 55,400 in NSW alone, and 1,178 votes that weren’t counted locally in Page, from an enrolment of 124,241 people.