The Voice would have renewed Australian democracy. Its failure leaves us all worse off

There’s long been a fundamental issue underpinning Australia’s approach to Indigenous affairs. The state makes laws specifically about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples without any protected mechanism giving them a say in the process. The proposed Voice to Parliament sought to remedy this democratic deficit. Had the referendum succeeded, it would have established a formal representative connection between Indigenous peoples and the Commonwealth parliament. The Voice proposal was a reform to democratic representation. Its failure was a missed opportunity to renew Australian democracy. But it was also an explicit choice: to sustain the political subjugation of Indigenous people by denying them representative channels for making their voices heard on matters that affect them. This enduring structural limitation leaves the parliament without any representative mechanism to consult with, or be accountable to, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.