Understanding the Voice: Representation as Structural Reform

With the defeat of the 2023 referendum to constitutionalise a Voice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to the Parliament and Executive of the Commonwealth, the political subjugation of Australia’s First Peoples was confirmed as a contemporary condition rather than a mere historical legacy. This chapter revisits this moment with a particular focus on understanding the proposed Voice as a form of political representation. By understanding the proposed structural reform in representative terms, we seek to show that the proposal was neither as radical nor as toothless as its critics argued. Rather, it represented an attempt to address a fundamental democratic deficit in the Australian context: the lack of connection between First Peoples and the Commonwealth Parliament that makes laws that affect them.