Defeated: A total of 76.4 per cent of voters in Nicholls voted No in Saturday’s referendum. Photo: Shannon Colee
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Shannon Colee
Despite the overwhelming No vote in his electorate, Federal Member for Nicholls Sam Birrell says he does not want it to sew divisions.
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“I hope the Indigenous people in this region see it not as a rejection of Indigenous people and culture. I think that there’s a strong desire for that, but just this particular constitutional model and this particular change to the constitution, I think that’s probably more what it was about,” Mr Birrell said.
“It’s incumbent on all of us to reach out to each other so that we can heal some of this division.”
More about constitution than culture: Federal Member for Nicholls Sam Birrell said he was not surprised by Saturday’s outcome. Photo: Kelly Carmody
Photo by
Kelly Carmody
Although he was not surprised by the overall No vote, he was surprised by the extent of the numbers.
“I wasn't surprised by the outcome. The polling had indicated that the referendum would be defeated. I was a bit surprised by the scale of the No vote, particularly in some parts of Victoria and even my own electorate of Nicholls,” Mr Birrell said.
“I think people really regretted being put in a sort of a position where it was all or nothing. It was sort of that binary choice.”
He believes the No vote is less about a rejection of Indigenous culture and more about people not being confident in changing the constitution.
“I think that there's a lot of goodwill towards Indigenous people and desire to see Indigenous culture celebrated in this region,” he said.
“This was more about do we make a fairly significant change to the constitution? And I think that's what people were voting against.
“I don’t think they thought that was an appropriate way to change the constitution ... to a group having a different ability to influence the government constitutionally. I don’t think people felt comfortable with that, but I think had they been asked separately, do you want constitutional recognition of Indigenous people as our first people, I think they would’ve said yes to that.”
He said the whole process has made people more aware that there needs to be some action taken towards improving the relationship between government and First Nation Australians.
“I think the one thing to come out of it is that we’ve all acknowledged that we need to do something. The logic that this was the only thing that we could do and that there’s no plan B doesn’t stand up to scrutiny,” Mr Birrell said.
“I think there is a will to do some things differently and to improve the way that government interacts with Indigenous voices and make sure that funding and programs are targeted to where they’ll do the most good. I think that there’s a renewed desire for that, and I think if anything good has come out of all of this it’s possibly that.”
After an upsetting loss, the local Yes campaign said it was not yet ready to talk about the referendum.
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