After 18 long months of dominating the airwaves, TV screens, and opinion columns, Australians have finally been able to have their say on the Voice referendum. Collectively, we didn’t just say ‘No’ – we shouted, ‘No bloody way! Bugger off Albo… Tell ‘im he’s dreamin’!’

Figuratively of course, otherwise our votes would have been counted as informal, just like an ‘X’ on the ballot, but that’s the clear message the count displayed in Aussie vernacular. Vote ‘No’ prevailed in all six states, with only a very small proportion of mainly inner-city Green/Teal electorates voting ‘Yes’ along with the ACT Canberra Bubble, including the bureaucrats and Press Gallery media.

South Australia, touted as a possible crucial state in gaining a necessary four-state winning majority, has voted ‘No’ in every electorate, as did the Northern Territory with its high Indigenous population.

Other ‘Yes’ hopes, Tasmania, and Victoria, also returned clear ‘No’ majorities and even Indigenous Affairs Minister Linda Burney’s seat of Barton voted 55 per cent ‘No’.

How did Prime Minister Anthony Albanese get it so wrong when it came to reading the vibe of the Australian people while trying to sell the vibe of an undefined Voice permanently etched in our Constitution to divide us on the basis of race? 

Even in the closing stages, while sitting in the red dust at the foot of Uluru swatting flies and swallowing a few, he refused to swallow the latest poll figures showing the referendum was doomed to fail even in a majority of Labor electorates. Albanese mockingly suggested the pollsters hadn’t actually contacted anyone in their claimed analysis.

Perhaps his obstinance was buoyed by the knowledge his pet project was backed by a $100 million war chest of corporate dollars including big banks, retailers and mining companies. Even Qantas painted huge ‘Yes’ logos on its planes and provided free flights to ‘Yes’ campaigners.

Now heads should roll (figuratively) at board rooms facing angry shareholders around the country.

Almost all major churches (with the exception of Presbyterians), along with leading sporting codes and an assortment of famous Australians from all walks of life, including former Australians of the Year, also pushed the Voice as ‘the right thing to do’. With Johnny Farnham’s The Voice featuring in TV ads, what could possibly go wrong?

The cost of the referendum is stated at $450 million plus the massive advertising splurge would have to be well over half a billion dollars – and it is all money down the drain. It could have helped the plight, not just of Indigenous people, but of all Australians struggling to survive in a rapidly escalating cost of living crisis, including the homeless and marginalised of all races and skin colour. 

Here in our coastal enclave on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, our free local paper Noosa Today arrived on the eve of the poll with a repeat of a full-page ‘Yes’ ad featuring prominent local residents including tennis great Evonne Goolagong Cawley, a famous playwright, and a former Noosa Mayor Bob Abbott (who was the hero of a successful shire de-amalgamation push about a decade ago). Each explained why they were voting ‘Yes’ and urged others to do the same, but in our electorate of Wide Bay, ‘No’ is running at 75 per cent.

Nationally, the current margin of about 60 – 40 in favour of ‘No’ is likely to increase as more postal votes are counted.

In his downcast speech following the inevitable result on Saturday night, the Prime Minister said he accepted the will of the people but didn’t admit he had made a huge mistake, blaming it on ‘misinformation and disinformation’.

Really Albo? You don’t think that refusing to provide any details on how the Voice would be established, and administered, where it would be based, and what its real powers would be, had something to do with its resounding defeat? Opposition Leader Peter Dutton says he had asked you 14 questions months ago regarding the Voice but never received an answer.

At one stage you said it would be a brave government that ignored the Voice (which could make representations on anything affecting Indigenous people) and then you claimed that it wouldn’t affect 97 per cent of Australians, but would help the other three per cent.

Apparently, it would have had powers similar to Harry Potter’s magic wand as it listened to communities most in need and solved their problems…

Whether it would have properly directed the copious billions of dollars funnelled into Indigenous agencies over many years to make a difference, is now academic. The Voice is dead and buried but as I write this, the Prime Minister is using his usual style of obfuscation in fending off questions from the Opposition about the failed referendum in the current Parliamentary sittings.

But it doesn’t have to be the end of the story. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders already have 11 voices in Federal Parliament, including brilliant ‘No’ campaigner Senator Jacinta Price and her colleague Senator Kerrynne Liddle who have real experience living among aboriginal people and have renewed calls for an inquiry into the massive funding discrepancies. 

Senator Price, who is the equivalent of Xena Warrior Princess when compared to her Labor opponents, made an impassioned speech on poll night, where she emphasised Australia is not a racist country and called for a ‘new era’ in Indigenous politics. 

She advocated an end to ‘academics and activists’ thinking they knew better than people on the ground in remote communities, and explained that a new way of thinking was required.

‘We should not maintain the racism of low expectations in this country,’ she said. ‘We are all part of the fabric of this nation.’

Senator Price said she wanted to thank the Australian people for ‘believing in our nation’.

‘The Australian people have overwhelmingly voted ‘No’. They have said ‘No’ to division in our Constitution along the lines of race.

‘They have said ‘No’ to the gas-lighting, bullying, to the manipulation. They have said ‘No’ to grievance and the push from activists to suggest that we are a racist country when we are absolutely not a racist country…’

It’s time to heal the division and move on proactively, just as she suggests.

John Mikkelsen is a former editor of three Queensland regional newspapers, columnist, freelance writer and author of the Amazon Books Memoir, Don’t Call Me Nev.