'Yes' Campaigners Break Their Week of Silence to Slam "Shameful Victory"

Reading the statement would have reassured the 60 percent of Australians who voted 'No' that they dodged a bullet

Indigenous activists broke their self-imposed “week of silence” on Sunday to denounce the referendum result as “a shameful victory”.

And here I was thinking they were using the week off from calling Australians stupid or racist in order to do a bit of self-reflection. Silly me.

In an open letter to the Prime Minister, Indigenous groups described the rejection of a Voice to Parliament as “racist” and “appalling” and “shameful”.

But apart from that, they reacted quite well.

They blamed, though not necessarily in this order, the Opposition, the media, foreign agents and, of course, racism.

They wrote …

“We feel acutely the repudiation of our peoples and the rejection of our efforts to pursue reconciliation in good faith.”

The ‘No’ vote was led by two of the most prominent Indigenous people in this country - Jacinta Price and Warren Mundine. It was most certainly not a “repudiation” of Indigenous people.

Nor was it a rejection of reconciliation.

But I guess it’s a lot easier for ‘Yes’ campaigners to claim defeat as a personal sleight that allows them to wallow in offence, than it is to face the ugly truth that they put a really bad proposal to the public, and the public called them out on it.