Australia’s last vote was all about Indigenous people. Now they say it’s ‘silence’

On the trip into Yarrabah, there is nothing to indicate a federal election is simply time away.

As you drive past fields of sugar cane and down a delicately winding southern road, you notice that advertisements for candidates are unavoidable in different parts of Australia.

The only thing fighting for consideration is a vehicle marketing ice cream, which is immediately dinging a ring as it avoids the wild horses and dogs that roam the streets of this little Indigenous area near Cairns in far north Queensland, which has fishing nets stumbling on palm-lined beaches.

” It’s weird”, says Suzanne Andrews, chief executive of the city’s Gurriny Yealamucka Health Services. There are no signs to be seen. Nobody is coming to visit us.

Watching the rulers of Australia’s two major parties conversation each other on television, the Jaru Bunuba Bardi girl was saddened that” they didn’t speak about any Indian issues or concerns”.

She asks,” So what the hell is going on?” and continues,” So what the hell?”

Aboriginal Australians, who represent about 3.8 % of the world’s 26 million people, are by most socio-economic steps the most underprivileged people in the country- things successive leaders have for centuries called a “national shame”.

However, Opposition head Peter Dutton and excellent minister Anthony Albanese have had little to say about First Nations issues during this election campaign.

One glaring different occurred this year, when Dutton claimed Aboriginal “welcome to state” ceremonies, where a local Indian person acknowledges and consents to events taking place on their standard lands, were “overdone” and shouldn’t take place so often.

The comments represent one of the only instances on the campaign trail that Dutton has officially addressed issues especially relating to First Nations individuals– and not to discuss risk, but within the framework of a culture war.

According to experts and advocates, one of the reasons politicians try to steer clear of First Nations issues is that many people believe they are too divisive and therefore electorally risky, especially after the Voice to Parliament referendum in 2023 failed.

In the most divisive moment of Albanese’s leadership, that referendum saw 60 % of voters reject a proposal to recognize Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia’s constitution and give them greater political say through a Voice to Parliament.

Those opposing it said the idea was divisive, would create special” classes” of citizens where some have more rights than others, and the new advisory body would slow government decision-making.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders on both sides of the debate expressed hope that the unprecedented level of interest in their lives would encourage more policies to be put in place to improve them.

Ms. Andrews was one of them. But now she looks back at the result with sadness, believing it has now led political parties to “play it safe” and avoid” the hot Aboriginal issues”.

Others, including those who vehemently opposed the Voice proposal, concur.

Warren Mundine, a well-known anti-Voice activist, told the BBC on referendum night,” now the hard work begins.”

Some 18 months on, he says the reality is that people on both sides of the political aisle promptly disengaged with Indigenous issues after the referendum.

” Whether the Voice rose up or not rose up, we still had work to do,” he said.” This is one of the sad things about this election campaign here.”

” This is probably the first election I’ve attended where there hasn’t been a discussion about an Aboriginal policy,” I said. It’s just gone silent”.

Independent senator Lidia Thorpe of Victoria told the BBC that” Albanese is too afraid to mention us [ Indigenous Australians ] because of his failed referendum, which we should never have had in the first place.

Thorpe spearheaded a Blak Sovereign movement led by indigenous peoples that fought the Voice and demanded that a legally binding treaty between First Nations peoples and the Australian government be given priority.

” In previous elections, even though we may have been an afterthought and tacked on the end of the sentences, like we always are, at least we were mentioned. It’s now completely silent,” she said.

” This election could have given both leaders a real chance to unite the country and reveal some truth about the plight of our people,” he said. They need to tell the truth that these injustices continue, and they need to tell the truth that they are in a position to change that, to turn that around”.

Through the annual tracking of 18 crucial measures in areas like health and education, the Australian government’s Closing the Gap strategy has been attempting to reduce levels of Indigenous disadvantage since 2008.

Only four were on track to be met, according to the most recent review, and four were worsening, including the increase in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander incarceration rate, which was up 12 % in a year.

Despite these trends, Professor Rodney Smith of the University of Sydney says the defeat of the Voice- including in many Labor strongholds- makes it “electorally foolish” to talk too much about First Nations issues this election.

He makes reference to Coalition advertisements that bring up the topic of cost of living and a struggling economy. The referendum, which is said to have cost more than$ A400m, is also discussed.

However, Prof. Smith also contends that the 2025 election is not unlike in that it hasn’t focused on Indigenous affairs, but rather a return to the norm after several years of issues receiving more attention than usual.

” I’m not saying people shouldn’t care about this”, he says. The electorate generally doesn’t care about it, according to” I’m just saying that.”

Australian National University ( ANU) data recently appears to support that assertion. A long-term study of voter attitudes found that between January 2024 and January 2025 there was a sharp decline in the number of people believing it was the government’s responsibility to reduce the gap in living standards between First Nations Australians and the rest of the population.

” This lack of policy focus ( by Labor and the Coalition ) reflects a low priority amongst the Australian population,” according to ANU Professor Nicholas Biddle.

Bob Katter, an independent MP, puts it more directly.

A former minister of Aboriginal Affairs when a Queensland state MP in the 1980s, Mr Katter says he thinks about the struggles of many Indigenous Australians “every night before I go to bed”.

He stated to the BBC that he supports more self-government and has campaigned for greater farmland and fishing rights.

He also acknowledges that he doesn’t discuss those issues while campaigning.

” As a politician that’s got to win votes in the election, I wouldn’t be game”, he told the BBC.

Given the toll the referendum took on those on both sides of the debate, that’s difficult for many Indigenous people to accept.

A report released by Sydney University of Technology last month discovered that 453 “validated” incidents of racism occurred on either side of the Voice referendum, which prompted an increase in hostile attitudes toward First Nations People.

About a fifth of all complaints contained mention of the failed referendum.

The undercurrent of racism was ever present, according to the guest author for the report, Professor Lindon Coombes, in his introduction.” While there was significant thought and discussion given to the ideas of nation building and the righting of wrongs.

” This is its treachery,” it says.

In Yarrabah, Ms Andrews becomes suddenly tearful, telling how her two daughters, studying at university in Brisbane, were intimidated and got” so many racist remarks” after the vote.

She said it is wrong to treat young people who have left their communities in order to improve their lives and become something.

Many people claim that the tone and intensity of the debate leading up to the vote were the result of increased racism.

Mr Mundine says his participation in the toxic and polarised national discussion meant he felt alienated from many in his community.

” I was kicked off the boards. I lost jobs and [ I] was criticized.

” Being the topic of every discussion for such a long period of time was overwhelming and extremely damaging to people’s social and emotional well-being”, says Clinton Schultz, a Gamilaroi/Gomeroi man, psychologist and Director of First Nations Strategy at the Black Dog Institute.

” The aftermath of that has caused a lot of people to be unwilling to participate in the discussions going forward.”

Millima May, a Kulumbirigin Danggalaba Tiwi woman from the Northern Territory, claimed that First Nations people wanted” a seat at the table” where decisions about their lives were made in 2023. But now there’s been a “tactical” decision by some in the community to “lie low”.

She claims that many Aboriginal people have made the decision to leave Australia’s political landscape and embrace what is known as democracy.

” You would be able to have debates and conversations in a respectful and safe way if you could trust our political leaders and candidates to have nuanced and informed conversations.”

” But that is not how Australian politics is operating at the moment.”

Tiffanie Turnbull provided additional reporting.