As the liberal party continues to analyse what went wrong in the election campaign, its former minister for indigenous Australians says it mis-read the results of the 2023 voice referendum. The ABC's indigenous affairs team spoke to first nations leaders about how they interpret election result.
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00:00It's great that there was a rejection of the divisiveness and of the culture wars.
00:07It's not what this country needs.
00:09I was on polling booths and I was being told by young people,
00:13your party's not relevant.
00:15And that was a strong statement, particularly from women.
00:19I previously said that of the 60% of Australians who voted no in a referendum
00:23because of the way it was managed,
00:26do not abandon their support for Indigenous reform and change.
00:32And you would have had a number of people who would have been offended
00:36by that whole culture stance on the flag and on welcome to country.
00:42That's not the issue that we want in this nation.
00:45It is about career pathways, it's about economic stability, it's about home ownership.
00:50The Coalition, as they often do, put a lot of energy and effort into
00:54punching down on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
00:57It is the way that the Coalition has worked for quite a long time.
01:01I think he's created a very strong mandate for Labor now,
01:05that the rejection of the voice was not a rejection of progress in Indigenous affairs,
01:12it wasn't a rejection of visionary policies and solid policies developed with the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
01:21I'm not too impressed.
01:24We got rid of an overt racist political party and we've got a covert one.
01:32We have the highest incarceration rates under Labor,
01:37we have the highest removal rates under Labor,
01:40we continue to see many injustices under Labor.
01:44So I'm disappointed that we didn't get more independents in and more minor parties with seats
01:50that could hold Labor accountable for their hollow words on justice for our people.
02:00It was a very weak campaign.
02:02This one, because of the poor performance of the campaign and really not reaching out to the average Australian out there,
02:12we're probably looking at six years.
02:15One of the sad things about this election was it's probably the first time
02:19that I've seen a federal election in decades where Aboriginal affairs was not front and centre.