With a two-letter word, Australians have struck down the first attempt at constitutional change in 24 years, major media outlets reported, a move experts say will inflict lasting damage on First Nations people and suspend any hopes of modernizing the nation’s founding document.

Early results from the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) suggested that most of the country’s 17.6 million registered voters had written No on their ballots, and CNN affiliates 9 News, Sky News and SBS all projected no path forward for the Yes campaign.

The proposal, to recognize Indigenous people in the constitution and create an Indigenous body to advise government on policies that affect them, needed a majority nationally and in four of six states to pass.

  • dingleberry
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    1 year ago

    Australia is just US without the introspection.

    • batmangrundies@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Australia is way more racist than the US. And more right-wing.

      The US just doesn’t have compulsory voting, which means a minority of nutjobs can dictate politics. And even then, Trump lost.

      Australia has compulsory voting and voted this way lol.

      US is going through a labour organising revolution right now. While unions are left in the cold and experience dwindling power in Aus, even with the Labor party in power.