A defaced Vote Yes sign is seen in Bassendean in Perth, Saturday [Source: AAP Image/Richard Wainwright]

The failure of the 2023 referendum that sought to enshrine an Indigenous voice to parliament in the constitution has been pinned down to disinformation, racism and political bad behaviour, two prominent ‘yes’ campaigners say.

Constitutional lawyer Shireen Morris said there were a few different “threads” to the‘yes’   campaign, leading up to the referendum on October 14, 2023.

These threads were Yes23, fronted by Dean Parkin; the Uluru Dialogue, led by Professor Megan Davis; Uphold and Recognise, founded by Liberal politician Julian Leeser; and Liberals for Yes, she said.

Dr Morris told a forum, “Reflections on the referendum for an Indigenous voice to parliament”, held by LaTrobe University, things began to change when federal Labor got into power.

“The biggest problem that emerged on the ‘yes’ side was a rift that emerged between Indigenous leaders and Uphold and Recognise,” she said.

“When Albanese announced he was going to run a referendum, suddenly this was framed as Albanese’s voice and suddenly the constitutional conservatives and Uphold and Recognise started behaving very differently.”

Dr Morris said the “bad behaviour” of politicians had begun long before Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had announced Labor would pursue a referendum.

“(Then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull) started off the bad behaviour really, calling it a third chamber,” she said.

“That was just the moment that Labor suddenly started to get more interested. Turnbull rejected it and suddenly Labor people are like ‘if the Liberals rejected it, must be good’.”

Thomas Mayo, who was a leading advocate for the ‘yes’ campaign, said campaigners faced disinformation and racism that discouraged people from joining the cause.

“Anybody that put their head up, especially if you were an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person, copped the pile-on” he said.

“It was a tactic of intimidation, I think designed to cause people to go into silence because it was just too much.”

While some ‘yes’ campaigners have said once it became clear the referendum was unlikely to win public support, it should have been delayed, Mr Mayo said he had no regrets with the decision to push on.

“If we had delayed we might have learned this lesson later, that one side was always going to use it,” he said.

“Now we know that, it’s a lesson that’ll serve us well, I think, in future.”

While Dr Morris said she had some regrets in retrospect because the result had been so damaging for Indigenous affairs.

“I don’t know in my mind why, after pursuing this for more than a decade, the whole strategy was premised on the need for bipartisanship,” she said.