Gramsci and "The Voice": Closing the Gap Between "The Social" and "The Political" in Australia’s failed 2023 Referendum on Indigenous representation

Abstract

On 14 October 2023, Australians voted down a referendum proposal that would have acknowledged the place of Indigenous Peoples as First Peoples in the Australian Constitution, and which would have provided Indigenous Peoples with a “Voice” to the Australian Parliament. While some commentators chose to label the defeat as proof of Australia’s inherent racism, in this article we argue the failure of the referendum on the Voice was ultimately a lost opportunity for the Australian government which organised the vote but then refused to provide the moral and intellectual leadership to educate the public as to exactly why the Voice was required. As such it failed to demonstrate the leadership required of an stato integrale (integral state), in particular its educative functions. In this article we first outline the origins and evolution of the Voice referendum proposal before then explaining our methodology, method and positionality in writing about this topic. Thirdly, we subject the central texts of the referendum to a Gramscian analysis before finally we detail the referendum result and position the vote within Australia’s changing demographic structure. Throughout the article, we argue a Gramscian analysis of the Voice referendum demonstrates the reality of a gap between what we describe as the social (the people) and the political (the state), one that is more complex than accusations of racism.