Voice advocate launches scathing attack against ‘lazy’ Aussies who voted No in the referendum

A leading Voice campaigner has criticized Australians for being “too lazy” to vote Yes in October’s referendum and said she was “very, very disappointed” with the result.

Professor Lisa Pulver Jackson, 64, said she was still trying to make sense of the rejection of the Indigenous Voices in Parliament project, which received less than 40 per cent support in the referendum.

But she claims many No voters have since told her they regret opposing the proposal and simply don’t understand what they are voting for.

“I can’t understand this. Not at all,” she said Tuesday on the late-night show The Drum, which ABC is canceling at the end of this week after 13 years on the air.

“I have to say I’m very disappointed in the Australians.”

A leading Voice campaigner has criticized Australians for being “too lazy” to vote Yes in October’s referendum and said she was “very, very disappointed” with the result of the vote

The Indigenous epidemiologist and deputy vice-chancellor of the University of Sydney added: “I don’t understand.

“People were just too lazy, or too uninterested, or just felt like it didn’t concern them, so they’d just check the “No” box because it’s easy.

“Don’t create change if it won’t affect them at all. The result of this will not affect them in any way.

“What I do know is that since then a lot of people have come to me and said I voted no, but I wish I could vote yes now because I can work it out.”

Professor Pulver Jackson said the Voice played a key role in updating the Australian constitution, which she said was written in 1901 by “a bunch of white people”.

“If you look at the demographics of Australia today, it’s a very small minority of people,” she said.

“So the Australian Constitution today does not represent the interests of very many people.

“I think it’s a modest question to ask the 95 per cent of Australians who are not Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander themselves: do you recognize us?”

Professor Pulver Jackson called on Australians to help bring about the necessary change.

“Do you, the people of Australia, recognize us in the Constitution, the founding document of this country, a document that was created at a time when your people were not here?” She said.

“Because we are a country of migrants, 40 per cent of Australians are either first or second generation Australians, so they weren’t here when this Constitution was passed.”

Professor Pulver Jackson said the abandonment of The Voice was devastating but she still believed there was a chance for reconciliation.

“I felt like saying no was very, very hurtful,” she said. “In the context that we should not have a say at the table where issues affecting us are decided.

Professor Lisa Pulver Jackson (pictured) is still trying to make sense of the abandonment of the Indigenous Voices in Parliament project, which received less than 40 per cent support in the referendum.

Yes campaigner Roy A-See told the show that Indigenous people are demanding more than “tokenism” and want “meaningful change.”

“And I couldn’t figure out what that meant deep down.”

But she added: “I can’t believe reconciliation is dead. There must be hope. We must invite Australians to continue to work with us.

“Are we brave enough to walk this path together and create a Constitution that works for all of us, that recognizes First Australians as well as all other Australians?”

“Not just the white guys who were here in 1901.

“Let’s discuss this now. I don’t know if reconciliation is the right word for the process we’re going through.

“But I think we will have a lot of regrets to deal with as we deal with the grief that many of us feel.”

Yes campaigner Roy A-See told the show that Indigenous people are demanding more than just “tokenism” and want “meaningful change”.

He believed that abandoning the Voice meant that reconciliation was dead.

“I firmly believe that this is no longer the case,” he said. “Because we were rejected in our own country. And what that looks like is just traumatizing to our Indigenous people.

“Walking around your country and feeling rejected rather than accepted is not good.”

He praised big companies such as Qantas for backing the Yes campaign, but added: “History will show us it was the wrong decision.”