‘A knife in your heart’: Indigenous Australians grapple with grief after voice defeat

Dean Parkin, campaign director of Yes23, consoles Aunty Shirley Lomas after the defeat of the voice to parliament at the referendum. Photograph: Jenny Evans/Getty Images

The day after the Australian people rejected a proposal to recognise First Nations people in the constitution, elder Geraldine Hogarth wept in her Goldfields home.

“It’s a sad day for us. The grief hurts so much, it’s like a knife in your heart,” the Kuwarra Pini Tjalkatarra woman said.