Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Jordyn Beazley (now) and Royce Kurmelovs and Amy Remeikis (earlier)

Thousands gather for pro-Palestine rallies; Indigenous voice to parliament defeated – as it happened

Australia David Littleproud the Australian Electoral Commission
Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese and Indigenous Australians minister Linda Burney
The prime minister Anthony Albanese and Indigenous Australians minister Linda Burney arrive to deliver the outcome of the voice referendum at Parliament House in Canberra. Australians voted no to enshrining an Indigenous voice in the country's constitution. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

Summary

It is time to say farewell. Here is a very short summary of the day:

And that is all from us on the blog – thank you for joining us, and see you tomorrow.

Updated

No arrests made at ‘largely peaceful’ pro-Palestine rally in Sydney, NSW police say

The New South Wales police have confirmed they did not enact extraordinary powers that would have permitted them to search protesters without reason and arrest and charge people who refuse to identify themselves at a pro-Palestine rally.

Assistant commissioner Tony Cooke said he ultimately did not consider it necessary to authorise the powers.

He described the gathering in Hyde Park as “largely peaceful” and confirmed the hundreds of police officers who were deployed did not make any arrests.

Asked if earlier talk of shutting down the protest and police’s plans to enact the special powers seemed like an overreaction in hindsight, Cooke said: “Absolutely not.”

He said:

And to be frank people have listened, so there were people in that crowd today who were providing the voice of reason to their own members of community, which is exactly what we would expect.

Police estimate 6,000 people attended the gathering in Hyde Park while another 10,000 people marched through Melbourne in support of Palestine.

Updated

Lebanon travel security risk

The Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Smartraveller advises Australians to “reconsider your need to travel to Lebanon due to the security environment”.

The government’s ability to assist departures “will be very limited in a crisis,” the update says. It also warns that “terrorist attacks could occur anytime and anywhere, including Beirut”.

“If you’re in Lebanon, you should consider whether your need to remain there is essential. If you wish to leave, you should note that a crisis could limit commercial options for departure, and you should consider the first available option. Airports may pause operations due to heightened security concerns and this may cause flight delays or cancellations.”

Images and videos are coming out of the peaceful pro-Palestine demonstration in Sydney’s Hyde Park, from a short while ago.

Let’s hear from Amy Remeikis on the referendum result, and what the no vote will mean for the fight for Indigenous rights.

Yes campaigner says result shows people want politicians to ‘do better’

Yes campaigner Marcus Stewart says the voice referendum result has brought attention to issues in Indigenous communities, reflecting on the result by saying Australians were asking politicians to “do better”.

Stewart, a Nira illim bulluk man of the Taungurung nation, said the nation needed to find a new way forward after the voice was rejected.

“The Australian people have gone to the polls and voted on 92 words that potentially a lot of them didn’t understand, but importantly they didn’t see that as the way through,” he told ABC radio this morning.

They’ve sent a very clear message to our politicians, two simple words, do better – we have to look at how we improve the lives of our people. The issues were here yesterday, they’re here today, they’ll be there tomorrow. We have to get to work today and start chipping away. That mechanism [the voice] isn’t in play any more, the Australian people have voted it down, we’ve got to look at another way forward.

Stewart said he believed Australians now had “a stronger baseline of the challenges Aboriginal people are facing across this country” – and strongly rejected the idea that no voters had opposed the referendum based only on racism.

They’ve sent a very clear message around the country that politicians of all sides need to do better and need to be better.

Everyone’s ready to get to work. All our political leadership, put the politics away.

Fromer co-chair of the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria Marcus Stewart says voters have sent a ‘clear message’ to all politicians.
Fromer co-chair of the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria Marcus Stewart says voters have sent a ‘clear message’ to all politicians. Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAP

Updated

Wong said yesterday’s proposed window for approved foreign nationals to cross through the Egypt border from Gaza “did not eventuate”.

Wong said:

The border remains closed at this time. I want to say I know how distressing this is for Australians in Gaza. I want to reiterate our commitment to do everything we can to ensure the border is opened.

Wong said the government has today updated travel advice for Lebanon:

I am now saying to Australians if you are in Lebanon, you should consider whether your need to remain there is essential. … If you wish to leave you should consider the first available option. If you need emergency consular assistance contact the emergency consular centre operating on a 24-hour basis.

This updates existing travel advice for Lebanon, which asked would-be travellers to reconsider due to the security environment.

Updated

Government looking at options for Australians wanting to leave the occupied Palestinian territories

Wong said the government is continuing to work out options for Australians wanting to leave the occupied Palestinian territories, saying “the humanitarian situation in Gaza is of serious concern and continues to deteriorate”.

She then goes on to say:

Australia is providing an initial $10m in humanitarian assistance for civilians affected by the conflict in Gaza. To fund urgent needs like medical support, emergency, water nutrition, sanitation and hygiene services. We again call for safe and unimpeded military and access to civilians affected by the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

We are engaging regularly with counterparts to continue to press for safe and unimpeded access to civilians affected by this humanitarian crisis and we support the work of the United States, Egypt and others toward the establishment of a corridor to enable humanitarian needs to be met.

Updated

Wong advises Australians who want to leave Israel to take ‘first option’ available

Foreign minister Penny Wong is speaking now on the repatriation flights out of Israel.

Wong said the government is pursuing all options to get Australians out of Israel, including government-chartered flights and air force planes, after it was announced last night the scheduled flights had been cancelled.

As you know the situation in Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories continues to change rapidly. As you know, we have been working on assisted departure for Australians affected by the situation in Israel and in Gaza. Last night it was very disappointing that we were in a position where flights had to be cancelled. We are persisting in pursuing all options to help our fellow Australians.

This afternoon I can confirm that the Australian government is planning flights to depart from Tel Aviv for Australians wanting to leave. This is a mixture of government-chartered and air force planes. I want to stress these flights remain subject to factors including the security environment. I am not in a position to go into details for operational and security reasons. We are also coordinating options with partners who are helping their own citizens with departures.

I repeat the message I have given over a number of days, if Australians wish to leave we strongly encourage you to take the first option that becomes available to you. Please do not wait for a different option. The government is also working with commercial carriers to arrange flights to assist travellers with their journeys including from Dubai to Australia. Registered Australians will hear directly today as flights are confirmed.

Updated

The Inner West council will fly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags at half-mast out of respect at the request of Indigenous leaders in the wake of the referendum defeat.

The Aboriginal flag has been lowered to half-mast at Leichhardt town hall today and all other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags will be lowered tomorrow for one week.

Inner West mayor, Darcy Byrne, said:

This is a profoundly sad day for the nation and we respect the request of the Indigenous leaders to fly their flags at half-mast for a week of reflection and grieving.

We hope other organisations will also act on their request.

Showing respect and solidarity to Indigenous people, who will be really hurting today, is the right thing to do. Compassion costs us nothing.

We are very proud of the positive role so many of our local citizens played in building the yes campaign across Sydney and NSW.

Many thousands of Australians have helped to build a movement for Indigenous justice, and we will never abandon that cause.

Updated

First Nations survivors of nuclear testing call on government to sign nuclear weapons ban treaty

First Nations survivors of atomic testing and civil society organisations have called for the Australian government to sign the nuclear weapons ban treaty in the wake of the referendum result.

Sunday marked the 70th anniversary of the first nuclear weapon test on mainland Australia at Emu Field in South Australia on Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) lands.

On 15 October 1953, the British government – with the willing support of the Australian government of the day – tested a 10 kilotonne atomic bomb, codenamed Totem I.

Not only did the operation fail to seek consent from the Anangu people, but the resulting radioactive “black mist” fallout had harmful environmental, health and social outcomes that persist today.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons Australia released a statement by Yankunytjatjara Anangu woman Karina Lester. Lester is a second generation survivor of the Emu Field nuclear tests.

It says: “Seventy years on from the first mainland nuclear explosion, let us put an end to any involvement with nuclear weapons, now and forever.”

Lester’s late father, Yami Lester, was blinded because of the tests at Emu Field, and Karina carries his story as well as her grandmother’s story about the effects of the tests on her people.

This has been a generational journey for us, and a generational story of talking about the traumas and the suffering and the scars that have been left not only on our traditional lands, on Yankunytjatjara and Pitjantjatjara country, but also in Western Australia as well.

Our stories are stories that have been passed on from generation to generation. They’re sad stories, but they’re true stories. This is about truth-telling, and this is our story.

This is why I am urging the Australian government to sign and ratify the TPNW, as prime minister Anthony Albanese promised to do when in government. They must listen to First Nations voices who never want to see these most destructive, indiscriminate weapons ever be used again.

The statement has been signed by more than 130 civil society organisations, including the Australian Red Cross, Public Health Association of Australia, Health Services Union, Oxfam and Catholic Religious Australia.

Updated

Hello blog readers, I’ll be taking the reins for the next little while. A big thank you to Royce Kurmelovs for leading us through what has been a busy Sunday so far.

The South Australian Greens MLC Tammy Franks has described a One Nation call for the state’s legislated voice to parliament to be repealed as an “opportunistic stunt”.

Earlier on Sunday, the South Australian One Nation MLC Sarah Game posted to social media calling for the state’s legislated voice to parliament to be shut down before it begins, claiming the result in the national referendum justified the move.

Franks, who holds the Aboriginal affairs portfolio for the state Greens, said she had “seen this coming for weeks”.

She said the gambit was little more than “grandstanding” as Labor, Liberals and the Greens all went to the election with policies to, in some form, create an Indigenous voice to state parliament.

Franks:

This is an opportunistic stunt. One Nation simply doesn’t have the numbers in SA parliament, upper or lower. Of the 22 members in the upper house, she needs 11. If she can’t count she doesn’t have 11 votes, she should reconsider her ability to be a politician.

This is showboating and grandstanding. The South Australian parliament supports a state voice to parliament and we should be giving them certainty to get on with their business of setting that up and the electoral commission the certainty they can run the elections in March next year, and start listening to that voice on matters like Aboriginal heritage and child protection with urgency.

If One Nation wish to repeal a state voice to parliament, they should have the guts to take it to a state election when they didn’t even have the courtesy to the public, when they didn’t even have the courtesy to let the public know who their lead candidate was.

We didn’t even have a picture of her let alone a policy on the voice to parliament from them.

Updated

People participate in a Pro-Palestine demonstration in Sydney’s Hyde Park on Sunday as a police helicopter circled overhead.
People participate in a pro-Palestine demonstration in Sydney’s Hyde Park on Sunday as a police helicopter circled overhead. Photograph: Steven Saphore/AAP
A young boy waves his flag among others as people gather.
A young boy waves his flag among others as people gather. Photograph: Rick Rycroft/AP
A woman holds the Palestinian flag during a rally in Sydney’s Hyde Park.
A woman holds the Palestinian flag during a rally in Sydney’s Hyde Park. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian
A sign in the crowd reads “No to Apartheid”.
A sign in the crowd reads “No to Apartheid”. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian
A person holds an Aboriginal flag, right, next to another person with a Palestinian flag during the Sydney rally.
A person holds an Aboriginal flag (R), next to another person with a Palestinian flag during the Sydney rally. Photograph: Rick Rycroft/AP
A large Palestinian flag is laid out and a sign reads “Gaza ceasefire now!”
A large Palestinian flag is laid out and a sign reads “Gaza ceasefire now!” Photograph: Rick Rycroft/AP

Updated

The final speaker at the rally was a man wearing a hat, sunglasses and face mask who identified himself as a “proud Jew”.

As rally co-organiser Amal Naser introduced him, she said he “asked to remain anonymous because of what’s happening in the Zionist community”.

Before leading the crowd in prayer, the man said:

I’m here as a proud Jew, with all my other Jewish comrades, in solidarity with my Palestinian brothers and sisters who are facing genocide, and want nothing but peace.

The rally concluded just before 3pm with loud chanting led by the organisers including “Gaza, Gaza don’t you cry, Palestine will never die” and “5,6,7,8, Israel is a terrorist state”.

The organisers then asked the crowd to disperse. Many people left immediately but there are many others still milling around in the park.

Updated

Faith leaders from two local Christian and Islamic groups have led prayers in English and Arabic at the rally in Hyde Park.

The president and co founder of Palestinian Christians in Australia, Suzan Wahhab, said the world had “largely turned a blind eye to our plight”.

Addressing the crowd, she said 1.4 million young people under the age of 25 “have lived a life reminiscent of dystopian fiction” in Gaza.

Wahhab cried as she said:

We must have faith in God’s eternal plan for our one human family. We are all brothers and sisters.

We want a better, safer world where fairness and justice reign.

The pro-Palestine rally in Melbourne has wrapped up at Victoria state parliament.

Police estimate there was “anywhere between 5,000 to 10,000” people in attendance.

Updated

The Jewish activist Michelle Berkon has described the Israeli occupation of Gaza as “unfettered brutality”.

Berkon, 65, whose parents survived the Holocaust, is one of two Jewish people to have addressed the rally in Hyde Park in support of Palestine.

She described the state of Israel as “pure evil”, drawing applause and cheers from the crowd. A lone voice cried out: “Fuck Israel”.

Berkon told the crowd she “was once a Zionist” as a member of a synagogue where “love for Israel was interwoven with love for the Jewish people” until, she said, she learned about “the reality of Israel” in 2014.

She said:

I looked into an abyss and that abuse swallowed every illusion I had ever heard about the state of Israel. It almost swallowed me.

If this was what my people had become, who am I?

Jewish activist Michelle Berkon hugs Australian-Palestinian woman Christine Dallal at the Hyde Park rally.
Jewish activist Michelle Berkon hugs Australian-Palestinian woman Christine Dallal at the Hyde Park rally. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian

Updated

Palestinian Action Group Sydney organiser Josh Lee has urged the crowd at Hyde Park to remain peaceful and not give the police and government “any extra ammunition” to prevent future marches.

He said the rally organisers had already submitted the paperwork to police to apply to hold a march through Sydney’s CBD next Saturday.

He said:

That’s why we need to be extra disciplined today so that we have an extra basis to fight for our right to protest next week.

Whatever happens we will protest next week. Let me be clear, we will not stop. But we don’t want to give them a free kick or any extra ammunition.

Lee said a “hysterical, repressive anti-protest, anti-democratic environment” had been “whipped up” by the media and politicians including “shamefully by our premier, Chris Minns”.

At the mention of Minns’ name, the crowd shouted “Shame!”

Lee continued:

We have to be very clear about this. Our movement is absolutely against antisemitism.

Updated

The pro-Palestine protest has now marched to Victorian state parliament.

Updated

The rally’s co-organiser, Fahad Ali, has fought back tears as he spoke about children being killed in Gaza.

Addressing the crowd, an emotional Ali called for an end to Israeli occupation.

He said:

Seven hundred dead Palestinian children in the last week alone.

And I am on the brink of tears because I’m looking at the children sitting right here before me.

Ali said “thousands of people” had attended the gathering and that the premier, Chris Minns, could “no longer turn a blind eye” to the struggle and will of the Palestinian people.

He said:

And that is exactly why we’re all here today and my message to our politicians is listen to us Palestine will be free and a day of reckoning is coming.

Large crowds spilling over at the Melbourne pro-Palestine rally.

A large crowd of protesters has gathered in Sydney’s Hyde Park as a pro-Palestine rally in solidarity with people in Gaza gets under way.

Speeches have begun, with loud chants of “Free, free Palestine” and “From the river, to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “Gaza, Gaza don’t you cry, Palestine will never die”.

People of all ages are present, including families with children. Many are holding or wearing Palestinian flags. There is a large police presence at the park, including riot squad officers.

One of the rally’s organisers, Amal Naser, began the speeches. She said:

It so important that we are here to express our outrage to demand that so called Australia cut ties with Israel, right now.

Wiradjuri activist Ethan Floyd, addressed the crowd, acknowledging that the rally was being held the day after the unsuccessful voice referendum and saying the result proved people should “not place your faith in Australia”.

He said:

Now we’re under no illusions about the kind of settler colonial project we live under.

People gathering for a pro-Palestine demonstration in Hyde Park, Sydney.
People gathering for a pro-Palestine demonstration in Hyde Park, Sydney. Photograph: Steven Saphore/AAP

Updated

Australia may have rejected the Indigenous voice to parliament, but those who picked up a print copy of the Sunday Herald Sun might have been confused by the reported result.

As reported by online news and entertainment outfit Pedestrian, the print copy of the paper contained a big double-paged spread on pages six and seven, breaking down voting patterns by geography.

Screen Shot of Herald Sun story with yes vote winning.
Screen shot of Sunday Herald Sun story with yes vote winning. Photograph: Sunday Herald Sun

Within the graphic, a heading titled “National Result” reported figures for the referendum result, but flipped those for “Yes” and “No”.

According to the Sunday Herald Sun, “Yes” received 60% of the vote and “No” received 40%. The situation was actually the reverse.

As of 1.31pm AEDT, the error had been fixed in the online edition of the paper.

Updated

Government planning 'multiple flights to depart from Tel Aviv today'

The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, says the Australian government is planning “multiple flights” from Tel Aviv on Sunday for Australians who want to leave.

“Subject to factors including the security environment, the Australian government is planning multiple flights to depart from Tel Aviv today, for Australians wanting to leave,” Wong said.

In a series of posts to social media, Wong said the government was “coordinating options with partners who are helping their citizens with departures” and “arranging flights to assist travellers with their onward journey from Dubai to Australia”.

She also advised those inside Israel or the Occupied Palestinian Territories who wish to leave to contact the 24-hour Consular Emergency Centre on +61 6261 3305 (from overseas) or 1300 555 135 (from within Australia).

Updated

Victorian First Peoples’ Assembly now focused on treaty

The Victorian First Peoples’ Assembly has held a press conference, with co-chair Rueben Berg, a Gunditjmara man, and Aunty Esme Bamblett, an assembly member, Bangerang, Taungurung and Wiradjuri Elder and chief executive of the Aboriginal Advancement League.

Aunty Esme Bamblett said:

“We’ve been here for thousands of years and we’re not going anywhere. We are strong, resilient and deadly. While we believe that a voice to parliament at a national level would have been complementary to our work as a treaty assembly it’s important to remember that constitutional reform isn’t the only show in town.

Here in Victoria we’re making great progress on a treaty. We’re going to be negotiating a treaty early next year. The process we’ve established when negotiating treaties will put decision making power directly into the hands of Aboriginal communities at a local level.

That’s what we’re focused on and we’re going to get the job done. Let’s be clear. When it comes to treaty in Victoria, we’re not talking about an advisory body, we’re talking about a meaningful and wholesale transfer of decision-making powers back into Aboriginal hands. Mob making decisions about mob and for mob. Now, to all our community, take the time to rest, recover and reflect and when you’re ready, the first people’s assembly is here for you.”

Co-Chair First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria Rueben Berg (centre) and Aunty Esme Bamblett (right) campaining for the yes vote in September.
Co-chair First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria Rueben Berg (centre) and Aunty Esme Bamblett (right) campaining for the yes vote in September. Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAP

Berg said:

“I don’t feel that reconciliation is dead. I feel that we’ve had a huge number of Australians come out and support this, not the number we needed, but there is a huge amount of support out there still.

And this referendum was about a very particular question, about a very particular change to our constitution. Clearly that has not been supported, but that doesn’t mean that people don’t support First Peoples. I have confidence in Australians, I know that Australians want better outcomes for other australians. They’re going to want better outcomes for us as first peoples … I have confidence in that.

Asked about the possibility of progress on treaties around the nation, Berg said:

“So we’re in the process here of negotiating treaty specifically with the Victorian government, but the way we’ve set up the process doesn’t preclude us from entering into negotiations with the commonwealth as well. The commonwealth can be a party to our negotiations, alongside the state.

And I would imagine that there would be similar opportunities across the rest of the nation with other states progressing their own treaties. That there’s nothing prohibiting them from wanting to invite the commonwealth to be part of those treating negotiations as well.”

Updated

Guardian Australia reporter Antoun Issa is at the pro-Palestine rally in Melbourne where a few thousand people have gathered.

The crowd is chanting “free, free, Palestine” with outgoing Greens senator Janet Rice leading the chant.

Updated

Police gather in Sydney ahead of pro-Palestine rally

Riot police are among scores of officers swarming central Sydney ahead of pro-Palestine demonstrations across Australian capital cities.

Uniformed NSW police officers including those from the riot, mounted and canine units, as well as detectives, were spread through Hyde Park and its surrounds on Sunday morning in anticipation of more than 1,000 protesters.

Gatherings are also expected at the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne and state parliament in Adelaide.

It follows large protests on Friday in Sydney, Brisbane and Perth.

NSW police at Hyde Park, Sydney, ahead of a pro-Palestine demonstration in Sydney.
NSW police at Hyde Park, Sydney, ahead of a pro-Palestine demonstration in Sydney. Photograph: Steven Saphore/AAP

While warning they could use them, senior NSW police have not yet enacted extraordinary powers that would permit them to search any person or vehicle in Hyde Park and disperse groups without reasonable grounds.

Declaring such a zone usually rests on the shoulders of the police commissioner or her assistants and deputies, although inspectors can make the call in emergencies.

NSW premier, Chris Minns, said the additional powers would only be used by officers who believed it was in the interest of public safety.

Police are not considering these powers out of the clear blue sky.

We gave these organisers a go and they failed to control the crowd and it descended into violence and we can’t let that happen again.

On Wednesday, South Australian police commissioner, Grant Stevens, said officers would act quickly if the protests escalated and he did not want to see anyone do anything that could affect their safety.

Victoria police said there would be a highly visible police presence in Melbourne’s CBD on Sunday and keeping peace was a top priority.

While individuals have the right to protest lawfully, we strongly encourage those attending to protest peacefully and without impacting the broader community.

- AAP

Updated

The Australian Electoral Commission has responded after the shadow minister for Indigenous Australians, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, questioned the impartiality of the commission’s delivery of remote polling.

Price also suggested people handing out how-to-vote cards “overpower vulnerable Aboriginal communities”, when seeking to counter the fact many Indigenous communities had voted yes to a voice to parliament.

The leading no campaigner Warren Mundine defended Price’s remarks with an extraordinary spray at the media to “wake up to yourselves and start asking real questions and making governments accountable”.

On Saturday evening the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, told reporters in Canberra that “if you look at the Indigenous-dominated booths in places like Lockhart River, Palm Island, Mornington Island, Goodooga … overwhelmingly they voted yes in the referendum”.

Lingiari, the electorate covering Alice Springs and remote areas of the Northern Territory, voted 58% against the voice to 42% in favour but the yes vote won in all but one remote mobile voting team.

For more on this story, read the full report by Guardian Australia’s Paul Karp and Eden Gillespie:

Figures from AEC's mobile teams in NT show clear support for yes vote, Green says

Anthony Green has the numbers from ballots cast with the AEC’s mobile teams throughout the NT electorate of Lingiari.

Contrary to some claims, the returns show the majority of these communities overwhelmingly supported the voice. With one exception, support for the yes vote ranged from 59.9% to as high as 92.1%.

The referendum polling centre in Wurrumiyanga on Bathurst Island, Northern Territory.
The referendum polling centre in Wurrumiyanga on Bathurst Island, Northern Territory. Photograph: Neve Brissenden/AAP

It appears the no vote in the Territory was concentrated among non-Indigenous urban centres of Darwin, Katherine and Alice Springs which outweighed the wishes of Indigenous people.

Updated

No campaign party ‘very polite and cordial’, attendees say

The no campaign has reportedly held a “jubilant” party after the referendum result was known on Saturday night.

Ahead of voting day, the no campaign officially decided to avoid any public celebration of a win as it would be a “bad look”, but The Financial Review reported on Sunday that a late night party at the Hyatt Regency was attended by mining billionaire Gina Rinehart.

Earlier this morning, the ABC’s Patricia Karvelas spoke to RN Breakfast about the referendum result where she implied there had been a party, saying the no campaign was “clearly pleased” with the result but “subdued in a way it was constructed”. However, she said media could not investigate further as they were confined to a media room.

Warren Mundine told The Financial Review the event was “happy” as volunteers had “worked really hard”.

People are just sitting down having a beer or a lemon squash and just chatting.

Local Brisbane investor Steven Baxter also said the celebration was a “good atmosphere” and “very polite and cordial”.

Following the report, Karvelas offered more details on social media saying there was “obviously a party” going on but organisers would not confirm who was in attendance and suggested there wasn’t anything going on “other than canapes”:

I was at the No event. We were crammed into a media room away from what was obviously a party. The narrative was that there wasn’t anything other than canapes. But Australia’s richest woman, Gina Rinehart was there – I asked many times who was there but they would not share.

Updated

Pro-Palestine gathering organisers confirm event to go ahead

The organisers of the pro-Palestine gathering planned for this afternoon Sydney’s Hyde Park have confirmed the event will go ahead and urged protesters to be peaceful.

In a statement posted on Facebook, the Palestine Action Group Sydney warned the conduct of people who attended the gathering would influence whether police would allow them to physically march at later protests.

The statement said:

There is consensus among organisers and community leaders that people who want to come and attend with the intention to engage in criminal conduct - including violence or religious vilification - should not come and they are not welcome either at the rally or in our movement.

They risk undermining our efforts, and the burden of the consequences of any violence will be borne by the Palestinian and Jewish organisers and fellow protestors.

Organisers had been planning another pro-Palestine march through the streets of Sydney but this was scrapped in favour of a “static demonstration” at Hyde Park because of legal issues related to obtaining police protection for a march.

The police and the New South Wales government have come down hard on the organisers after a pro-Palestine march through Sydney’s CBD on Monday ended with some attendees making anti-semitic chants and throwing flares on the steps of the Opera House.

Updated

‘The Caucasity’: GetUp CEO on why ‘week on silence’ won’t help Indigenous disadvantage

GetUp CEO Larissa Baldwin-Roberts, a Widjabul Wia-bul woman, has remained focussed on the deeper issues in the wake of the referendum result.

In a series of posts to social media, Baldwin-Roberts said:

I don’t understand the week of silence when hundreds of thousands of black kids have to go to school tomorrow.

To everyone who wants to bleat about Indigenous disadvantage today … nope we’re talking about your racism.

Australia doesn’t want to give us anything but then wants to virtue signal about black disadvantage. The Caucasity.

Updated

Thank you to all the early risers for joining me this morning as we covered the immediate reaction.

I am going to hand you over to Royce Kurmelovs to take you through the next part of the day.

I’ll be back with Politics Live and the first day of parliament early tomorrow. Until then, take care all of you.

Updated

Former prime minister Julia Gillard has also released a statement on the referendum result:

One Nation MP moves to abolish SA voice legislation

South Australian One Nation MP Sarah Game is now moving to abolish the legislated South Australian voice to parliament.

Game is pointing to the fact that the majority of South Australia voted no to the referendum as the justification.

South Australia also voted for the party which committed to legislating a state based voice at the last election, but that is not part of Game’s decision making here.

(Also, legislation can be repealed at any time. Which is why the referendum was about a constitutionally enshrined voice – so that future governments could not completely abolish the advisory body, depending on political mood. This seems a pretty good example of why the request was to have the body in the constitution).

Pauline Hanson has also begun a digital victory lap, thanking One Nation voters for being the “backbone” of the no vote.

Updated

‘Painful hole in centre of democracy’ if no truth and justice commission, Greens senator says

Greens senator Dorinda Cox also spoke on the truth and justice commission:

This country is founded on violence and dispossession, but many people across the country have no idea of the truth of what happened to First Nations people during colonisation, nor the ongoing impacts of colonial systems and institutions.

… Until we tell the truth about our past and begin work towards a Treaty with First Nations people that recognises our sovereignty, there will be a painful hole in the centre of our democracy.

It’s time to show some ambition. We must use this moment and momentum to drive the real change that will come through Truth and Treaty and the affirmation of First Nations Sovereignty.”

Updated

Greens want $250m truth and justice commission after Dutton’s ‘Trumpian misinformation campaign’

Following the referendum campaign, the Greens want to see the government commit to a $250m truth and justice commission.

Greens leader Adam Bandt said the misinformation spread during the referendum campaign meant there was an immediate need for truth telling about Australia’s history.

Peter Dutton sowed fear and division with a Trumpian misinformation campaign. To lay the groundwork for lasting justice, we now need truth-telling and healing.

The Greens are calling today for $250 million to be committed to a Truth and Justice Commission in this term of Parliament.

There’s no need for delay and we can’t leave the country without a clear pathway forward. A national Truth and Justice Commission would bring everyone together to talk honestly about the violence and dispossession of First Nations peoples so we can heal and move forward together.

To First Nations people who are hurting today, to everyone who is heartbroken, demoralised, exhausted or angry, the Greens are with you. The Greens will not stop fighting to advance First Nations justice.

The Greens will push the government to establish a Truth and Justice Commission and work towards Treaties that recognise First Nations peoples’ sovereignty.

Updated

NSW police pending decision on use of 'extraordinary powers' at Sydney pro-Palestine rally

New South Wales police say they are yet to make a decision on whether or not to use “extraordinary powers” at a pro-Palestine gathering planned for Sydney’s Hyde Park on Sunday.

As of 9.30am on Sunday, police said they still hadn’t decided whether or not to use the powers, which would allow officers to search protesters without reason and arrest and charge people who refuse to identify themselves.

The force also refused to confirm if it would publicly declare that the powers had been authorised.

Deputy commissioner, David Hudson, said on Friday he expected to know by Saturday whether the powers could be enacted.

The decision to authorise the powers rests with an assistant commissioner or higher-ranked officer.

The delay by police means time is running out for the rally organisers and their legal representatives to mount a court challenge against the powers, which they have condemned as “draconian”.

The NSW premier, Chris Minns, has said the powers are justified given a pro-Palestine rally held on Monday “descended into racism” and “acts of violence” on the steps of the Sydney Opera House.

Updated

That’s where the interviews end on Insiders.

Diplomatic relations with Iran should be reconsidered, Leeser says

Does Julian Leeser think Australia needs to reconsider its relationship with Iran?

Leeser:

I think we have to reconsider the relationship with Iran. Anybody who doesn’t think Iran is supporting and financing Hamas over the years hasn’t been paying attention. Iran is the great disruptor in the Middle East. It’s disrupting Lebanon … it is a malevolent force. We’ve seen from our own Iranian diaspora in the last few years, the issues of its treatment of women, religious minorities, anyone who doesn’t conform with the regime. I think we have to ask ourselves, why do we maintain this diplomatic relationship?

Q: You don’t accept the arguments we heard as to why the ties are a good idea?

Leeser:

I don’t have all the facts before me. That’s why I’m not saying we should pull out today but I think we need to give it serious reconsideration, because I think our maintaining diplomatic relations in a sense gives Iran a level of support and global acceptance I think we should question.

Updated

‘Israel has a right to defend itself,’ Leeser says

The interview turns to Israel and what is happening in Gaza.

Q: How justified do you think Israel is in the steps it could be about to take?

Julian Leeser:

Israel has an absolute right to defend itself. 1000 Jewish people died last weekend. The largest number of Jewish people killed in a single day since the Holocaust. There were people in a dance party murdered in the street, babies kidnapped, caged, captured and killed. There were Holocaust survivors that were kidnapped. This was a horrific event. If this was Australia and this happened here, we would absolutely be wanting to defend [ourselves]

Israel has a right to defend itself, absolutely to try to remove the threat of Hamas from the area. Hamas pledged to wipe Israel off the map. It doesn’t recognise its right to exist and is engaged in terror tactics. We in Australia list Hamas as aterrorist organisation.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health said in a statement on Saturday that 2,215 civilians, including 724 children and 458 women, have been killed in the last week, in Gaza.

Updated

Liberal MP Julian Leeser doesn’t blame Dutton for referendum result

Does Julian Leeser want back on the shadow front bench?

Leeser:

I’m the Liberal member for Berowra. I am the Liberal member because my party members have endorsed me and I’m member there because my community endorsed me.

Anything beyond that is for my leader. I said when I stepped down I would do three things, I would work hard for the people of Berowra, I’ve been doing that every day on telco and roads and postal services and bushfire preparedness.

I said I would campaign hard for this referendum. I did over 100 meetings, speeches and the like. I gave it my all. The third thing is to pain hard for the election of a Liberal government under the leadership of Peter Dutton and I intend to bring the same energy I brought to the referendum campaign to that task.

Does he blame Dutton for the referendum result?

No. No, I don’t.

Liberal member for Berowra Julian Leeser
Liberal member for Berowra Julian Leeser says he gave the referendum his all but does not blame Peter Dutton for its failure. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Updated

Government needs to ‘recommit to closing the gap’, Leeser says

So what happens now, according to Julian Leeser:

I think just in the days ahead, the first thing is three things: To reach out to Indigenous friends and colleagues and check in on them. A number of them will be feeling the result yesterday. I want to reiterate what everyone said.

This is not a result about whether Australians support Indigenous people or not, it’s a referendum on a particular model of constitutional recognition.

Secondly, I think we need to reflect on what the actual result means. I think we need to be slow to move to the next phase or next referendum without that reflection.

As we know, what are some of the key ingredients to a referendum on this: You need to build Indigenous support, bipartisan support and it needs to be at a time when it has the best chance of success. The third thing, we need to commit to reconciliation. I think the one thing all sides agreed on was that Indigenous disadvantage is the top issue. That’s around closing the gap, recommit to the closing the gap process.

Updated

‘There were people that said bad things on both sides,’ Leeser says

What about the tone of the campaign? Did Julian Leeser see Trumpian tactics (as Ken Wyatt described them on Friday)

Leeser:

I called out some of the behaviour at times as someone campaigning yes. I think there were people that said bad things on both sides. That’s the nature of this. I think it is important for people involved in the debate from time to time [to] call out these things. I said in the debate I’m worried about extremes in our politics [from the] Corbanite left and the Trumpian right. I think we have to focus on the middle and they voted no.

… I called out some of the things said at the CPAC conference, there were the things I drawed attention to as the decision of the Labor Party in relation to Israel at their conference, which I thought was a [part of] the Corbanite wing.

Updated

Leeser on whether voice would divide nation on race misinformation

Was the claim that the voice would divide the nation on race misinformation in Julian Leeser’s view? (Leeser argued against the claim, rightly pointing out during the campaign that it did not).

Today he says:

No [it was] a debating point in the context of a referendum. What … you do in the debate context is you contest ideas.

Leeser says he is a “nuanced man”.

Pressed on whether it was right or wrong, he says:

I argued it wouldn’t divide us by race because we had the provisions. They argue that no other racial group gets a body like this. These are arguments on both sides. The no side won.

Winning a referendum though, doesn’t make mistruths facts.

Updated

But would a co-design process ever have convinced people like Senator Jacinta Price?

Julian Leeser:

I’m not sure [what] would have come to the voice. We’ve known each other for a long time. We appeared on a panel before it was in the parliament and she’s not been a supporter of voice in the constitution. The question is what could we do by way of referendum and a package of reforms and what could you do in relation to spelling out more of what the national body might have helped us to get to ay vote last night? That’s the point.

Updated

‘We needed to do everything we could to maximise yes vote,’ Leeser says

Would that co-design have dealt with the concerns raised by some Coalition colleagues that the voice would have divided the nation on race (reminder; it did not).

Julian Leeser:

It’s not just the co-design, but it’s the question, the changes to the constitution made and what the national body looked like.

They were the things people continued to have questions about and where there was confusion in the mind of voters. I think ultimately having a process that brought everybody with us, because we know, as an Indigenous leader in Tasmania said to me, a referendum is a big ask of Australians. We needed to do everything we could to try to maximise that yes vote.

Updated

Lack of local and regional bodies to ensure understanding of voice, Leeser says

Julian Leeser continues that answer:

I think the first was to abandon the process that Ken Wyatt began of rolling out the local and regional voice bodies first.

They would have created a sense of confidence and understanding of what the voice would do when we talk about a national body.

I think the second thing was parliamentary an overconfidence because of the high polls of this last year, because of the Government’s own electoral success at the last election, the result in the marriage survey, that this would be an easier ask than it was.

As we now know, 8 out of 45 occasions, referendums have not succeeded. That over-confidence reflected the decision made. While I think, on reflection it would have been good to have a tri-party co-design, of what would be put to the Australian people and that didn’t happen.

Updated

Key gov decisions could have attracted more yes votes, Liberal MP Julian Leeser says

Liberal MP Julian Leeser is the next guest. Leeser resigned from the shadow front bench to campaign for a yes vote.

He knows what he wants to say about the result, and the campaign:

Firstly, I want to say I respect the decisions of Australians to vote no here. This is a privilege, the framers of the constitution gave each of us to have a say about whether the constitution should be changed and ultimately Australians didn’t support and were not convinced by the arguments put forward by the yes case in relation to why we should recognise Indigenous people in the constitution through a voice.

I think there’s a couple of issues about why that occurred. I think, I say this with no malice because I campaigned with the prime minister and respect his commitment on these issues. I campaigned alongside the government on this. I think there were a couple of key decisions that have been made over the years that could have been … could have helped garner more yes votes.

(Continued in next post)

Updated

Australia’s relationship with Iran at its ‘most difficult’ since Israel-Hamas war, Marles says

Is that relationship with Iran under consideration?

Richard Marles:

We seek to have diplomatic relations as broad as we can. This mission in Iran plays a very important role in Australia’s national interest and we value that mission in Iran. That does not then mean that we are signing up to what Iran does. Clearly we’re not.

We have been condemning Iran not only of its respect internationally, but in respect of its engagement domestically, and we have a number of sanctions in place in respect of Iran. We will continue to speak very robustly around Iran’s behaviour.

Diplomatic missions are not just there when you have good relationships with countries. In some respects some of the most important diplomatic missions one has in place are where the relationships are at their most difficult and that would be a fair way to describe our relationship with Iran.

Updated

Richard Marles is asked whether Australia should reconsider its diplomatic relationship with Iran (given allegations of the role it played in supporting Hamas) and says its complicated:

I think we can make the observation here that the strategic - this whole incident has been a tragedy, for the world. If there is anyone who has, any country that moved forward strategically in the contest of this, it is probably Iran, but that doesn’t then mean I don’t have information, which links Iran to what has occurred. We maintain a diplomatic position in Iran that is important for us.

Updated

The World Health Organisation has taken a view on the evacuation orders Israel has put in place for everyone, including hospitals in northern Gaza:

Updated

Deputy PM says he won’t cast ‘negative judgment’ on Israel

Is Israel acting within the rules of war, Richard Marles?

Marles:

Well, I’m not about to cast a judgement on what they are doing now. That’s the way in which I would answer your question. The reason I would answer in that way is I’m obviously not sitting...

Pressed on that take, given *what is happening in full view* Marles says:

I’m saying that, I think Israel is acting within the rules of war. I’m not casting a negative judgement on what they’re doing, but I guess I’m making this point, I’m not sitting in their control room either.

I don’t have all the information available to me that they will have to them, obviously. But it is very important that as Israel walks forward, while having the right to defend itself and that means acting against Hamas, they do act within the rules of war.

Updated

Israel has a right to act in the rules of war, Marles says

Does Richard Marles believe Israel has a right to do what it’s done in cutting off food, fuel and water to civilians in Gaza?

Marles:

Well, Israel has a right to defend itself and in doing that, Israel has a right to act against Hamas. I mean, what we saw last weekend was an act of terror and an act of the terror that was wrought upon innocent people and in that sense, what we witnessed last weekend was murder.

It is an absolute tragedy what is now playing out. It’s a tragedy for the innocent Israeli who have been victims of this, but obviously a tragedy for innocent Palestinians who find themselves in the middle of this.

We join the cull call of other nations in saying to Israel that in having a right to defend itself, only it needs to do that in a way it acts in accordance with the rules of war. That is very clear. Indeed, Israel made comments that is how they will proceed.

Updated

Hundreds of Australians wanting to leave Israel, Marles says

How many are there?

Richard Marles:

I’m reluctant to go into the specifics of it. There are about 10,000 Australians who are in Israel, but a lot of those are dual citizens and not all of those are seeking to leave. The numbers who are seeking to leave are measured in the hundreds. The high hundreds. We’re working through those that have registered around that and looking at obviously, every available option to try to assist Australians in need.

Updated

So if the civilian flights don’t get in, does the government have military flights to take their place?

Richard Marles:

We do. There is some greater flexibility that military flights offer in this circumstance, but, again, there are other circumstances beyond our control that potentially make it all difficult. We are very mindful of Australians in Israel who want to leave, it is a significant number.

Government intends to put in place military flights out of Israel, Marles says

Richard Marles then moves on to the situation in Gaza and Israel. Asked about the repatriation flights which were cancelled he says:

Well, we are working very intently on that. It is hard to commit to this. This can … change at any moment. This is determined on the basis of whether or not Israel’s airspace remains open, [for one thing].

What I can say is that in terms of civil contracted flights and military, Royal Australian air force flights, [they are] actively are being worked on. We are positioned.

… We have the intent to put in place flights very soon, almost immediately.

Updated

Next steps on Uluru Statement will ‘take time to work through’, Marles says

Richard Marles said the government will not shy away from its support for the Uluru statement from the Heart, which includes truth telling:

No, we’ve made clear we support the Uluru Statement from the Heart and that is a part of that. And so the principal commitment to everything that’s contained in there, we have made and we don’t move from. I think in terms of exactly what the precise steps are from here is a matter we need to take time to work through. I think people can understand that.

Updated

This is ‘a moment to be embracing Indigenous Australians’, Marles says

Q: I understand the government wants to take time to work out what the steps [are] to close the gap. For now, can I ask you, about where this leaves Indigenous Australians? Whether this process has been worthwhile? Marcia Langton, says the ‘The nation’s been poisoned there is no fix’ … and Pat Dodson said this will say to Indigenous Australians they have no right to be here. Does this leave Indigenous people in a worse position now than they were before this exercise?

Richard Marles:

Certainly, my sadness today, I feel most acutely in terms of how this does bear on Indigenous Australians. They will be hurting and you see that in the comments you referred to. I think they require all of us in this moment to be embracing Indigenous Australians. I do feel as I said, I hope there’s an increased appetite to act on closing the gap. I definitely feel this is not a vote against reconciliation.

I think it is important as we seek to bring the country together, we have a particular focus on Indigenous Australians because I can completely understand how there will be a feeling of hurt on their part today. This is a long journey.

Updated

No regrets about referendum but history was not on our side, Richard Marles says

Richard Marles said the moment the Coalition said no, the government was “completely aware” history was not on their side.

Was it a good idea to press on?

Absolutely, because there are times where difficult things are achieved. Did we understand that it was more difficult? Of course we did.

But we didn’t go to the election saying, ‘we will take this to the Australian people so long as Peter Dutton agrees’. We said we would take it to the Australian people, that that was the culmination of a process which had bound away for a very long period of time. Now, what Peter Dutton did is a matter for him ultimately, but our commitment was that we would take this to the Australian people and we weren’t offering anybody else a right of veto in relation to that.

This was keeping faith with our promises to the Australian people in May of last year, and I think particularly keeping faith with Indigenous Australians who I am certain, in large measure, wanted to see this proposition put to the Australian people, to give - well, to take the next step in the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

So, I don’t have any regrets that we took this to a referendum. That said, obviously we completely accept the result, and the result is clear, that in moving forward, we are not moving forward by virtue of changing the Constitution, and the Australian people have spoken very clearly about that.

Updated

Government takes responsibility for referendum outcome, Marles says

Does Richard Marles take responsibility for how the referendum was explained to Australians?

Marles:

Look, we take responsibility as the prime minister did last night, for the referendum and we take responsibility for the outcome.

But I would say this. This referendum was the end step in a process which has been going on for a better part of a decade, in some respects longer. I mean, it was the Howard government which first talked about having recognition for Indigenous Australians in the Constitution, and it was the Abbott government who said that the way in which we should recognise Indigenous Australians is by asking Indigenous Australians how they want to be recognised in the Constitution, and that call really led to thousands of meetings which ultimately saw the meeting in 2017 at Uluru of Indigenous leaders which issued the Uluru Statement from the Heart and all we’ve done, in a senses bring that to its final conclusion and taken that to the Australian people which is what was [asked for]

Updated

Richard Marles said the focus now needs to be on closing the gap:

Really, what I take out of this now, to try and walk forward in a way which is positive, is that I think coming out of this referendum, there is a greater call for action on closing the gap. I think Australians yesterday, whether they voted ‘yes’ or ‘no’, would see that a situation where a group of our fellow citizens, by virtue of their birth, are living shorter and less healthy lives is fundamentally unfair, and we need to act to change that, and to close the gap, and from the Government’s point of view, obviously that is now our focus.

Updated

Failed referendum isn’t a ‘vote against reconciliation’, deputy prime minister says

Deputy prime minister Richard Marles is the guest on ABC’s Insiders this morning.

Asked if Australians got the result right, he says:

The Australian people always get it right, and we acknowledge the result of this referendum. Obviously for those of us who are supporting the ‘yes’ campaign, it wasn’t the night we hoped for and I am disappointed, but the Australian people always get it right, and we absolutely accept this result and what this means is that Australians don’t want to see this pursued through a change to the Constitution.

But I don’t take last night as any vote against reconciliation, and I think both sides of the argument made that clear, even in their comments after the result last night, nor do I take this as a vote against a will on the part of the Australian people to see a closing of the gap in social disadvantage which affects Indigenous Australians, and again, I think when you look at the way in which both cases ran their arguments and responded to the result last night, it is clear that everyone wants to see the gap closed.

Deputy prime minister, Richard Marles (left), and prime minister, Anthony Albanese
The deputy prime minister, Richard Marles (left), believes that both sides of the referendum want to ‘see a closing of the gap in social disadvantage’ for Indigenous Australians. Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAP

Updated

It is pretty easy to see the divide in this vote.

You can see where your electorate voted, here.

Updated

Michaelia Cash says Jacinta Price first Senator to hold Indigenous portfolio, forgetting Ken Wyatt

Michaelia Cash told Sky News that the Coalition won’t be moving forward with any particular policies (the constitutional recognition referendum, legislating local voices) because they “need to let the dust settle”.

It has been an incredibly bruising last 12 months. But what we do need to do is look at having an audit into where the money goes, because you can’t spend as a government $30 billion a year [and] have it funneled out of Canberra, as Peter [Dutton] says, and then when it gets to, in particular and I look at my home state of Western Australia, regional and remote communities, it is but a trickle.

It is not achieving the outcomes Australians so desperately want.

So, what about the nine years that the Coalition was in power for – which only ended last year. Why was there no audit then? Where was the concern then?

Here is where Cash forgets the first Indigenous person to hold the Indigenous portfolio – her former WA colleague, Ken Wyatt.

We never had Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price.

For the first time in Australia’s history, we have someone with lived experience fronting Australia and being able to carry the conversation and quite frankly, we now need to back senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price in.

This is actually quite frankly an historic moment for Australia.

It was also a historical moment when Wyatt, who was born on a mission, and whose mother was taken as a child under the Stolen Generation policies, was made minister for Indigenous Australians.

The shadow attorney general, Michaelia Cash
The shadow attorney general, Michaelia Cash says the dust needs to settle on referendum result before making a move on new policies. Photograph: Richard Wainwright/EPA

Updated

The shadow attorney-general, Michaelia Cash, appears to have forgotten her former colleague, and minister for Indigenous Australians, Ken Wyatt.

Wyatt was born on a mission – his mother was part of the Stolen Generation.

Audit of Indigenous programs needed, Mundine says

So will Warren Mundine be working towards local treaties like he said he would on Insiders a couple of weeks ago?

Mundine dodges the question:

My first thing is to put up the four pillars I think need to go [in]. The first one is about this accountability. How do we - not about blaming or attacking people - look [at what] we’ve been spending [in] billions every year. What has worked and what hasn’t?

Really do a surgical approach to that about performance. How do we perform better? There are programs that have done good work.

There are other programs that have gone back wards. So we’ve got to really focus on how we are spending our money and getting the outcomes we need, working with those, working with the people on the ground. The other ones are education, so important. We need to work with families, work with parents and work with communities to get that, the kids to school and working.

Updated

Warren Mundine will respect ‘a week of reflection’ after referendum failure

Warren Mundine often said during the campaign that the hard work would begin on the Sunday morning after the referendum.

So what is that hard work?

For me, at the moment, is doing these interviews and then we will have conversations with the team and that.

Look, there’s going to be, there’s been a call for a week of reflection and silence. We will respect that. I think that, because I’ve been in the positions where we’ve lost things, where you put your heart and soul into it and it’s tough when you don’t come out with the victory. We will respect that. Then we will sit down then and have the conversations.

Updated

Feels ‘like a calming effect’ after ‘12 months of hardwork’, Mundine says on no win

Speaking to the ABC, no campaigner Warren Mundine was asked how he felt last night:

It was a weird feeling, really. It’s not like your normal campaign, an election campaign. It’s about the heart and soul of this nation and how we’re going to be moving forward.

So, it was like a calming effect. I sat there and I was very pleased that the 12 months of hard work we did, and it was tough to do it, and the Australian people rewarded us for that.

Warren Mundine
Warren Mundine says the referendum was ‘not like your normal campaign’.
Photograph: Jono Searle/AAP

Updated

‘Difficult to win referendum’ against Dutton’s tactics, Mark Butler says

Health minister Mark Butler spoke to Sky News a little earlier this morning, where he was asked what happened to the yes vote lead at the beginning of the year (it was sitting in the 60s).

Butler says:

History tells us just how difficult it is to win a referendum [if we] don’t have that bipartisan support.

Butler said the government had reason to believe that the bipartisan support would be there, given work was done on the voice proposal under the Morrison government.

He says Peter Dutton made a political calculation.

As I say, a significant change of tack was put in place by Peter Dutton at the end of March, April after those election defeats for the Liberal Party, first at the state level in New South Wales, then the Aston by election day.

It was very difficult for us to win a referendum against really old historical forces.

Health minister Mark Butler
Health minister Mark Butler spoke to Sky News about the difficulty in winning a referendum without ‘bipartisan support’. Photograph: Dean Lewins/EPA

Updated

Overcoming racism will be a focus post referendum, Reconciliation Australia says

Melinda Cilento was asked about where to from here, and put the brakes on.

I think what we need to do is to allow this moment of grieving. Then we’ve got to allow people to regroup and continue to listen to our First Nations people about what they believe will improve their lives.

I think let’s wait and see, regroup, but for us at Reconciliation, our work, particularly in terms of ensuring the voices are heard and tackling some of the other challenges, including trying to overcome racism, will be our focus.

Co-chair of Reconciliation Australia, Melinda Cilento
Co-chair of Reconciliation Australia, Melinda Cilento, has spoken to ABC about the failed referendum. Photograph: Diego Fedele/AAP

Updated

We will continue to address ‘many dimensions’ of reconciliation, Reconciliation Australia says

Co-chair of Reconciliation Australia, Melinda Cilento spoke to the ABC this morning, about the future of reconciliation in this country. Last night, Prof Marcia Langton said reconciliation “is dead”.

Cilento says:

Obviously the result last night was very disappointment, we had hoped it would be a moment that would bring Australia together and that hasn’t proven the case.

On the issue of reconciliation, reconciliation means many things. Firstly it is about the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians and I think for those Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who saw this as an invitation for Australia to walk with them, the feeling of disappointment is obviously, and great grief is obviously, well understood.

For us at reconciliation there are a lot of dimensions … many dimensions… and we will continue our efforts to address those, including closing the gap and trying to find ways to educate people about the experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and our history and also of course to overcome racism. There is a broad agenda there. We will be redoubling our efforts.

Updated

The video team worked overtime to get you as many visuals on the referendum night as possible. Here was the first take once the night began to wind down.

Updated

New Zealand elects Christopher Luxon as new PM

New Zealand has a new government – and Peter Dutton was very quick off the mark in congratulating the new conservative prime minister.

Luxon is a former Air NZ chief – so I guess it’s acceptable for the corporate and political lines to be blurred when you agree with the politics.

Updated

The Australian government has also approved an initial $10m in humanitarian aid for citizens in Gaza. It’s to be distributed between the International Red Cross ($3m) and UN agencies ($7m). Israel has cut water and fuel supplies and announced that today it will cut internet.

Updated

We’ll also be bringing you an update on the repatriation flights for Australians in Israel, after the news last night that the Saturday flight couldn’t take off and the Sunday flight was also going to be delayed.

The government was working on “alternative” options, so we will keep you posted.

Updated

Warren Mundine sees no result as ‘voting to get things done’

The press conference immediately ended there.

Australians voted no, and to maintain the status quo which Warren Mundine has interpreted as ‘voting to get things done’.

The questions were in response to things Jacinta Price had just said. First, that Indigenous Australians voted no, where overwhelmingly they didn’t. And secondly, her comment about the ‘manipulation’ she believes occurs in remote NT communities, along with a comment about needing cameras in the booths. Which was completely without evidence.

And this is all in the context of the no side celebrating the referendum loss, at a private event away from the media, attended by guests which included Gina Rinehart.

Updated

No leaders: Senator Jacinta Price and Warren Mundine’s closing statements

You may notice the blog is a little different today – we have opened the same one as was running yesterday, so people can easily find out what they might have missed last night, if they switched off or went to bed.

But one of those moments I will draw your attention to is how the press conference with leading no campaigners Senator Jacinta Price and Warren Mundine ended.

Price was asked about her comments earlier in the evening, where she claimed Indigenous Australians had voted no.

That is not true. The poll booth results from areas with large Indigenous populations showed strong support for yes.

Asked what her expectation was for the remote booths in the NT, which will not have their votes counted for some time, Price said;

It will be interesting to see. One thing we do know is the way in which Indigenous people in remote communities are exploited for the purpose of somebody else’s agenda. I think we probably need to look at the way the AEC, the NTEC, conduct themselves when it comes to remote polling at elections, at referendums. I think we should take away those who come in with their how to votes, unions that come in and overpower vulnerable Aboriginal communities. There is a lot that goes on in remote communities that the rest of Australia doesn’t get to see. If we had cameras in those remote communities, at those polling booths, Australia would see what goes on in within those communities. There’s a lot of manipulation.

Price was pushed on what she was suggesting. “The AEC?”

And Warren Mundine immediately intervened by shouting at the journalists attempting to seek clarification on what Price herself had just said.

Mundine:

You know what, you know what, people are committing suicides in these communities. People are being raped and beaten and this is the questions you come up with!? Where’s it about getting results? Getting people, reducing suicide instead of this nonsense that you people carry on with. It’s about time!! We had a vote tonight that said Australians want to get things done. Well, stop talking about all this other nonsense and start talking about kids ... who are as young as nine and 10 who commit suicide in their communities and those kids who get raped and pillaged and people who haven’t got jobs, for god’s sake. Wake up to yourselves and start asking real questions and making governments accountable.

Leading no campaigners Senator Jacinta Price (left) and Warren Mundine (right)
Leading no campaigners Senator Jacinta Price and Warren Mundine speak at the no campaign reception in Brisbane, after Australians voted against an Indigenous voice in the country's constitution. Photograph: Jono Searle/EPA

Updated

Gina Rinehart attends Brisbane no campaign event

Eden Gillespie, one of our Queensland reporters, spotted mining magnate Gina Rinehart at the no campaign event in Brisbane last night.

Rinehart was there with friends, but did her best to avoid the media. One of her companions said:

Ms R is not comfortable with verbal comment.

Another of Rinehart’s companions described the mood of the no campaign event, which was kept separate from the media as “jubilant”.

Nationals leader David Littleproud said the referendum result meant that corporate Australia should ‘keep out of’ politics. We assume he did not mean Rinehart, one of Australia’s richest people, but only those companies which supported, yes.

Updated

Good morning

Welcome to our Sunday, 15 October blog.

I hope you got some sleep. You have Amy Remeikis with you for the first part of this morning, as we cover the immediate fall out from the failed referendum.

Mark Butler will be appearing on Sky.

Tanya Plibersek has ABC radio.

Richard Marles will be on Insiders.

That’s the government line up. We’ll see where the opposition ends up (we don’t have a list of their media movements)

Updated

Good night, thank you for being with us

Thank you to everyone who followed along with us tonight – and to WA, thank you for tuning in, despite knowing what was happening.

It’s very easy to turn away from your democracy, especially when it is disappointing – that so many stayed to watch, and to learn means a lot. Truly. It is a heartening note in a period where there hasn’t been a lot of them.

A very big thank you to the team for going above and beyond, as always. And to Mike Bowers who has driven more kilometres than I have taken breathes over these last few months.

And of course to our incredible First Nations journalists, not just at the Guardian (with massive respect and love to Lorena Allam, Sarah Collard and Laura Murphy-Oates) but to every Aboriginal and Torres Strait journalist who has been unable to look away because it was their job to bear witness, even when the load became untenable.

We owe a debt we can never repay.

On that note, please, take care of you. And those around you. Everyone is going to need a little kindness moving forward. And then it is straight back to work.

Updated

The voice was proposed to do just that – make governments more accountable.

It is also worth raising that the questions asked were in direct response to something Jacinta Nampijinpa Price had raised.

(The press conference ended very quickly after that)

Updated

Before we go, Eden Gillespie has reported from the Brisbane no campaign event where this exchange has occurred:

Q: Senator Price, could I clarify something. Prime minister Albanese said earlier tonight that Lockhart River, Mornington Island, Palm Island, those communities, which are majority Indigenous booths had overwhelmingly voted yes. Contrarily you made the point that the majority of Indigenous Australians had voted no. Could I just clarify, what is your expectation on the remote booths in the Northern Territory, the territory you represent, will they be a majority of yes or no vote?

Price: It will be interesting to see. One thing we do know is the way in which Indigenous people in remote communities are exploited for the purpose of somebody else’s agenda. I think we probably need to look at the way the AEC, the NTEC, conduct themselves when it comes to remote polling at elections, at referendums. I think we should take away those who come in with their how to votes, unions that come in and overpower vulnerable Aboriginal communities. There is a lot that goes on in remote communities that the rest of Australia doesn’t get to see. If we had cameras in those remote communities, at those polling booths, Australia would see what goes on in within those communities. There’s a lot of manipulation.

Q: What are you suggesting? The AEC?

Warren Mundine (shouting):

You know what, you know what, people are committing suicide in these communities. People are being raped and beaten and this is the questions you come up with!? Where’s it about getting results? Getting people, reducing suicide instead of this nonsense that you people carry on with. It’s about time!! We had a vote tonight that said Australians want to get things done. Well, stop talking about all this other nonsense and start talking about kids... who are as young as nine and 10 who commit suicide in their communities and those kids who get raped and pillaged and people who haven’t got jobs, for god’s sake. Wake up to yourselves and start asking real questions and making governments accountable.

Updated

It has been a long and brutal night for many people

But at the heart of all of this, are Indigenous people who have been pulled in all different directions by this campaign and emerged with nothing to show for it. The status quo, confirmed.

Worse, for those who had hoped and campaigned for yes, it was a rejection. A very modest ask – that Indigenous voices not be ignored no matter the government – declined. And conclusively.

The campaign was brutal, yes, but Australians ultimately sided with the no camp. There will be many reasons given for why in the coming weeks, months and years – an ill-timed referendum, a yes campaign caught unaware, the Coalition’s role in spreading misinformation about what the voice was about, the deliberate tearing down of a proposal by the alternative prime minister. But Australians, in every state, and across the nation, allowed themselves to be carried away by it.

There is a long way to go in this country. In truth telling. In reconciliation. In acknowledging our past. But it requires non-Indigenous Australians to listen. And act. Without immediately assuming it is a loss. That it’s divisive.

We will be back to cover the fallout from the referendum, but we will leave you with the final words of Indigenous affairs editor, Lorena Allam;

This denial, this history of forgetting, is the problem Australia still has to overcome.

Sunday is a day of reflection. So let’s reflect on the commitment by all of the First Nations advocates in our history who have given their entire lives to the betterment of their people. Some campaigners will be feeling heartbroken today, in despair over a result they fought so hard to avert. I pay my respects to them all. They have given it everything. We wish for your sake the result had been different, that you could rest knowing that you had made things better for your children, so that they wouldn’t have to struggle and go without like you did. We could not ask for more.

But also know that we will not let this drag us down. Like every other time we have been kicked to the curb by the colony, we will get up, we will show up and we will fight on.

Take care of you.

Updated

Along with the request for a week of silence, are rebukes like this to some of the government’s messaging:

Updated

And for the full story, Josh Butler has you covered

Here is how Paul Karp saw the Yes23 campaign event

As expected, WA looks like it is tracking no. And Victoria also looks like it will vote no.

Which means the referendum didn’t win a single state or the national vote.

Updated

Katharine Murphy has also written analysis:

Updated

And if you haven’t already, please read this analysis from our Indigenous affairs editor, Lorena Allam:

Updated

Poll results from areas with high Indigenous populations

We don’t know how Indigenous people voted in the referendum, but we do know that in areas with a high proportion of Indigenous people voters generally supported the voice.

My colleague Simon Jackman has estimated the proportion of each polling place catchment (based on voting at the 2022 election) that is Indigenous.

Based on this, the average yes vote at polling places where the estimated majority (> 50%) of voters were Indigenous was 63%.

This chart shows the yes vote at those polling locations:

Updated

Technical issues at AEC

The AEC have advised us that there are some technical issues with the feed of votes coming from their system. We haven’t had an update from the data feed for approximately 25 minutes, meaning our results won’t be updating until the issue is resolved.

Updated

Asked what should happen now, prof Watego says:

What needs to happen now, and I say this for us mob, is to use this as an opportunity to maybe come up with a different strategy when it comes to dealing with the violence of settler colonialism in this place, and maybe we retire hope and maybe we think about fighting on different grounds.

What’s been frustrating in the conversation here and what the prime minister reiterated tonight was that this is about Indigenous disadvantage.

The Blak sovereignty position has been focused on unique rights as First Nations peoples. I think we need to change the battleground here in terms of what we are fighting for.

We’re not fighting to be the problem to be solved, we are arguing for our unique rights as First Nations peoples, and we need to do more fighting and less hoping to achieve anything for our people.

And the one hopeful thing out of all of this, for me, is that this may reinvigorate a Black political movement across this country, where we are not appealing to the so-called radical centre, which effectively is the far right, and actually fighting on our terms for what we want, because the Australian people have shown us that even the most moderate concession, in which they have the ultimate power over us, they still don’t think we are deserving of.

Prof Chelsea Watego
Prof Chelsea Watego. Photograph: David Kelly/The Guardian

Updated

Prof Chelsea Watego has also spoken to the ABC and responded to the prime minister’s speech:

I think the prime minister’s words were particularly shameful. That wasn’t the leadership, I think, that a lot of Blackfellas had hoped for from him. I think the Blackfellas have been betrayed by the hope they had through this campaign, who invested their hearts and hopes in everyday Australians to recognise them, even with an advisory body with no power.

And the prime minister would say that this 58% majority that believe that Indigenous people shouldn’t have a voice to parliament doesn’t reflect a divided nation and the real divide is Close the Gap - those two issues are both related.

Everyday Australians believe that Indigenous peoples don’t deserve such a moderate concession. Our police officers, our teachers, our people that Blackfellas encounter every day in the world that we occupy, and it has material consequences for us. And it is disappointing that the prime minister couldn’t use this moment to actually tell the truth now about who we are as a nation.

We are not a nation of a fair go. Tonight we know it is a nation of a firm no to Blackfellas on anything in this place, and that’s shameful, and we should name it for what it is.

Updated

Professor Tom Calma also addressed some of what senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price had to say:

I heard what Senator Price said, and really I question it. In all the time when she was in Alice Springs on the town council, how many representations did she make to the Coalition government about addressing those issues in Alice Springs?

This gets down to a party political issue, and we are sick and tired of it as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people - of being the political football at the behest of what governments want to do and what they don’t want to do in Indigenous affairs.

‘We will never advance, we will never take the opportunities to really enjoy our full potential, while we are relying on political parties to show -- shove us around and be unstable. You just have to look back to the time that I put the Close the Gap in 2004.

We have sent nine prime ministers. What sort of stability do we have in our political system to advance Indigenous affairs when we are the only constant, the only ones are still working to try to advance our cause?

Updated

Greens senator Dorinda Cox has also responded:

I want to acknowledge the many First Nations Elders, mob and allies across this country who stayed strong and resilient in this fight, for generations. You led a national conversation this year that will change this country’s future for the better,” said Senator Cox.

There is formidable strength here. We cannot relent. We must use the momentum of this national conversation to keep fighting.

Dangerous rhetoric was amplified during the campaign, led by high-profile conservative figures like the opposition leader Peter Dutton. We could not have an honest conversation about First Nations justice in this campaign.

This nation needs to have an honest and informed discussion about its history so we can speak the truth, heal and move forward together. We need truth telling, as well as treaties built on the recognition of our inherent sovereignty.

The Greens are committed to the ongoing fight for transformative change; for justice, self-determination and Sovereignty through truth-telling and Treaty, implementation of UNDRIP, protecting Country, heritage, languages and culture.”

Updated

Greens leader Adam Bandt has responded to the result through a statement:

Today is a very hard day, and Greens MPs across the country share in the disappointment of this moment.

This outcome follows a Trumpian campaign of misinformation led by Peter Dutton. Peter Dutton’s Liberals ran a corrosive misinformation campaign that fuelled division and fear

The referendum campaign clearly demonstrates the need for truth telling about our history and the impact of colonisation on First Nations people.

To fully advance First Nations justice in this country, we need to work together to understand the truth about the past. We need to have honest conversations about our history, about the violence, the dispossession, and the systems and institutions that continue to disempower First Nations people today, so we can move forward together.

For those who are feeling a sense of loss, we say to you: the pathway to First Nations justice does not end today, and the Greens will not stop fighting.

The Greens secured money in the last Federal budget for a Makarrata Commission and we will be fighting to advance Truth and Treaty.”

Updated

Tom Calma on Peter Dutton's response

Prof Tom Calma is speaking to the ABC and asked about Peter Dutton’s response to the voice says:

I was very disappointed. I can recall in the referendum working group on two occasions Peter Dutton came to the group to hear our views, and he heard our views, and then he went outside to a prearranged press conference and didn’t reflect anything that he had heard inside the meeting.

So I have questions, I guess, as to how genuine he is in his statements and how accurate he is in the information that he has provided to the Australian population.

I’m also very critical of politicians who have been spreading a range of misinformation out there or distorting facts and issues to mislead the population. And that doesn’t bode well for us as a democracy and for us to have confidence in our politicians.

If they can’t be straight and give a clear answer. And I guess the other really interesting thing will be how much he will be on board, and the opposition will be on board, with anything that the government of the day might want to present in relation to advancing Indigenous affairs.

I could go back to 2008 with the National Apology, post the National Apology, there was the statement of intent on closing the gap that Kevin Rudd presented to the population. All the states and territories got behind it.

The opposition leader at the time was Brendan Nelson, and he got behind it. And anybody who has any interest in Indigenous affairs needs to just look at this statement of intent, where it talks very much about engaging with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, hearing us, involving us in policies and programs.

Just a little while later there was a change of government and all of a sudden that started to dissipate. And that’s probably one of the big issues and why a constitutional recognition was - or constitutional entrainment was so important: So we don’t need to be at the behest of the government of the day as to whether we will advance or go backwards when it comes to Indigenous affairs.

Tom Calma
Professor Tom Calma AO in January. Photograph: Martin Ollman/Getty Images

Updated

Calls grow for national week of silence

So far, the Central Land Council, Congress and the NSW Aboriginal Land Council are among the groups who have shared the statement calling for a national week of silence, given the referendum result.

Updated

Peter Dutton:

Clearly Australians will always reject a proposition which divided us into different categories.

But the voice did not do that. At all. And advisory bodies exist already for a range of interests, including the fossil fuel industry and big business – who are able to speak directly to government on policy which effects them.

Peter Dutton:

One of the great attributes of the Australian public is that we all see ourselves as equal. It doesn’t matter if you came six months ago as Jacinta and I have repeated as we have gone around the country, or 60 years ago, or 65,000 years of ancestry in this country. We are all equal Australians. I think the Australian public rejected the proposition to divide us on the basis of ancestry or race and that is a great thing for our country.

There was nothing about the voice proposition which separated Australians by race. Nothing. There was nothing in the voice proposition which elevated anyone above other Australians.

Updated

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price said this during her speech:

This referendum has yet been another one of those agendas, where it was suggested that 80% of Indigenous Australians supported this proposal, when we knew that that was not the case.

When I knew, having spoken to people throughout the Northern Territory, to Indigenous people from the Northern Territory and right across the country, particularly in my role as the shadow minister for Indigenous Australians, that a vast group of Indigenous Australians did not support the proposal.

But we have actual figures on that – not polling figures, but poll results. And overwhelmingly, in the booths where there were large Indigenous populations, the answer was yes.

I’ll bring those to you very soon.

Because the facts matter.

Updated

Peter Dutton takes some questions but says the same things he was saying during the campaign

The opposition leader Peter Dutton, and the shadow minister for Indigenous Australians, Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price address the media.
The opposition leader Peter Dutton, and the shadow minister for Indigenous Australians, Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price address the media. Photograph: Jono Searle/AAP

Updated

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price finishes with:

I look forward to the future. I realise that much work needs to be done for us to be brought together as a country because it has been such a challenging and heart-wrenching time for many Australians.

For those of you that voted yes, please no that we as a Coalition have always got the best interests of all Australians at heart. We want to make sure that we’re fighting for a better for all Australians.

But going forward, we need to prioritise where our most marginalised are. As I have always said, the gap doesn’t exist between Indigenous Australia and non-Indigenous Australia. It exists between our most marginalised who we know who’s first language isn’t English and live in remote communities, we need to focus our efforts to our marginalised exist.

As Peter said, no longer to listen to the voice of the activists pushing ideology onto us. The Australian people have said no to this. The Australian people want practical outcomes, a unified country where we can move forward together. Once again, I want to thank the Australian people for delivering this result. We hear you loud and clear.

Updated

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price:

For me, my family, we experienced three funerals yesterday. For me, my family is still sitting in communities where largely they have been exploited for the purpose of someone else’s agenda.

This referendum has yet been another one of those agendas, where it was suggested that 80% of Indigenous Australians supported this proposal, when we knew that that was not the case.

When I knew, having spoken to people throughout the Northern Territory, to Indigenous people from the Northern Territory and right across the country, particularly in my role as the shadow minister for Indigenous Australians, that a vast group of Indigenous Australians did not support the proposal.

And it has been a shame that throughout the campaign that we have been accused of misleading this country through this information and misinformation, when it was a campaign of no information whatsoever. And that we called out where the Australian people were being misled, whether it was the claim that 80% of Indigenous Australian supposedly supported this when we know that they didn’t, when it was the claim that this was just a simple advisory body, when the word “Advice”, “Advisory” - “Advisory” didn’t even appear.

This is why the Australian people decided to vote no to this proposal.

Updated

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price:

I am grateful for my family’s support throughout this campaign. My wonderful husband, Colin, our sons, my parents. They taught me to stand up for those who are disenfranchised, those who are voiceless, to be a warrior for them.

I want to thank Matthew Cherian, Stephen Doyle, the Fair Australia campaign. I want to thank my colleagues, the leadership of Peter Dutton, David Littleproud, the Nationals for coming out and drawing a line in the sand and saying “no” to this proposal early in the peace so that Australians could understand that it was OK, OK to recognise that this was a bad proposal - a proposal that the prime minister failed to provide detail on.

When we kept asking questions, we were receiving any answers whatsoever. We could not be shown with any clarity or it could not be demonstrated how this proposal was supposed to support our most marginalised Indigenous Australians. Those who belong to some of my close family members.

Updated

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price:

Firstly, I want to thank the Australian people for believing in our nation, in our great nation, and the goodwill of this country in understanding that the vast majority of Australians want what’s best for each and every of us, including our most marginalised Indigenous Australians.

The Australian people have overwhelmingly voted saying no to the referendum.

They have said No division without our constitution along the lines of race.

They have said No to the yes gaslighting, bullying, to the manipulation. They have said no to grievance and the push from activists to suggest that we are a racist country when we are absolutely not a racist country. We are one of the if not the greatest nation on the face of the earth.

And it is time for Australians to believe that once again, to be proud to call ourselves Australian. Because until we can be proud, we can’t form a position where we are strong enough to tackle the big issues in our country.

Updated

Peter Dutton finishes with:

The prime minister has been consumed by this referendum and they are focused on the wrong priorities*. Now, as I say, we do need to turn the page. To unite and to address the many challenges facing our country.

I want to thank all Australians who have participated in this debate.

We are the greatest country in the world, and we need to continue to make sure that that is the case, to never have complacency and always stand up for our values and what we believe in, and show the strength of character and leadership to deal with those threats that our country faces now and into the future. I will ask Jacinta to say a few words and then we are very happy to take questions.

*Earlier this week, Dutton had said that the prime minister was both obsessed with the voice and then also not focussed on the voice enough.

Updated

Peter Dutton:

That needs to be the prime minister’s priority now. We need to give young Australians hope that they can buy their own home. We need to fix the mess of the energy policy so that we can deliver electricity that is affordable and reliable as well as clean.

We need to support, not to oppose, our small businesses, and boosting our national security to prepare Australia for a very uncertain world.

Importantly, we must also redouble our efforts to improve outcomes for Indigenous Australians in those disadvantaged communities and to close the gap.

That includes an urgent need to boost law and order, to increase school attendance and employment at many remote communities.

And that means listening less to activists and more to people in those communities* and those who championed them, including senators Kerrynne Liddle and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. They are amazing Australians.

*That is what the voice proposed to do

Updated

Peter Dutton continues:

I wrote to the prime minister in January this year asking 15 basic questions, still no answers*.

So people from all sides of this debate are rightly and understandably disappointed with the prime minister. He has held the pen of this definitive chapter in our nation’s history, and if he has any strength in his leadership, he must take responsibility for it.

I also want to speak tonight specifically to Indigenous Australians. Like all Australians, some of you will have voted yes and some of you will have voted no.

Those of you who voted yes will be hurting. To Indigenous Australians contending with difficulty and disadvantage, I will do my utmost to lead with courage and to do with his right to implement the practical solutions required to improve outcomes and close the gap.

So tonight I again commit the Coalition to implementing the royal commission into child sexual abuse in Indigenous communities and an audit into spending on Indigenous program so that we can get the money where it is needed- to those families in regional and remote areas.

As the leader of the opposition, I believe that we need to come together to tackle challenges, to help families struggling with the cost of living.

*The questions were answered, the detail was there.

Updated

Peter Dutton:

At all times in this debate, I have levelled my criticism at what I consider to have been a bad idea - to divide Australians based on their heritage or the time at which they came to our country. *

The Coalition, all Australians, wants to see Indigenous disadvantage addressed. We just disagree on the voice being the solution.

And while yes and no voters may hold differences of opinion, these opinions of difference do not diminish a love for our country or our regard for each other. This is the referendum that Australia did not need to have. The proposal and the process should have been designed to unite Australians, not to divide us.

What we’ve seen tonight is Australians literally in their millions reject the prime minister’s defensive referendum. The prime minister clearly was not across the detail, and he refused to explain or answer reasonable questions from Australians.

*The voice did not divide people based on heritage or when they came to the country.

Updated

Peter Dutton:

All of us know people who have voted yes and people who voted no, but to those of you who voted yes, let me say these few words. As the leader of the Coalition, who has supported the no campaign, while I disagree with your position, I respect your decision to have voted yes.

Peter Dutton addresses the referendum result

The opposition leader is speaking on the result and is now calling for unity.

It is clear, obviously, that the referendum has not been successful, and I think that is good for our country. I want to say a very special thank you tonight to Jacinta, to Warren Mundine, no one is owed more gratitude than each of these individuals. They have led the no case, they have suffered through deeply personal and offensive attacks.

I want to say thank you very much to David Littleproud and all of my Coalition colleagues. The no campaign was led by Fair Australia’s match Ian, and I think them sincerely.

While the majority of Australians will be pleased with the outcome, there will be Australians who will be disappointed as well -

This result does not divide us as a people. What matters is that we all accept the result in this great spirit of our democracy.

Updated

We have this from Guardian Australia’s video team:

Updated

It ends with:

We will not rest long. Pack up the Uluru Statement from the Heart. Fly our flags low. Talk not of recognition and reconciliation. Only of justice and the rights of our people in our own country.

Things that no one else can gift us, but to which we are entitled by fact that this is the country of our birth and inheritance.

Re-gather our strength and resolve, and when we determine a new direction for justice and our rights, let us once again unite. Let us convene in due course to carefully consider our path forward.

We are calling A Week of Silence from tonight (Saturday 14th October) to grieve this outcome and reflect on its meaning and significance. We will not be commenting further on the result at this time.

We will be lowering our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags to half-mast for the week of silence to acknowledge this result. We ask others to do the same.

Updated

It continues:

Our deep chagrin at this result does not in any way diminish our pride and gratefulness for the stand they had the moral courage to take in this cause now lost. We know we have them by our side in the ongoing cause for justice and fairness in our own land.

Now is not the time to dissect the reasons for this tragic outcome. This will be done in the weeks, years and decades to come. Now is the time for silence, to mourn and deeply consider the consequence of this outcome.

Much will be asked about the role of racism and prejudice against Indigenous people in this result. The only thing we ask is that each and every Australian who voted in this election reflect hard on this question.

To our people we say: do not shed tears. This rejection was never for others to issue. The truth is that rejection was always ours to determine. The truth is that we offered this recognition and it has been refused. We now know where we stand in this our own country.

Always was. Always will be.

Updated

That statement continues:

For more than six years, we have explained to our nation why the Voice was our great hope to achieve real change for our families and communities.

To the Australians who supported us in this vote – we thank you sincerely. You comprise many millions of Australians of love and goodwill. We know you wanted a better future for Australia, and to put the colonial past behind us by choosing belated recognition and justice.

We thank the prime minister and his government for having the conviction to take this referendum to the Australian people at our request. We thank him for his advocacy and all parliamentarians who did the same, including members of the Teals, Greens, Nationals and independents who stood by us.

We pay particular respect to the Liberal parliamentarians who bravely advocated for the voice.

We also thank our fellow Australians from all sectors of the community, including multicultural, faith, professional, business, creative and sporting organisations. To the hundreds of thousands who took to the streets, knocked on doors and made over a million phone calls, thank you for your love and support.

Updated

Calls for a national week of silence

There are no names on this statement –we are working to find out who is in support, but there are calls for a national week of silenceafter the referendum result.

The statement, which includes members of Yes23 and the some signatories of the Uluru statement from the heart (not yet confirmed who) says

Recognition in the constitution of the descendants of the original and continuing owners of Australia would have been a great advance for Australians. Alas, the majority have rejected it.

This is a bitter irony. That people who have only been on this continent for 235 years would refuse to recognise those whose home this land has been for 60,000 and more years is beyond reason.

It was never in the gift of these newcomers to refuse recognition to the true owners of Australia. The referendum was a chance for newcomers to show a long-refused grace and gratitude and to acknowledge that the brutal dispossession of our people underwrote their every advantage in this country.

Updated

There were still questions being asked, but Anthony Albanese left the room.

PM concludes press conference with Churchill quote on 'courage to continue'

Anthony Albanese finished with:

I am reminded of one of my favourite Churchill quotes, and there are quite a few good ones, ‘Success is not final - failure is not fatal - it is the courage to continue that counts.’

We intend is a government to continue to do what we can to close the gap, to do what we can, to advance reconciliation, to do what we can to listen to the first Australians.

Thank you very much.

Updated

Q: Prime minister, referendums are about community and deciding as a country what would the best route is moving forward. As prime minister, how do you reconcile the fact that your personal views and the views of most of your party aren’t aligned with the majority of Australians?

Anthony Albanese:

We accept the result. We accept the outcome. We had a referendum that we put forward. We know that this arose from a request made in 2017 through the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

I wasn’t prime minister in 2017. But we had waited, Indigenous Australians had waited, for a long period of time for a government to have the conviction to put this to the Australian people.

My predecessor was promised support from the Labor party if the Morrison government fulfilled that and took it forward to a referendum. They chose not to do so. As is their right. We chose to do so, and there wasn’t, during the campaign, as well, there isn’t a single occasion in which all of the Indigenous people that I have spent time with, who has been my honour to spend time with, not once at Garma, at Uluru, not once did anyone say ‘hang on can we kick this can down the road, further?’

There are people involved who stood on this stage with me in March who spent a lifetime on this. A lifetime struggling just to be recognised in our constitution. I had a duty as a conviction politician to put that to people.

Updated

Q: Prime minister, you came to office proposing other referenda, not in this term, but you have certainly mooted you might look at it next time, you have talked about a republic. What does this do for your plans other referendums, given that if you don’t get bipartisan support, you are saying that you are unlikely to put a referendum.

Anthony Albanese:

I made it very clear that this was the only referendum that I was proposing in this term. I made no commitments about any further referendums.

One of the things I did on election night, and I spoke about this today yesterday as well. I went through the range of commitments I made - cheaper child care, housing, national reconstruction fund and new industry, our climate policy. And this.

I have gone through and fulfilled all of them.

I am someone who believes that we need to restore faith in politics.

And one of the ways that we do that is by saying what we will do and then doing what we have said we would do. That is what we have done tonight. And I make no apologies for that.

Updated

Anthony Albanese continues that answer:

You know, the Reserve Bank can rest easy now that they won’t be getting advice on interest rates before the next meeting. That was some of the things that were discussed. There are a range of reasons.

A change in the constitution is hard. I said, when I announced it, I stood here and said “it’s hard, there are no guarantees of success.” We knew that was the case. But we also knew that Prime minister John Howard promised to have a referendum on recognition, that Scott Morrison prior to 2019, promised to have a referendum on recognition.

I was there in 2019 at the Garma Festival with Ken Wyatt, who I have total respect for, who stood there and gave, just as I did after the 2022 election, there was a speech at Garma saying we would advance this.

We promised to accept the graceful invitation of first Australians to put this to the Australian people. We did that. We campaigned for it. We did that with integrity in principle but we were unsuccessful. And we respect that outcome.

Updated

Q: Prime minister, you said you believe Australians are a fair, compassionate, and courageous people and that “We are ready to take this step together?” Does that mean that Australians aren’t compassionate, fair, and courageous?

Anthony Albanese:

I think Australians are fair and compassionate. I think during the campaign we have had a clear proposition of just two things - recognition and a non-binding advisory committee.

We have had, including in outlets represented in this room, discussions about a range of things that were nothing to do with what was on the ballot paper tonight. You all know that that has occurred. Debates about the length of the Uluru Statement from the Heart that no-one serious, in this room - does anyone in this room think that it was more that it was?

But we had pages and pages and weeks and weeks dominated which those issues.

So for many people it became an issue in which they were receiving a range of information.

Updated

Q: Prime minister, in light of what you have just said, the first words out of your mouth as prime minister was a commitment to the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full. Is that still Labor’s commitment?

Anthony Albanese:

We just had a referendum. We had a referendum and it wasn’t successful.

I respect the outcome.

Updated

Q: Prime minister, eight months ago you stood on the stage and said you want to change the country. A lot of Indigenous Australians will be disappointed with the result. What can be done to improve outcomes in the short term and to ensure that reconciliation isn’t in setback with some of the comments of the yes campaign?

Anthony Albanese:

We will continue to listen and we will engage with those Indigenous Australians, treating them with respect.

Tonight will be a difficult night for many Indigenous Australians. Overwhelmingly, if you look at the Indigenous dominated booths in places like Lockhart River, Palm Island, Mornington Island, the mobile polling booths aren’t yet in from the Northern Territory, overwhelmingly they voted yes in the referendum.

Tonight is not a time to say “Oh, well, we will move on, and here is the next agenda.” The agenda will be guided by the principles that I put forward consistently - engagement, consultation, listening, progress to close the gap.

Updated

Anthony Albanese starts taking questions.

Q: Prime Minister, why do you think Australians voted no?

Albanese:

The analysis will go on for some time. But no referendum has exhibited without bipartisan support. None.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at a press conference in the Blue Room of Parliament House in Canberra this evening after losing the Voice Referendum.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at a press conference in the Blue Room of Parliament House in Canberra this evening after losing the Voice Referendum. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Updated

Linda Burney finishes with:

We need to keep listening to Indigenous Australians about what works and what can make practical differences for the next generation, because we all want what’s best for our children. We all want our children and grandchildren to have a better future.

Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney delivers a statement on the outcome of the Voice Referendum at Parliament House.
Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney delivers a statement on the outcome of the Voice Referendum at Parliament House. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Updated

Linda Burney becomes emotional as she says:

And to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, I want to say this: I know the last few months have been tough, but be proud of who you are. Be proud of your identity.

Be proud of the 65,000 years of history and culture that you are part of, and your rightful place in this country. We will carry on, and we will move forward, and we will thrive.

This is not the end of reconciliation, and in the months ahead, I will have more to say about our government’s renewed commitment to closing the gap, because we all agree we need better outcomes for First Nations people.

Updated

Linda Burney:

I will never forget that day in September when some 200,000 Australians walked together for yes right across this country. I know this outcome will be hard for some, but achieving progress is never easy, and progress doesn’t always move in a straight line.

There are breakthroughs and heartbreaks, but I am confident that because of this campaign and the millions of conversations it has sparked, the renewed generation of Indigenous leaders will emerge. Young people like Sarah and Jakira, whom I met in Adelaide.

They are stepping up and carrying the flame. That something good will come from shining a light on the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

Linda Burney:

I could not be more proud of people like Gloria and Clive, and the tens of thousands of yes volunteers who worked so hard for recognition. You are truly, truly inspirational. The Yes23 campaign, the Uluru Dialogues, and of course the Prime Minister and my parliamentary colleagues, thank you all so much.

Linda Burney continues:

Tonight I am reminded of a special couple, auntie Gloria and uncle Clive. Their story tells us so much about our country. They are 90 and 93 years of age. Gloria is Aboriginal, Clive is not Aboriginal. They married in 1953, at a time in our history when their union was not accepted. They have seen a lot in life, the ups and downs, the best and the worst.

They’ve experienced the joy of a shared life and raising a family, and they’ve experienced discrimination and the awful scourge of racism. But they always got through it with an open heart, with the strength of their family and community.

Their lives show us how far we’ve come and how far we will still have to go in this country.

There is a common bond, and that we are stronger together. Gloria and Clive voted yes in this referendum because they wanted to see a better future for their children and grandchildren.

Gloria and Clive won’t give up on a better future, and neither will we.

Linda Burney:

For many, today is a day of sadness. This result is not what we hoped for. The Australian people have had their say, and a clear majority have voted against the proposed change to the constitution.

We, of course, except the decision of the Australian people.

Anthony Albanese finishes with:

The historic fact that Australia’s story is 65,000 years old remains a source of national pride and remains a fact. From tomorrow, we will continue to write the next chapter in that great Australian story, and we will write it together.

And reconciliation must be a part of that chapter.

He then hands the podium over to Linda Burney.

Updated

Anthony Albanese:

Constitutional change may not have happened tonight, but change has happened in our great nation. Respect and recognition is given at events. The fullness of our history has begun to be told. Maintain your hope and know that you are loved. My fellow Australians, our nation’s road to reconciliation has often been hard going, climbs steep, the ground uncertain, the headwinds powerful, the way forward difficult to navigate. But through the decades there have been hard moments, moments of hard-won progress as well.

That’s why I say tonight is not the end of the road and is certainly not the end of our efforts to bring people together.

The issues we sought to address have not gone away, and neither have the people of goodwill and good heart who want to address them.

And address them we will, with hope in our heart, with faith in each other, with kindness towards each other, walking together in a spirit of unity and healing, walking together for a better future for the first Australians, whose generosity of spirit and resilience intensifies the privilege that all Australians have of sharing this consonant with the oldest continuous culture on earth.

Updated

Prime minister says 'result will be very hard to bear' for many Indigenous people

Anthony Albanese:

Tonight, I want to recognise that for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, this campaign has been a heavy weight to carry and this result will be very hard to bear.

So many remarkable Indigenous Australians have put their heart and soul into this cause, not just over the past few weeks and months but through decades, indeed lifetimes, of advocacy.

I have been honoured and humbled to stand by you and witness your extraordinary courage and grace, your great love for our country and your deep faith in our people, none less than my friend standing with me here today. [Linda Burney]

You continue to inspire me and make me prouder than ever to be Australian. I have never been as proud to be Australian as when I sat in the red dirt at Uluru with those wonderful women. I have made lifetime friends, and for that I am grateful.

Updated

Anthony Albanese:

Our government will continue to listen to people and to communities. Our government will continue to seek better outcomes for Indigenous Australians and their children and generations to come. This is not only in the interests of Indigenous Australians. It is in the of all Australians to build a better future for our nation.

The prime minister continues:

I supported recognition through a voice because this was the vehicle that Indigenous Australians believed could change this. This was the change they asked for at the First Nations constitutional convention at Uluru in 2017, after a process that involved hundreds of meetings and thousands of people.

And I want to make it clear: I believed it was the right thing to do, and I will always stand up for my beliefs.

It’s now up to all of us to come together and find a different way to the same reconciled destination. I am optimistic that we can, and indeed that we must.

There is a new national awareness of these questions. Let us channel that into a new sense of national purpose to find the answers.

The proposition we advanced at this referendum was about listening to people in order to get better outcomes, and these principles are what will continue to guide me as Australia’s 31st prime minister.

Updated

Anthony Albanese:

Let us hold onto that truth, because a great nation like ours can and must do better for the first Australians.

And while there has been talk in recent times about division, let us now co-operate to address the real division. The real division is one of disadvantage - the division that is the gap between Indigenous and nonindigenous Australians in life expectancy, in educational opportunity, in rates of suicide and disease.

The gap that separates Indigenous Australians from the right to make a good life for themselves.

Anthony Albanese:

In that spirit, just as I offered many times to co-operate with people from across the political spectrum on the next steps in the event of a yes victory, I renew that offer of cooperation tonight.

Because this moment of disagreement does not define us, and it will not divide us.

We are not yes voters or no voters.

We are all Australians, and it is as Australians, together, that we must take our country beyond this debate without forgetting why we had it in the first place.

Because too often in the life of our nation and in the political conversation, the disadvantage confronting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people has been relegated to the margins.

This referendum and my government has put it right at the centre.

All of us have been asked to imagine what it would be like to walk on someone else’s shoes, and we’ve been challenged to examine decades of failure from both sides of politics, despite all of the good intentions in the world.

Indeed, those arguing against a change to the constitution were not arguing for the status quo, because no-one could say that more of the same is good enough for Australia.

Anthony Albanese continues:

We have given Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people the fulfilment of their request that we take forward an idea that had been decades in the making, and we would give the Australian people the opportunity to decide for themselves.

We have kept that promise. We have given our all.

We argued for this change not out of convenience but from conviction, because that’s what people deserve from their government. And of course, when you do the hard things, when you aim high, sometimes you fall short.

And tonight we acknowledge, understand and respect that we have.

As prime minister, I will always accept responsibility for the decisions I have taken, and I do so tonight.

But I do want Australians to know that I will always be ambitious for our country, ambitious for us to be the very best version of ourselves.

I will always be optimistic for what we can achieve together.

Updated

Anthony Albanese:

My fellow Australians, the first time I spoke to you as prime minister of this nation, I repeated a commitment I had given many times before as Labor leader.

I promised that our government would seek to implement the Uluru Statement from the Heart. I gave my word to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders and elders who had poured their hopes and aspirations into that extraordinary statement.

I spoke to the people from all walks of life and all sides of politics, the people of every faith and background and tradition, who had embraced this cause. I promised our government would seek to answer the generous and gracious call of those 440 powerful words through a voice, recognition, enshrined in the constitution. I never imagined or indeed said that it would be easy. Very few things in public life worth doing are. Nor could I guarantee the referendum would succeed. History told us that only eight out of 44 had done so.

What I could promise was that we would go all in, that we would try, and we have.

Updated

Anthony Albanese:

When we reflect on everything happening in the world today, we can all give thanks that here in Australia we make the big decisions peacefully and as equals, with one vote, one value.

And I say to the millions of Australians all over our great country who voted yes with hope and goodwill, the people who volunteered with such energy and enthusiasm, many of whom were taking part in their first-ever campaign, that just as the Uluru Statement from the Heart was an invitation extended with humility, grace and optimism for the future, tonight we must meet this result with the same grace and humility.

And tomorrow we must seek a new way forward with the same optimism.

Anthony Albanese opens by saying he accepts the vote

You wouldn’t think that is important, but given *everything* it is – it is an immediate acknowledgement of where the vote landed:

My fellow Australians, at the outset, I want to say that while tonight’s result is not one that I had hoped for, I absolutely respect the decision of the Australian people and the democratic process that has delivered it.

Updated

Polls have closed in WA.

The prime minister is addressing the result from the Blue Room in parliament house

Deputy prime minister Richard Marles has stood by Anthony Albanese in the face of the referendum’s defeat.

Marles, speaking to Sky News, was asked if the result damages Albanese’s prime ministership.

Marles said:

I don’t accept that at all … What this shows is that we do what we say we’re going to do.

We went to the election in 2022 saying that we would take this to the Australian people, and that’s what we’ve done. And we’ve given people an opportunity to have their say, and today they’ve had their say.

I think what people have seen in the prime minister is both a person who’s stuck by his word, even when it was challenging, so to make sure that we did do this referendum, but also, I think they’ve seen a person who obviously speaks to his conviction.”

Richard Marles
Deputy PM Richard Marles during question time. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Updated

There are five minutes to the WA polls closing, where we will then start to receive the picture of the entire nation.

But at this stage, every state has voted no. The national vote is also a no

Yes23 have released its official statement:

It is a tough night for a lot of our readers

A reminder – you are not alone.

And if you need to speak to someone, please do so:

13YARN (13 92 76)

Lifeline 13 11 14

Updated

Over on SBS, Prof Marcia Langton had some very straight talk:

It’s very clear that reconciliation is dead. A majority of Australians have said no to an invitation from Indigenous Australia, with a minimal proposition, to give us a bare say in matters that affect our lives, advice that doesn’t need to be taken by the parliament.

And a proposition that the vast majority of retired high court judges and constitutional experts affirmed as being constitutionally safe, sound, and moreover, elegant and practical.

I think the no campaigners have a lot to answer for in poisoning Australia against this proposition and against Indigenous Australia.

Marcia Langton
Prof Marcia Langton addressing the National Press Club in September. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

Updated

The prime minister is expected to speak after 9pm (AEDT) which is when the WA polling booths close.

He is in Canberra and it looks like he’ll be speaking from parliament.

Dean Parkin thanked Anthony Albanese for his commitment to hold the referendum “where other leaders have shrunk from the challenge”.

While political leaders make promises “very few carry them through to the end, very few are willing to invest their own political capital in support of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians rather than general political capital off our backs”, he said.

Parkin said that Albanese will not be one of those political leaders who leave the parliament “only to lament how they did not do enough in their time to support the cause of the Indigenous people of this country”.

Parkin also thanked minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, members of the crossbench, and a “special thank you to those incredibly courageous Liberal and National members of parliament” who “stood on points of principle” against the status quo of their party positions. This courage and bravery “will always be remembered” and treasured”.

Parkin is choking up and holding back tears with deep breaths as he addresses Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander brothers and sisters.

He said:

This campaign has always been in service to you. It has always been guided by your leadership. It has always been guided by the tremendous need from our people across this country, that remains today, and remains tomorrow and remains the outstanding business of this country.”

Dean Parkin in a vote yes t-shirt
Yes23 spokesperson Dean Parkin in Brisbane on Tuesday. Photograph: Darren England/AAP

Updated

Elias Visontay is watching Sky News and reports:

Tony Abbott has credited Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Warren Mundine’s prominence with the no campaign as key to the referendum’s defeat.

This is the referendum that Australia should never had to have. It was always a terrible mistake on a subject as sensitive as this, for the prime minister to put something to the people that was always likely to fail. And what’s happened tonight is that the Australian people have voted for equality and against separatism. And that’s the right thing that the people have done.

The fact that the no campaign was led by two magnificent Australian heroes who happened to be Indigenous, Jacinta Price and Warren Munine, is one of the very big reasons why the country has voted as it did.


Abbott also repeated the false claim that the voice would have been a third chamber of parliament. He said:

This was a big change in the way we govern that’s been rejected tonight. Aboriginal people haven’t been rejected tonight. It’s a radical power grab by an activist class. That’s what’s been rejected tonight. So I would certainly say to any Aboriginal person who’s feeling disappointed, you have not been rejected. What’s been rejected is a proposal that never should have been put.

It wasn’t about recognising you. It was about changing our system of government. And what we need to do now is focus on bringing Aboriginal people or giving Aboriginal people far more ability to enter the Australian mainstream. We’ve got to get the kids to school, get the adults to work. We’ve got to keep the community safe, particularly in remote Australia, because that’s where the dreadful disadvantage that all us want to end predominates.

Updated

Paul Karp reports the campaign director, Dean Parkin, is addressing the yes campaign event.

Parkin said:

This is a very difficult result. This is a hard result ... This is not the result that we were seeking. I want to speak very directly to those Australians who have voted no with hardness in your hearts. Understand that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have never wanted to take anything from you ... All we wanted to do was to join with you, our Indigenous story, our Indigenous culture. Not to take away or diminish what it is that you have but to add to it, to strengthen [it], to enrich it.”

Parkin said the campaign did “all we could” to alleviate the doubts that some had, but it is clear from the result the campaign was “not able to reach you and cut through what has been the single largest misinformation campaign that this country has ever seen”.

Parkin said that political leaders who had opposed the Voice have a “solemn responsibility to join with everybody and help bring this country back together”.

He said:

It’s not enough to say that you were against division. You now have a solemn responsibility to back up those words ... When parliament sits next week in Canberra, it is time to put the cudgels down. It is time to stop treating our issue as a political football, as it has all too often.”

Supporters of Yes vote reacts after listening to the results at a
Supporters of Yes vote reacts after listening to the results at a "Yes2023 Official Referendum Function" in Sydney. Photograph: Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

There are nine polling places where the surrounding population is largely Indigenous which have reported in Queensland –but in those nine, Yes has seven booths – the average across the vote is 65-35 to yes.

Elias Visontay also reports that foreign affairs minister Penny Wong has said the nation needs to heal.

Wong told Sky News from Adelaide:

I think we do need to work together and leaders need to bring people together, we need to heal. And I know that the prime minister Albanese will be very focused on making sure he does everything he can to bring Australia together. We remember that we might be yes voters and no voters, but ultimately, we’re all Australians.”

Wong rejected the idea that the government should have tried harder to get bipartisan support for the Voice from the Coalition.

I think there was a lot of focus on trying to bring the coalition with us and previous liberal leaders have given this bipartisan support and Mr. Dutton decided that he could do better politically if he didn’t give this bipartisan support.”

Meanwhile, Tony Abbott has described Peter Dutton as “very courageous” for maintaining his opposition to the voice.

The former prime minister told Sky News:

Peter Dutton was very courageous … over this. There were many people who said that the polls were with the voice and he should have just gone with the flow. But he said, no, the voice is wrong in principle, and it would be bad in practice and the job of the opposition is not to go along with something that is against the long-term national interests.

The job of the opposition is often to say no and saying no to the divisive voice was, as we’ve often said, saying yes to constitutional equality.”

Updated

Wong cites volatile situation in postponement of repatriation flights from Israel

The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, has spoken about the government’s repatriation flights from Israel to Dubai which it has had to cancel.

This is, I know, very distressing news and I spent a lot of time on the phones today to see if there was any way we could find alternatives and I understand how distressing that is so painful.

Unfortunately, these fights were not able to proceed as we had originally hoped. The situation on the ground is obviously very volatile, and it is changing rapidly. We have obviously a crisis response team on the ground from Dfat and other agencies.

We are engaging with Australians in both Israel but also in Gaza who have registered and I again remind people to please register (with Dfat). Please stay in communication and please ensure that you keep yourself apprised of any developments. We will continue to contact you as we can and we will keep working to try and ensure additional flights.”


Wong said more than 800 Australians have now left Israel since the war broke out, including on Qantas flights to London.

But I know that there are many more people who are seeking to leave and I can assure you that the government and officials are working as hard as they can …so we can to arrange flights and to get flights in.”

Penny Wong
The foreign minister, Penny Wong. Photograph: Aaron Francis/AAP

Updated

I’m keeping across NITV and SBS’s coverage of the Indigenous voice:

The Point program is digesting the majority no vote returned, with panelists leading yes campaigner and voice architect, Marcia Langton, Nova Peris, former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce and the minister for social services, Amanda Rishworth, Tasmanian Liberal senator Bridget Archer.

Hosted by JP Janke and Narelda Jacobs, Marcia Langton says she wants to see the “final numbers” but said the no vote returned was “a sad moment in the country’s history”.

Langton said that as the advisory body on First Nations issues was rejected by the majority of the country, she believes this has put reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia backwards.

It will be at least two generations before Australians are capable of putting their colonial hatreds behind them and acknowledging that we exist.

An emotional Nova Peris said she doesn’t believe that she will live long enough to see Indigenous people recognised in the country’s constitution.

It’s gut wrenching, it makes me sick, it’s a really sad indictment... Australia has pulled the shutters down and said we choose not to see you, we choose not to hear you, we won’t give you a voice you’ve been asking for.

Joyce said it’s about coming together tomorrow: “to mend bridges, and it has been incredibly divisive... I don’t believe it’s a form of colonial hatred, we could have done this so much better and got something through.

Updated

Victoria may be only state to vote yes

The only state (outside of WA, where polls have not closed as yet, but were a projected no) that looks like a chance of voting yes is Victoria – and that is very, very tight.

Queensland, NSW, SA and Tasmania – are noes.

Updated

Queensland projected to vote no

Back to the referendum and our political analyst, Simon Jackman, is projecting a no win in Queensland. With 13% of the vote counted, the current breakdown is 33% for yes and 66% for no. He is predicting a final yes vote of around 35%.

Updated

Israel repatriation flights will not be departing today, or tomorrow: DFAT

Breaking out of referendum coverage for a moment –the department of foreign affairs and trade has just posted this on its Smart Traveller social media sites – the Israel repatriation flights will not be departing today, or tomorrow.

The situation is highly challenging and rapidly changing. Unfortunately, we have been advised our scheduled flights will not depart Israel today. A further flight will not depart as scheduled tomorrow.

The Australian Government is working to ensure Australians who want to leave can do so as soon as possible. We will communicate to registered Australians about next available flights.

Australians in Israel or the Occupied Palestinian Territories should register via https://crisis.dfat.gov.au/crisisportal/s/ or by calling the 24-hour Consular Emergency Centre on +61 2 6261 3305 (from overseas) or 1300 555 135 (from Australia)

Updated

Tanya Hosch has told the ABC how she sees the path forward after the referendum failed:

I think the dialogue that we have to have with each other means that we can’t be doings that just from the perspective of being diminished by this result. We actually have to stand strong, and it might take some time to find that strength and the sets of words that we need to bring.

But one thing that is not changed by tonight is that we’re the first peoples of this country, that our enjoyment of justice and human rights in Australia, the levels of disadvantage, are not acceptable. So now we’re left with the status quo, and we’re left with a huge disappointment. But one of the things that we will know is that perhaps six to eight million Australians are with us on this journey now.

And we’re gonna have to stick together in the interest of moving this country forward in that truth telling that Lidia [Thorpe] referring to, that will be so important, and trying to move in a way that doesn’t lose the unity that has been achieved with some people for the first time in those large numbers.

We’re going to have to bring that together and maintain that, because that is going to be the strength of what enables us to move forward in a way that is constructive and actually means that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people do start to live like equals in their own country.

Tanya Hosch
Tanya Hosch in January 2021. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Updated

Thomas Mayo said he does not feel anger towards Australians at the result:

I home not angry at the Australian public. I think that the Australian public were ready for this. I disagree when people say that they weren’t. I disagree that this was a bad idea. Because I know that we needed that foundational change to be recognised. And to have a guaranteed representative body. Not politicians that purport to speak for us like the one that we have just heard. Not having political parties choose Indigenous people for us. But having us choose our leaders ourselves. We got that right.

I am not blaming the Australian people at all. But who I do blame and who I hope that the Australian people look very closely at the next time they have a say in this democracy about who our leadership is, I hope they look at who lied to the Australian people.

I think Albanese was courageous. I think he was empathetic. I think he genuinely wanted this change, and he has done the right thing by putting it to the people.

So it’s not his fault. It’s not the Australian people’s fault. It’s the people that have lied to us, to the Australian people, they are the Australian ones that we should be blaming.

Thomas Mayo speaking on stage
Thomas Mayo campaigning in Armidale, NSW, in August. Photograph: Dave Robinson/The Guardian

Updated

Liberal senator Andrew Bragg, who was also a part of the Liberals for Yes, has also released a statement.

He said he does not believe the result is the end of reconciliation or a vote against Indigenous people.

The government made three fateful decisions which hobbled the referendum by removing the centre ground:

  1. The refusal to establish a long running parliamentary inquiry into constitutional reform models;

  2. Not publishing an exposure draft of the Voice and its functions; and

  3. The failure to compromise.

Regrettably, these factors were consequential.

I feel for the Australians who believe in a grassroots structure for giving advice to the government on special laws and policies for Indigenous people. This has always been a good and fair idea. We should always listen to the grassroots.

The reality is Australia is a great country, but historically, we have not been a great country for Indigenous people.

Reconciliation of our nation must continue. We should work harder to listen to one another, find common ground and make compromises if we are to achieve the necessary changes.

The immediate task in the weeks and the months ahead will be to listen to Indigenous people.

For now, the nation is hurt and we have much to reflect upon.

Mundine credits defeat of referendum to campaigning to migrants

Warren Mundine, the leading no campaigner, has credited his side’s focusing on migrant communities for helping defeat the referendum.

Mundine spoke to Sky News, noting “some of them come from countries where they were second-class citizens” and were open to a message about the voice causing a divide.

We knew that the migrant community is 50% of Australia, either born overseas or their parents have been born overseas. We deliberately target that group.”

Mundine added:

We knew that through the polling and everything that one of the biggest issues was [people] wanted details. I’d say there’s a lot of people out there who wanted to vote yes, but they couldn’t because they wanted that detail. So it was a massive mistake by the government.

The other massive mistake was no partisan referendum ever got up and so they should have reached out to the opposition and sat down and had those conversations.”

Updated

Leading No campaigner Warren Mundine has said there will be no celebrations despite victory in Saturday’s referendum.

Mundine, speaking from the No event in Brisbane on Saturday night, told Sky News:

We made it quite clear from the beginning, it’s not a celebration. Sure people are happy because they worked really hard on the campaign and they were out there copping abuse and everything like that. But for us, it’s about tomorrow.

We’ll have a beer or a lemon squash or whatever and smile and be happy. But there’ll be no dancing, there’ll be no bands, there’ll be no Johnny Farnham or anyone else

We’re focusing on tomorrow. We got to reach out to the yes campaign, we’ve got to reach out to those Australians who didn’t vote for us. ..and come together because we’ve got to fix these issues once and for all.”

Leading No campaigner Warren Mundine is interviewed in Brisbane while waiting for the results of the referendum.
Leading no campaigner Warren Mundine is interviewed in Brisbane. Photograph: Patrick Hamilton/AFP PHOTO/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

Liberal senator Kerrynne Liddle says the expected No result is not a rejection of reconciliation, instead blaming the failure of the referendum on a “flawed process”.

Liddle, the senator from South Australia, said voters had separated the referendum question into two questions - one of Indigenous recognition, and one about the voice.

[Voters] didn’t say no to reconciliation. They did not say No to improving the lives of Indigenous Australians. I have not heard that in all of the discussions I have had since becoming a Member of Parliament just over 12 months ago. This was about a flawed process,” she told the ABC.

This was about a process that didn’t consider that the Australian constitution is a representation of all Australians equally and there should have been a conversation with the Australian public before putting such a divisive, unknown, risky proposition and permanent proposition to the Australian people.”

At this point in the count it looks like all states are trending towards a no vote (polls have not closed in WA as yet)

The popular vote also looks like struggling above 50%

Julian Leeser continues:

To every Indigenous Australian I say, this was a vote about the Constitution, it was not a vote about you. It is an undeniable fact that you are our land’s first peoples and I honour you this night.

I pledge everything in my being to keep walking the path of reconciliation with you.

One of the heartening things in the campaign has been seeing the passionate and strong leadership shown by Indigenous leaders on both sides. I acknowledge YES leaders such as Linda Burney, Noel Pearson, Malarndirri McCarthy, Dean Parkin, Pat Dodson, Ken Wyatt, Karen Mundine, Marcia Langton and Rachel Perkins, as well as the NO case leaders, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, Kerrynne Liddle and Warren Mundine.

Personally, I feel immense pride in the tens of thousands of volunteers who have campaigned for the YES vote. Getting to know so many of you, particularly the hundreds in my Berowra community, is something that I will always hold dear.

I thank the people in my party and community who have stood alongside me in this campaign.

Now that the referendum is over, Australia needs a time of reflection before we consider our next steps on our reconciliation journey.

We need each other. We belong to each other. We share this land - and we must walk together so that we can close the gaps between us.

On Monday, Parliament returns. My hope is that during the sitting week we will recommit to the path of reconciliation. This is what all Australians, no matter how they voted, expect of us

Julian Leeser, one of the Liberals for Yes has released a statement.

Leeser resigned from the shadow frontbench so he could campaign on behalf of the yes campaign:

The referendum question has been defeated.

It was always a big ask to change the Australian Constitution given that since Federation, Australians have only voted to change it eight times.

I respect the will of the Australian people and I thank the 17 million Australians who participated in today’s vote.

Naturally, I am disappointed and my thoughts are with every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australian who is feeling a sense of sadness tonight.

Though the YES case is lost tonight, I know that the cause of reconciliation will ultimately succeed.

Senator Lidia Thorpe told the ABC she is also sad for her people:

It’s been a horrible 12 months for a lot of people. Yes, No, in between, don’t know, and don’t wanna deal with it.

Black fellas have gone overseas to get away from this because it’s been so hurtful. But we have to, you know, not allow our people to be so downtrodden once again ‘cause that seems to be repetitive in this country.

It’s part of colonisation.

We need to rebuild, and rebuild at the grassroots level, and that’s where this whole referendum and even the idea of it coming out the way it did, it left the grassroots behind.

And when you leave grassroots behind, Black or white, you’re always gonna run into problems so.

We’ve got to be respectful about any consultation.

It’s got to be real consultation, not a ticker box and go to the language groups around this country because they have solutions for themselves and also the Prime Minister has an opportunity to implement the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, the bringing them home report, and they could even pass the United Nations declaration on the rights of Indigenous people, which I’ll be putting to the Parliament floor in December.

So, we have still got work to do, and we need those 7 million people to tell this government to implement those recommendations that will save our lives today.

Chris Kenny, the conservative commentator and supporter of the Voice, has blasted the No campaign for “deceptively and dishonestly” sowing division.


Kenny, speaking on Sky News’ referendum night panel, said:


Division is what Australians hate more than anything else. We see that in party politics. We see that on all these issues, and the no case, all their t-shirts say vote no to division, and their whole campaign has been about division, I think deceptively and dishonestly so, but it’s been very effective because people don’t like the division.

People don’t like to have to make this choice. Even people voting no are very aware that they are knocking down the aspirations of many indigenous people, but they don’t like being put in the position to have to make that choice and that’s why I say voters have been let down. What they deserved on this issue was some sort of bipartisan approach, some sort of bipartisan compromise.”

Kenny also sparred with panellist David Littleproud, the Nationals leader, who blamed the prime minister Anthony Albanese for the lack of bipartisan approach:

I am critical of the prime minister David [Littleproud], but I’m also critical of you.”

No campaign event ‘not about celebrating’, says Warren Mundine

I’m here at the official no campaign event in Brisbane where the polls have just closed.

We were told it would not be a typical election night style event but a quiet affair.

The location was only revealed last minute due to security concerns.

No campaign leaders, Warren Mundine and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, are watching the votes roll in inside a separate room upstairs.

Reporters have been crammed into a make-shift media room downstairs.

Mundine spoke to the media briefly earlier in the lobby and said he had “butterflies” ahead of the votes being counted.

“I’m happy but it’s like the nervous father at the birth of a child. Getting butterflies.”

Mundine claimed Brisbane was the best location to hold the no event as there had been threats made against him and Jactina Nampijinpa Price in other states.

We’re upstairs with all the volunteers and workers and we want to show them our gratitude. What we’re doing here is not about celebrating. When the numbers are finalised tonight, we’ve gotta get up tomorrow morning and...grab each other, kiss each other and hold each other’s hand and cuddle and work on how do we fix this.”

The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, will reportedly address the media at another Brisbane location shortly but we have not been given a time yet.

Updated

Leading yes campaigner, Thomas Mayo, said Indigenous Australians had been on a “long journey” - “not just since the Uluru statement from the heart was made, but since this country was invaded and we were colonised and refused to lie down and die”.

Mayo said “it doesn’t matter what happens tonight, if it is a no answer, then we’re not lying down, we’re not taking no for an answer and we will continue”.

Mayo said that Peter Dutton “has been dishonest to the Australian people - he has lied to the Australian people”. Similarly, the no campaign exhausted themselves with “lies”, he said.

Mayo said:

There should be repercussions for this sort of behaviour in our democracy, they should not get away with this. So when we succeed at this, let it be known that they did that. That they have lied to the Australian people. That dishonesty should not be forgotten in our democracy, by the Australian people.”

Updated

Australians vote against an Indigenous voice to parliament

The ABC has called South Australia as a no vote.

We concur with their analysis.

The referendum has failed.

Updated

For some context on senator Lidia Thorpe’s comments there, you can read this:

Independent senator Lidia Thorpe is speaking to the ABC and is asked about the state of discussion about Indigenous issues in this country and says:

I think it really shows where the nation is at in terms of their knowledge of their own country that they live in. There is no truth telling and a lot of those people out there particularly in Queensland don’t even know the true history of this land.

They don’t know that the incarceration rate of Queensland is through the roof of our people.

The children being incarcerated around the country right now is an act of genocide. And the fact that we have 550 deaths in custody with nobody ever held responsible, 23,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care, our people are hurting already and that is why we didn’t need the referendum.

We need a truth telling, we need Truth and Justice Commission. Like they have in South Africa. We need to heal and unite the country, not through a referendum of Yes or No, it needs to be through truth telling and healing and I think tomorrow that is where we need to begin to heal the country and ensure that everybody knows the true history and stops this racism that we have to deal with every day.

Our guest analyst Simon Jackman is projecting a likely no win in Victoria. A no vote in Victoria, along with no votes in New South Wales and Tasmania means a no result in the referendum is, now, all but certain.

Updated

Inner west mayor and co-chair of Inner-West For Yes, Darcy Byrne, is addressing the yes campaign.

Byrne said:

Tonight we will find out if our noble fight to make that statement of respect real and meaningful will be successful in our generation. This is a momentous occasion. What a moment in history.

It sounds like a speech that was to be given at 6:45pm, before the results put a dampener on the mood.

Byrne thanked Indigenous advocates “who have led this campaign ... not for weeks, or months but for lifetimes”.

To bring the dream of true reconciliation alive - it’s been inspiring to witness, the unwavering commitment that these champions have brought to the great cause of justice for First Nations people

Byrne, an ally of Anthony Albanese praised the prime minister for his “personal and political courage to insist that after 235 years ... there must finally be a just and respectful settlement between the first inhabitants and our society as a whole”.

Byrne says that Thomas Mayo “literally carried the Uluru statement all over Australia”.

Byrne says the magnanimity of yes campaign was met with “malice and misinformation”.

Byrne targeted the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, saying the history of the referendum will show he was a “wrecker”, arguing that after the Aston byelection defeat he had “decided to put his own political survival above the national interest”.

He said:

Division has been his goal. And denigration his weapon of choice. He has sought only disharmony for our nation. And in doing so he has brought great dishonour on himself. In 2007 Peter Dutton walked out on the apology to the Stolen Generation. In 2023 he has sought to slam the door shut on the hopes of reconciliation.”

Updated

Here is how the divide is shaping up in NSW as well.

Updated

It is getting very close to being able to call this.

With NSW and Tasmania a no, every single other state would have to vote yes. And that is not where the trend is.

It is very early, but don’t expect to wait much longer. This is all but done.

Updated

South Australia also leaning towards no

So that is NSW, SA and Tasmania all looking like a no. Victoria is on a knife-edge. Queensland is an expected no and has been for most of the campaign (a reminder that Queensland is the nation’s most decentralised state, with 50% of the population living outside the south-east).

It is still early, yes, but the vote is trending one way. And that is no.

Updated

Polls have closed in Queensland.

Just further on Victoria – there is a pretty strong urban/regional split when it comes to the vote.

Updated

That post from Nick and Simon is based on very early data, but what they are saying in their expert opinion (they do numbers for a living) is that NSW looks like voting no, as a state.

They acknowledge it is very early. And that’s why they are saying that it is “unlikely that other polling places will offset the lead that no has”.

They are following the trend.

Tasmania is also looking like a no.

At the moment, looking at it with my uneducated eyes, Victoria looks like it could go either way.

But the chances of yes getting a four-state majority are exceptionally slim.

Updated

Guardian analysis: no vote projected to win in NSW and Tasmania

Our political analyst Simon Jackman is projecting a likely no win in NSW and Tasmania.

In NSW, 6% of the expected vote has been counted from 18% of polling places, and yes is currently on 39%. Based on what we’re seeing it’s unlikely that other polling places will offset the lead that the no vote has.

In Tasmania, 20% of polling places are reporting, with a total of 7% of the vote for the state. Yes sits at 40%.

Again, it seems very unlikely that any of the remaining polling places will offset the no lead.

Updated

Yes ahead in ACT with about 65% of votes

In news that should surprise no one, the ACT is a yes (about 65%).

The ACT, like the NT, does not count as a separate jurisdiction when it comes to the vote – instead, its vote will count towards the popular vote.

Updated

Thomas Mayo, Dean Parkin and Inner West mayor appearing at main yes campaign event in Sydney

Yes supporters and campaigners are trickling in to the main public yes event, at Wests Ashfield leagues club in Sydney’s inner west.

Organisers are expecting 300 people at the event, held in an over-air conditioned function room overlooking Liverpool Road, and more throughout the club.

Leading yes campaigner Thomas Mayo has been pacing with volunteers coming up to thank him for his efforts and grab a selfie.

People have been slow to arrive, a mixture of them being hard at work at polling booths until they closed at 6pm but perhaps also anticipating little to cheer for.

There’s a sense of resignation but pride – we tried.

We’re expecting to hear first from the Inner West council mayor, Darcy Byrne, then Mayo, then a little but not much later from Dean Parkin.

Updated

You can also follow along with how your electorate voted with the Guardian vote tracker:

With 334 of the booths being counted, the no vote is leading with 62% of the vote.

The minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, has posted her thoughts on the site formerly known as Twitter:

Updated

Polls have now closed in South Australia.

A reminder that the NT and ACT only count towards the national majority.

No side was led by politicians, not grassroots First Nations leaders, says Yes23’s Dean Parkin

Yes23 director Dean Parkin says that most of the no campaign was led by political leaders:

But let’s be honest, most of the leaders of the no argument are political leaders. They are not actually the grassroots Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that came together to form the Uluru statement from the heart. They are professional politicians, current or former, and aspiring still.

So it was very much, on the no side, politicised argument rather than one which really addressed the question that was being put forward and the opportunity being put forward by Indigenous Australians through the Uluru statement and this campaign.

Updated

Mundine ‘very much proud’ of how no campaign unfolded

Warren Mundine also said he has no regrets about how the official no campaign handled itself:

Not from the main campaign. We were very much proud of the way we handled ourselves and what we did. I was proud of the team and pretty proud of our volunteers that went out there and did things. But there were some people on the edge of this [that were] a problem.

My main concern was the … yes campaign, people were major players in their campaign.

Updated

Warren Mundine hoping for a no result in every state

Leading no campaigner Warren Mundine has spoken to the ABC:

Well from day one I have felt we can do that. A lot of our team said ‘no, it’s not possible’ … To me, it was just that we could. I always felt we could do it.

Updated

With five of the 8,253 polling places counted, almost 80% of the vote has been for no.

AEC staff count votes at a vote counting centre in Melbourne, Australia.
AEC staff count votes at a vote counting centre in Melbourne, Australia. Photograph: Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images

Updated

Yes23 director says yes campaign has been largest political volunteer movement in Australia’s history

Yes23 director Dean Parkin says “we will be back” regardless of the result tonight.

The Quandamooka man was on ABC24 just now, claiming Yes23 had turned out 80,000 volunteers – what he called the largest political volunteer campaign in Australia’s history.

Parkin was speaking just as polls closed in three states on the east coast, before any results had come in, but he was looking to the future.

I spoke to a volunteer this morning in Manly and I asked her if she had been out on the polls previously and she said no. Standing there today was the very first time she had worn the shirt and she was handing out the cards for the yes campaign and I tapped her on the shoulder as I was leaving and said, ‘We will be back. And we will be tapping you on the shoulder at some point in history.’

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander justice movement and reconciliation movement is a very resilient movement. We have had our setbacks in history, some very big setbacks in our history. It always returns and I am absolutely confident on this fact that it will return, regardless of how things pan out today.

Parkin said whatever yes votes came in today would “represent the creation of a base of support, by Australians from all walks of life in support of recognition, in support of a voice”.

And I believe in the support of Indigenous progress more generally and that is something that we are absolutely proud of having been part of creating through this campaign.

Updated

Australia to provide an initial $10m for humanitarian assistance for civilians in Gaza

Just breaking in to the referendum coverage for a moment:

Australia is providing an initial $10 million in humanitarian assistance for civilians affected by the conflict in Gaza.

The government will provide $3m to the International Committee of the Red Cross to “fund urgent needs like restoring essential services and providing medical support to victims of the conflict” and another $7m through United Nations agencies, “to deliver critical support including emergency water, nutrition, sanitation and hygiene services, as well as child protection”.

Foreign minister Penny Wong said the government would continue to “monitor and assess” the humanitarian situation and “stands ready to provide further support”.

Wong:

We have seen devastating loss of innocent life since the heinous attacks on Israel by brutal terrorist group Hamas.

Far from representing the Palestinian people, Hamas undermines Palestinian needs and aspirations.

We continue to call for the unconditional release of all hostages. We stand with Israel and reiterate its right to defend itself.

President Biden has called on Israel to operate by the rules of war in its response to Hamas attacks - we join him and others in that call.

We call for safe and unimpeded humanitarian access to civilians affected by the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

We call for the establishment of a corridor to enable humanitarian needs to be met. And we support the work of the United States, Egypt and others towards this goal.

Adherence to international humanitarian law must be prioritised - including the protection of civilians, wherever they live.”

Votes are counted by AEC staff, with scrutineers from both sides. Scrutineers are people from the campaigns who watch the vote count and can raise questions about informal votes etc.

Postal votes have 13 days to come in, so there won’t be a final count for about two weeks – but there will be enough to call it.

Updated

AEDT polls close

It is 6pm in at least parts of Australia, meaning the polls in NSW, ACT, Victoria and Tasmania are closed and the count will begin.

You can follow along with the count here:

(And yes, I know there was an error where I accidentally wrote seven states instead of six –I amended it immediately, so if you are still seeing it, just refresh your browser.)

Updated

Dutton’s media presence – or lack thereof – since referendum announcement

It is also worth pointing out, as the AEDT polls almost close, that Peter Dutton has not held a single press conference with the Canberra press gallery since the date for the referendum was announced. There have been plenty of opportunities (parliament sitting) but going through his website, the last one was in June. Before that, the main Canberra press conference he held was in April.

Now that doesn’t mean he hasn’t done media – he has. But it has mostly been with friendly outlets, or in communities where the journalists are focused on their own patch – not what the opposition leader has been saying in the weeks or even days leading up to the visit to their campaign.

Updated

Will there be a legislated voice to parliament if the referendum vote fails?

There have been questions raised in the last few weeks, as it became obvious that the no vote was leaps and bounds ahead, what would happen: would the government legislate a voice to parliament (which would mean doing the thing the parliament was going to have to do if there was a yes vote anyway, just without the constitutional recognition)?

Anthony Albanese has said he will respect the outcome of the vote, which means that if there is a no vote, he would not seek to legislate a voice to the parliament.

Ironically, the Coalition had been in favour of legislating a voice to parliament, even while it was waging war against the constitutional referendum. It was one of the many elements of the Coalition talking points which were impossible to reconcile, no matter how many times they were factchecked.

Updated

Yes vote success will need majorities in four of six states as well as countrywide majority

Now, with the double majority needed, that means a win in the popular vote, as well as four of the six states.

Usually you get an indication very early on how that is all going. It is unlikely to be a long night in terms of count – you will most likely know the result quite quickly.

The polls, and the mood of the yes campaign, point to that result being a no.

Updated

Polls in eastern daylight-savings states to close first

Because of the time differences, there will be a few “polls close” calls.

The first ones will be those on Australian eastern daylight saving time – which will happen in just over 20 minutes (that’s NSW, ACT, Victoria and Tasmania).

South Australia is 30 minutes behind AEDT, while Queensland is an hour behind AEDT, the NT is one and a half hours behind AEDT and WA is three hours behind AEDT.

Updated

Hello and welcome to our evening coverage

A very big thank you to Caitlin and the crew for keeping the blog ticking over on what has already been a huge day.

You have Amy Remeikis with you now until the end of the blog. Along with me, is Katharine Murphy, Josh Butler and Paul Karp. Mike Bowers is following the prime minister around, so you are all covered. We also have the Guardian brains trust at our disposal.

We will be covering the polls closing in a few different states, and updating you as soon as information comes to hand.

Ready? Let’s get into it.

Updated

I’m off now, thank you for reading. The unparalleled Amy Remeikis will guide you through the vote tonight. Take care.

Updated

AEC says more than 30 polling venues sought in Melbourne CBD but none were available

The Australian Electoral Commission says it appreciates the disappointment from Victorians who have waited in long queues to vote at Docklands near Melbourne’s CBD however more than 30 venues were sought to no avail.

There will be eight million people through the doors today with options of where and when to go. Such systems will always have queues and people are being directed to multiple other close-by options with little wait time.

The spokesperson says the AEC sought CBD options and liaised with more than 30 venues but none had suitable availability.

We’ve put on extra ballot paper issuing points through the day at that venue with more than expected ‘out of area’ votes being cast there.

It is worth noting that there are 15 polling places within a 4km radius of [Docklands]. Some nearby venues include Southern Cross Educational Institute, a venue on Victoria Street in North Melbourne, South Melbourne Primary School, Melbourne Unitarian Church and others.

We ask for patience and for voters to plan their vote in a system held high in Australia’s consciousness.

Updated

AEC criticised for lack of voting booths in Melbourne CBD

The Australian Electoral Commission is facing criticism for failing to set up a polling booth in Melbourne’s CBD.

There are just three polling booths near the city at the Victorian College of the Arts, South Melbourne and Docklands.

Updated

Long lines for voting in parts of Melbourne while inner Sydney stations see few no campaigners

Here are some images of polling stations around the nation as Australia heads to its first referendum since 1999.

Lines have been backing up in the inner CBD Melbourne suburb of Docklands.

No signs have been few and far between in inner Sydney, with a high yes vote expected in the city and inner west.

Updated

Referendum’s early voter turnout more than 6 million, AEC says

About 9.2 million people are expected to pass through polling stations today, after a record turnout in early voting and postal votes.

The Australian Electoral Commission confirmed this morning that yesterday was the biggest single day of pre-polling in Australia’s history, with just over 1m votes cast.

Overall, about 6.13 million people voted at an early voting centre, compared with 5.6 million at last year’s federal election.

An additional 2.1 million people applied for a postal vote, which closed on Wednesday.

If you haven’t voted yet, polls are open until 6pm local time. There are more than 7,100 polling places across the nation – so get cracking.

Voters and electoral workers at a voting centre in West End, inner Brisbane
Voters and electoral workers at a voting centre in West End, inner Brisbane. Polls are open until 6pm across Australia today. Photograph: Jono Searle/AAP

Updated

Yes campaign leaders thank volunteers for their work

Leading yes campaigners have thanked volunteers for their months and, in many cases, years of work on the campaign to implement the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

The Labor senator Malarndirri McCarthy voted with her family today:

Thomas Mayo, a Kaurareg Aboriginal and Kalkalgal Erubamle Torres Strait Islander man, has expressed gratitude for the “care, empathy and … sacrifices” of those who signed up for yes, hours out from polls closing.

Updated

Many thanks Graham Readfearn for that graphic, and apt, image. I’ll be with you for the next little while.

Updated

Passing on the democracy sausage-shaped blog baton to my colleague Caitlin Cassidy. I’m off to vote now.

Updated

Here’s our full story about the government’s efforts to get Australians caught up in the war in Israel and Gaza on to flights home. The first repatriation flight landed in London early today.

'If you don't understand it, don't vote for it,' Dutton says

The opposition leader did give an early morning interview to the Sunrise breakfast program this morning. Apologies but we missed it earlier.

Peter Dutton said there had been 44 referendums in Australia’s history, and only eight times had the country agreed to change the constitution.

I’ve advocated no because I just don’t think we’ve got the detail. If you don’t understand it, don’t vote for it.

Dutton said the voice would be “another layer of bureaucracy” and the design of the representative body should have been decided before the voice was put to a referendum.

People are reluctant to change the rulebook because it’s the underpinning of the great country that we are.

Updated

'Don't risk a fine': Greens complain about no campaign text, but AEC says it's legal

The Australian Electoral Commission says the distribution of text messages from Fair Australia is legal after the Greens alleged the group was conducting a “scare campaign” to get Australians to vote no.

The text messages distributed on Saturday read: “Don’t risk a fine! Get to a polling place today and Vote No to the Voice of Division!” with a link to the Fair Australia website.

The Greens alleged the text messages were warning that people should vote no or risk a fine.

But a spokesperson for the Australian Electoral Commission, while confirming they had received a complaint from the Greens, said it did not identify a breach.

The SMS does not breach the Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Act 1984 and is legal. It also links through to an authorisation message so people know the source.

The Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said:

This is a sinister scare campaign … We need laws which protect truth in political advertising to stop this kind of misinformation.

Fair Australia was approached for comment.

Updated

There are about 9.2 million Australians visiting a polling place today.

Photographers are out capturing the scenes, some of which feel particularly Aussie.

A budgie smuggling-bather approaches a polling place at Bondi, Sydney.
A budgie-smuggling bather approaches a polling place at Bondi, Sydney. Photograph: Toby Zerna/AAP
Voters in long queues outside the voting centre at Docklands library in Melbourne
Voters in long queues outside the voting centre at Docklands library in Melbourne. Photograph: Con Chronis/AAP
A resident with a surfboard casts a vote in Sydney the voice referendum
Voting between breaks at Bondi. Photograph: Toby Zerna/AAP
Surf Life Savers cast their vote at a polling centre in Bondi
Surf Life Savers cast their vote at a polling centre in Bondi. Photograph: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images
Members of the public arrive at a voting centre in Scarborough District Masonic hall in Perth
Members of the public arrive at a voting centre in Scarborough District Masonic hall in Perth. Photograph: Richard Wainwright/AAP

Updated

Most undecideds in line in Ashfield ‘ended up voting yes’, says volunteer

University of Sydney students Jordan Anderson and Eliza have been volunteering for the voice for the past two months, and handing out flyers in Ashfield since Saturday morning.

Asked how the reception has been, Eliza replies, with a pause: “Mixed.”

Anderson has been “somewhat demoralised” by the no presence outside the progressive inner west.

But what I’ve really been invigorated by is the fact that a lot of people here are very open to talking about the voice, and not just the voice, but actually about the state of First Nations justice in this country.

With any election, with any referendum comes those conversations … most of the undecided people that I’ve spoken to in the line have ended up voting yes. That’s indicative of what the yes campaign stands for. It stands for First Nations justice, as opposed to maintaining the status quo.

Eliza adds that there are some people who will “proudly tell you” they’re voting no, but says she has been heartened by those who’ve heard them out.

People who have been campaigning no here – their line is ‘we want a better solution’. And their better solution is nothing. Maintaining the status quo.

Updated

‘We don’t have a voice for Caucasians,’ says no vote volunteer

Andrew Wang has been spending Saturday at Ashfield Civic Centre in Sydney’s western suburbs, handing out flyers advising Australians how to vote no.

Wang arrived in Australia as a Chinese immigrant at eight years old, and he finds it an accepting and multicultural society. For this reason, he doesn’t understand why Indigenous Australians need a voice.

He’s found the reception mostly positive. Ashfield is split between yes placards and no posters, with volunteers on either side handing out flyers to a snaking line of voters.

You get a couple [opponents] here and there. It is what it is, you know, people are entitled to have different opinions. Freedom of speech is important. And we need to defend that.

Ashfield has a high level of cultural diversity, with 22% of its population holding Chinese ancestry compared with the state average of 7.2%.

Wang says it’s equality that prompted him to volunteer:

I love this country, there’s no division … We don’t have a voice for our Asian population, we don’t have a voice for Caucasians … we don’t need a voice for Aboriginal rights … I think it’s a good cause, a good intention, [but] the outcome could be very different.

This is a very multicultural community. I do think it’s kind of an accepting community. And that’s why we don’t need a voice. Statistically there’s no denying [Indigenous people face disadvantage] … but the government has no solutions. They only have a trade off.

No supporter Andrew Wang outside the Ashfield Civic centre this afternoon
‘We don’t have a voice for our Asian population, we don’t have a voice for Caucasians’: no supporter Andrew Wang outside the Ashfield Civic centre this afternoon. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Updated

‘I don’t really see much of a risk’

Eligh, Lucas and Harriet sit at the National Centre for Indigenous Excellence in Sydney’s inner west eating their free snags after voting in the referendum.

The young housemates are all yes voters, having overcome some niggling doubts about a progressive No.

Lucas says he was convinced by the large number of Indigenous Australians supporting a yes vote, widely cited at 80%.

As a white person, I think I should just go with that. I believe in having a voice to parliament. There’s so many other voices that do other things that we already have that work, and people don’t even know about, so let’s just do another one. I don’t really see much of a risk.

Harriet says as a Wiradjuri woman, she doesn’t see it as a question.

We shouldn’t even be out here doing this. Our voices are important. We know how to take care of ourselves a lot better than the government, so we might as well try and tell them.

Updated

‘A quiet yes is simmering’ in regional Queensland, campaigners say

“VOTE NO,” shrieks a man whizzing by in a station wagon. Bar the odd incident, it’s a reasonably civil affair in the regional Queensland electorate of Maranoa this morning as the referendum vote gets under way.

In Warwick, a small town west of Brisbane, a stream of voters line up out the door of a quaint weatherboard church to cast their ballots.

The electorate, held by Nationals leader David Littleproud, is likely to record one of the largest no votes in the country; but that hasn’t deterred yes campaigners Ben Wright and Karena Stout from trying to change a few minds, or swing the undecided. Wright says:

I’m voting yes because it’s what Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have asked for. Everybody here is respectful, by and large, we are chipper and people receive us well.

I think there is a quiet yes that is simmering. The fringes are always the most vocal but I think the middle has a good heart, so I’m holding out hope.

At a polling site down the road at Warwick West state school, two yes campaigners stand at the entrance with the opposition nowhere to be seen. Georgia Sands, who travelled from Brisbane to campaign, says:

I think the no side came here this morning and thought there were no yes campaigners showing up, so they left.

I really wanted to come here to a more conservative electorate and hopefully sway a few votes to the yes side.

Updated

Vote yes to listening, says Tanya Plibersek in plea to undecided

The environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, has been speaking to reporters in Redfern, alongside leading yes advocate and Thomas Mayo.

Plibersek said:

Today is our opportunity to say yes to reconciliation, yes to listening, and yes to better results. We know that this has been a terrific opportunity for Australians to walk forward together.

And my message today to anybody who is still undecided is please take this opportunity to walk forward together as a united Australia to voter yes. To vote yes to recognition, yes to listening, yes to better results.

Mayo, a Kaurareg Aboriginal man and Kalkalgal Erubamle Torres Strait Islander, said he was excited by the opportunity that was facing Australians.

I’ve just got this message this morning to all of the Australian people thats are listening at your homes or if you’re watching this on your device: please make the effort to get out there and vote.

Please look through the noise, see what the truth of this is – that it’s an advisory committee, it’s a form of recognition that a majority of Indigenous people have invited you to say yes to. So go and vote, and be proud of this country and make us a better, more united and reconciled nation.

Mayo also pointed out that the yes campaign had support from across the political spectrum.

We’ve got Julian Leeser in the Liberals, we’ve got Andrew Gee from the Nationals, we see Julie Bishop walking alongside Penny Wong, and so this is something that is beyond politics.

And I ask people to put their political affiliations aside today, look at what this is about – simply recognising Indigenous people in the constitution and giving us a say, a fair go, an advisory committee. Australians have nothing to lose but everything to gain from saying yes. We can do this together as Australians.

Updated

‘Embrace us’, says Redfern Indigenous leader and Yes campaigner

Shane Phillips is ready to tap out. The chief executive of Redfern community organisation Tribal Warrior has had a rough few weeks, having recently had surgery on his shoulder after a sporting injury.

Yet still, he’s out on Saturday morning in his voice to parliament shirt, which spells out “yes” in dozens of Indigenous languages.

“Embrace us,” he tells Guardian Australia at Redfern’s National Centre for Indigenous Excellence (NCIE). “Embrace us.”

Give us a chance to show for the first time what we can do on our own feet. It’s really that simple. Amid all the TikTok conspiracies … make it simple. Give us the chance to empower ourselves.

Yet still, whatever happens, Phillips has not lost hope, and the bitterness of the campaign has not left him disheartened.

I’ve been so encouraged by the amount of people, everyday Australians, embracing us, walking with us. We thought we were alone, and now we know we aren’t. Whether we win or lose, we harness that, we will have an impact.

CEO of Tribal Warrior Shane Phillips at the National Centre for Indigenous Excellence in Redfern.
‘Give us a chance to show for the first time what we can do on our own feet’: Shane Phillips at the National Centre for Indigenous Excellence in Redfern. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Updated

Campaign for Indigenous recognition just starting, says Yes volunteer

Standing outside Marrickville public school, Yes volunteer Anna says whatever the referendum’s outcome is, the campaign for Indigenous recognition is just beginning.

She’s been volunteering for the yes campaign since it began. It’s been an easier sell in Sydney’s inner west, meaning many volunteers in Marrickville, including Anna, have been handing out flyers and door-knocking farther afield in tougher suburbs.

Today, she’s back on home turf in her Yes shirt, in a last-ditch bid to convince voters to back a voice to parliament.

To me, it’s an important issue, and a really important one for Australia to recognise its history, and to right this wrong.

I’ve got a deep feeling about that. I wanted to do something [months ago]. And then Facebook came up with ‘Yes23. Do you want to volunteer?’ [while I was] lying on the couch on Sunday. They made it easy.

Anna is feeling confident despite the polls – she’s had many people in pre-polling approaching her keen to learn more about what the voice is.

Regardless of what happens, we’ve got this amazing volunteer moment of non-Indigenous people who feel really strongly … we’re walking beside and joining First Nations people, to say, ‘this was wrong, and we want to fix it’.

Anna from the Marrickville public school voting booth this morning.
Anna from the Marrickville public school voting booth this morning, who says it is important ‘for Australia to recognise its history, and to right this wrong’. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Updated

Results will 'arrive in a fearsome rush', says ABC's Antony Green

The ABC’s election analyst Antony Green – writing personally and not on behalf of the ABC – says the results of the Voice referendum will probably arrive “in a fearsome rush”.

On his personal blog, Green writes:

If the opinion polls are correct, it is possible that most states will have a clear result in the first hour after the state’s count begins. It is highly likely the referendum will be decided before counting starts in Western Australia. If the results in southern states are very clear, we may even have a result before the first results report from Queensland.

Updated

‘It’s not threatening, it’s incredibly important’: Clover Moore

Sydney’s lord mayor, Clover Moore, and the state member for Sydney, Alex Greenwich, arrive at the National Centre for Indigenous Excellence (NCIE) in matching Yes shirts.

Moore says the pair were invited to vote at the centre by its staff, and were “honoured to accept”.

They respectfully requested our consultation … this is more than just allowing people to vote, that was really easy.

What I’ve been saying is we do have a voice [in Sydney] … we consult them on all the issues related to their community and their country. And they give us advice. And it’s worked really well for Sydney, and it will work for the nation. It’s not threatening, it’s incredibly important. And it’s about time.

Greenwich says writing yes is the “honest thing to do” in order to acknowledge 65,000 years of First Nations history.

All that scaremongering around what the voice says is completely made up … I compare it to the marriage equality campaign and the tools the no campaign are using – they’ve really sharpened what they’re doing. It’s about chaos, misinformation.

Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore and Independent MP Alex Greenwhich vote at the National Centre for Indigenous Excellence in Redfern.
Sydney lord mayor Clover Moore and independent MP Alex Greenwhich vote at the National Centre for Indigenous Excellence in Redfern. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Updated

Michaelia Cash says Albanese has divided the nation

WA senator and shadow attorney general Michaelia Cash claims regardless of the outcome of the referendum, Anthony Albanese has divided the nation.

Speaking to reporters from Perth, Cash said she had voted No and pushed the oft-heard line that Australians had not been told the details of how the Voice would work.

What we do know is that if the Voice does get up, it is risky, it is unknown, it is permanent, but more than that, it will divide Australians. Regardless of the outcome tonight. The one thing Mr Albanese has done is divide this nation. And that is a great shame, that he has done this as a leader.

Tomorrow, our focus needs to be on uniting our country. Moving forward together. But in particular, focusing on those issues that matter to all Australians, and that is of course the cost of living.

Updated

‘Say yes to progress’: Socceroos show pitchside support for yes vote

Australia’s Socceroos went down 1-0 to England at a friendly at Wembley in London earlier today.

Three of the players – goalkeepers Andrew Redmayne and Mat Ryan and midfielder Jackson Irvine – showed their support for the referendum’s Yes campaign pitchside.

Updated

No sign yet today of the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, but Guardian Australia’s political editor Katharine Murphy has been thinking this morning about his role in the referendum.

Dutton didn’t have to stage the voice referendum as a political death match. He didn’t have to be the figurehead of fear and fake news. But he did it anyway.

Authoritarian populists like Dutton set the media truth-seeking tests we cannot afford to fail. And yet we fail them. Time after time. Much of the mainstream media doesn’t seem that engaged with the measurable reality that the alternative prime minister of Australia has set his vocational GPS to post-truth and is picking up speed. I’m not sure why. That development seems pretty important from where I sit.

Updated

National Centre for Indigenous Excellence in Redfern providing a place of ‘support and love’ for First Nations people

The National Centre for Indigenous Excellence (NCIE) in the heart of Redfern is packed on Saturday morning, as volunteers sling out free sausages to voters and families gather over cups of coffee.

The centre’s chief executive, Grant Cameron, says the building is, first and foremost, operating today as a culturally safe place for First Nations people.

We’ve opened up the site because it’s really important that the broader community have a place where they can come and feel safe.

Tomorrow the centre will hold a community and connection day so, “whichever way the vote goes, the NCIE is here to show that support and love”.

The community centre has been doing it tough this year, facing closure before a massive volunteer campaign secured funding for the next 24 months.

Cameron is in it for the long haul.

Our doors are open, our hearts are open – come through. We’ve had a tough couple of weeks, months leading up to this.

But I’m still so proud to stand on this site in the heart of Redfern as an Aboriginal man.

CEO Grant Cameron at the National Centre for Indigenous Excellence in Redfern.
CEO Grant Cameron at the National Centre for Indigenous Excellence in Redfern. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Updated

Leading 'vote no' campaigners confident on poll day

Leading advocates for the no campaign say they’re feeling confident the referendum will fail to carry today.

AAP reports comments from no advocate Warren Mundine who says he is “feeling comfortable” and has been “energised” after visiting polling booths in Randwick.

Whether it is yes, whether it is no, we have all got to come back together and start working on the real issues that are going to make this country a better country.

Nationals leader David Littleproud said earlier he “won’t be doing victory laps” if his no side wins.

Prominent no voice Senator Lidia Thorpe said earlier:

This country is not ready to decide on our destiny, it never has been. We have to self determine our own destiny and the only way we can do that is through truth telling in this country.

A no campaign volunteer hands a how to vote card to a voter at a polling centre in Melbourne.
A no campaign volunteer hands a how to vote card to a voter at a polling centre in Melbourne. Photograph: Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images

Updated

My colleague Caitlin Cassidy is getting around some of the polling stations in Sydney.

Lidia Thorpe says referendum has divided communities

Independent senator and prominent no campaigner Lidia Thorpe has cast her vote. She said:

How dare 97% of this country decide our destiny. This referendum has done nothing but hurt people, divide communities, divide families.

Lidia Thorpe speaks to media outside the voting centre at Reservoir in Melbourne.
Lidia Thorpe speaks to media outside the voting centre at Reservoir in Melbourne. Photograph: Con Chronis/AAP

Updated

When might Australia know the referendum result?

With no complicated preferences to count and only two “candidates” – yes and no – the results of today’s voice referendum should in theory come a little faster than a regular election.

Guardian Australia has everything you need to know about the referendum poll in this article.

Counting starts when the polls close at 6pm local time in each state and territory.

The Australian Electoral Commission says every vote made on the day will be counted tonight, as well as a majority of early votes. Only a small number of postal votes will be counted.

Media outlets and campaign spokespeople will call the poll earlier than the official results that come from the AEC.

ABC election analyst Antony Green said earlier this week that he was expecting the result could become clear by as early as about 7.30pm tonight.

But if the vote is close, we could be waiting considerably longer. If the vote is very close, then by law up to 13 days is allowed after polling night for the result to be officially declared.

Remember that for a yes vote to be carried, a double majority is needed. That is, both a national majority of voters and a majority of voters in at least four out of six states.

If you want to watch it all unfold on television, my colleague Amanda Meade has a rundown of how the different channels will be covering the results.

Updated

Here’s a few of the scenes from around the country on this historic day.

A ‘vote yes’ volunteer at a voting centre in Brisbane
A ‘vote yes’ volunteer at a voting centre in Brisbane. Photograph: Jono Searle/EPA
NSW premier Chris Minns and federal minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney at a polling booth at Carlton South public school in Sydney
NSW premier Chris Minns and federal minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney at a polling booth at Carlton South public school in Sydney. Photograph: Toby Zerna/AAP
Burney in good spirits at the Carlton South polling centre
Burney in good spirits at the Carlton South polling centre. Photograph: Toby Zerna/EPA
A democracy sausage on bread with onions at a Brisbane voting centre
A democracy sausage on bread with onions at a Brisbane voting location. Photograph: Jono Searle/EPA
A ‘vote yes’ volunteer at a voting centre in Brisbane
A volunteer at a Brisbane voting centre. Photograph: Jono Searle/EPA

Updated

Marrickville packed with yes signs

You’d be hard pressed to find a no campaigner in Sydney’s Marrickville on Saturday morning.

The heartland of the prime minister is packed with yes signs, stickers reading “Love Wins” and pro-voice campaigners, making their last-ditch appeal to a crowd largely on their side.

This is a suburb where a local brewery has named a craft beer in Anthony Albanese’s honour, the birthplace of the Bob Hawke Beer and Leisure Centre.

Outside Marrickville public school, two police officers wander into a school and location for a polling booth.

“Morning, you voting today?” a campaigner calls. “Checking it out,” they reply.

“So far, so good,” the campaigner says.

Around them, children swarm chattering excitedly about nabbing sausages in bread, oblivious to the significance of a day that will shape the future of their nation.

Updated

Leave as soon as possible, Wong urges Australians wanting repatriation flights

Foreign minister Penny Wong says the “situation on the ground is changing quickly” in Israel and Australians who want to leave should not delay.

If you wish to leave, please take the first available flight. Please do not wait for another option. I would emphasise the situation on the ground is changing quickly. It is extremely difficult. I also know that not everyone can easily get to the airport and the security situation is very dangerous in some areas.

She again stated the government’s position, condemning the attacks on Israel by Hamas and calling for a release of all hostages.

Abhorrent acts of terror against innocent civilians. We are a steadfast friend of Israel. Israel has a right to defend itself. Australia calls for the immediate release of all hostages held in Gaza and all of us mourn the loss of life.

President Biden himself has called on Israel to operate by the international rules of law. I join him, Australia joins him and others in that call. We urge the protection of civilian lives in Gaza, where many innocent people are at risk. We know Hamas is a brutal organisation we know it doesn’t represent the Palestinian people.

Australia calls for safe, unimpeded humanitarian access for those apecked. We support efforts to establish a humanitarian corridor to enable humanitarian needs to be met in the Gaza Strip and support the work, particularly of the US, Egypt and others towards this goal.

We continue to engage with other countries, in an effort, alongside others to ensure the conflict doesn’t spread and to seek to avert the humanitarian situation deteriorating further. Australia’s principle has always been: We are guided by the pursuit of peace and a just, enduring two-state solution.

I say this. One of the many tragedies of what Hamas has done, is that they have undermined the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people themselves and they have pushed peace further from reach.

All people, Israels, Palestinians, civilians, deserve to live in peace and security and to prosper within internationally recognised borders.

You can follow the Guardian’s live coverage of the conflict in Israel and Gaza at our live blog.

Updated

Foreign minister says 825 Australians have left Israel and occupied territories

Penny Wong is providing more details on Australians in Israel and Palestine.

The foreign minister has confirmed that 238 Australians landed in London in the past few hours on a repatriation flight from Tel Aviv. A second flight is due to leave today from Tel Aviv to Dubai.

Wong said:

We are moving quickly to secure more options for Australians who want to leave Israel or the occupied territories. About 825 Australians have departed Israel and the occupied territories. My department continues to assist a number of Australians seeking to leave Gaza, numbering about 20.

Updated

An impassioned Anthony Albanese is now taking questions, and can barely contain his emotions as he pleads with Australians to vote yes. Here’s a few snippets of what we heard.

Martin Luther King said the arc of history bends towards justice, and it does bend. We have come a long way in my lifetime, a long way. When I went to school, you did not get taught anything pre-1770.

And in 1788 you would think that Arthur Phillip came into the harbour here and everyone gave a clap and said: “Welcome, good on you. It is all good.” The truth of our history is very different.

And that is why this is such a generous request from Indigenous Australians.

We are the greatest country on Earth. We will be a little bit greater if we acknowledge the first Australians.

This week of all weeks, with so much hatred on display in the world, this is an opportunity for Australians to show kindness, to say “I know as the 97% of Australians know” that they won’t be impacted directly by this.

It won’t have an impact on their lives directly. But it might just make a difference to the 3% of Australians who are Indigenous.

Updated

The prime minister is asked “what happens tomorrow?” after the vote. He says:

A yes vote means we wake up like we did after the apology to the Stolen Generations, as a stronger country with a burden lifted from all of us, having shown respect for the First Australians and the great privilege that we have to share this continent with the oldest continuous culture on Earth.

Updated

PM asks Australians to take 'opportunity to make history' on voice vote

Anthony Albanese is speaking at a referendum voting booth in Sydney, and says Australians have an “opportunity to make history” today and vote yes.

A simple request by the first Australians just to be heard, to have a voice, to be listened to about matters that affect them. A non-binding advisory committee. Nothing to fear here but everything to gain.

I sincerely hope that Australians, when they walk into that ballot box today, vote yes – vote yes to accept this gracious invitation as the Uluru Statement from the Heart so eloquently says in its one page to overcome the torment of powerlessness that has led to an eight-year life expectancy gap, to a greater chance of an Indigenous young male going to jail than university, to an Indigenous young woman twice as likely to die in childbirth as a non-Indigenous woman.

Two diseases that have been eradicated even in developing countries which still exist in some of our remote communities.

He said the no campaign had “spoken about division while stroking it”.

I tell you what division represents in this country – division is the division between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

Anthony Albanese at a yes campaign rally in Hobart on Friday
Anthony Albanese at a yes campaign rally in Hobart on Friday. Photograph: Ethan James/AAP

Updated

Don’t slam door on the children, says Noel Pearson

The leading yes campaigner Noel Pearson has asked Australians no to “slam the door on the children” when they vote at today’s referendum.

And the Indigenous leader said opinion polls that suggest the country will vote no were at odds with the positive sentiment he had seen as he travelled around the country in recent days. Here’s our full story.

Updated

Careful if you’re wearing campaign merchandise when you vote

If you’re voting in the referendum today, be thoughtful if you’re wearing yes or no campaign clothes or merchandise.

The Australian Electoral Commission has already pointed out that just like in a normal election, campaigning isn’t allowed inside a polling place or within six metres of the entrance.

The AEC has said:

If a voter wears a pin, shirt or hat with a campaign slogan into the polling place, casts their vote and leaves then it may not be considered as campaigning. However, when inside a polling venue a problem could arise if a voter is seen talking about the material or gesturing towards it.

The AEC understands that passions are often high around referendum events, and people want to proudly display their voting intentions – either way – when coming to vote. Please don’t fall foul of the law. Simply wear or display campaign material outside the polling place instead.

A yes campaign T-shirt
A yes campaign T-shirt. Photograph: Jenny Evans/Getty Images

Updated

‘This is people’s opportunity’ – Burney

Indigenous affairs minister Linda Burney spoke to the ABC earlier from a polling station.

The issues faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in this country are a national shame. The good thing is everyone agrees on that. This is people’s opportunity.

We know one in five voters are still to make up their mind. This is everyone’s opportunity to change the outcomes.

Updated

Littleproud says no one should feel ‘guilted’ about vote result

Nationals leader David Littleproud has told the ABC his party won’t push to legislate a voice to parliament if the country votes no today.

But Littleproud said nobody should feel “guilted” about the result, delivering the repeated talking point that the only person to “blame” for a result was the prime minister.

We have always had a longstanding view, if this referendum was about constitutional recognition and that alone, we would have supported it. That would have been a unifying moment. Instead the prime minister has divided the country and there is healing that will need to take place. We won’t rush into another referendum.

What we would need to do is make sure that proper processes are undertaken, like a proper constitutional convention where every Australian gets a say in the intent and change of the referendum. That will take time.

In terms of the result, no one should feel guilted about how they vote today or guilt about the result. This is a democratically determined position that the Australian people will make.

Nationals leader David Littleproud
Nationals leader David Littleproud. Photograph: Darren England/AAP

Updated

We can expect a steady stream of political “doorstops” and interviews today.

Nationals leader David Littleproud has just spoken to the ABC a few seconds ago – I’ll bring you some of that in a few minutes.

But here’s some of what we’re expecting – and this could change.

  • NSW premier Chris Minns will join Linda Burney, federal minister for Indigenous Australians, and David Harris, minister for Aboriginal affairs and treaty, at a school in Carlton and then hold a press conference in the next 30 minutes.

  • Prime minister Anthony Albanese is expected to say a few words from Balmain in the next hour, before travelling to Illawarra and then Canberra.

  • No campaigner Senator Lidia Thorpe is expected to vote in the next hour and make a statement.

Updated

Some more statistics on the voting today from the Australian Electoral Commission.

  • About 6.13 million people voted at an early voting centre, compared to 5.6 million at the 2022 federal election.

  • About 9.2 million need to visit a polling place today.

  • Some 2.1 million people applied for a postal vote.

  • AEC mobile polling teams took votes from 135,000 people.

  • Some 47,000 people voted in overseas polling places

  • About 8.41 million have either voted early or have voted by post

Updated

Friday biggest day of pre-polling in Australia's history

We already know that the voice referendum is the biggest vote – in terms of enrolments – that Australia has ever seen. Some 17,676,347 people are enrolled.

The Australian Electoral Commission revealed this morning that Friday was the biggest ever single day of pre-polling, with more than a million votes cast.

That means that as the referendum day polling booths opened, some 6.13 million Australians had already cast their vote.

Updated

Good morning

Welcome to Guardian Australia’s live news blog for this historic Saturday.

A Proposed Law: to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.

Do you approve this proposed alteration?

After months of campaigning by the yes and no groups, more than 7,000 polling places across Australia will open their doors at 8am local time for the voice referendum.

Polling places close at 6pm. The Australian Electoral Commission has said some 6.13 million people have already voted, which leaves more than 9 million people still to write yes or no in a box.

We’ll keep across other news development, including those in Israel and Palestine affecting Australians. Flights to get Australians out of the region started yesterday.

Thanks for being with us.

Updated

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Jeremy Allen White fans praise lookalike contest winner for actually ‘nailing’ resemblance
The winner of the Jeremy Allen White lookalike contest in Chicago received a ‘$50 cash prize plus some cigarettes’
The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Gulls aren't "rats with wings"
Gulls get a bad rap, but a new book explains how they are actually smart — and fascinating
Salon
Salon
Ryan Reynolds has just confirmed a major theory about Taylor Swift
Ryan Reynolds has just confirmed a major theory about Taylor Swift
Marie Claire
Marie Claire
This is not an urban shoe myth. The new Manolo Mary Jane is a thing of beauty.
Eat your heart out Carrie.
Marie Claire
Marie Claire
Fans trying to watch Mike Tyson vs Jake Paul on Netflix faced technical issues during undercard
It didn't take long for technical issues to rear their head in Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul.
USA Today Sports Media Group
USA Today Sports Media Group
Group Leaves Friend After She’s Late Yet Again, Sparks Major Friendship Fallout
This woman didn't play around. She up and left her always late friend out of the birthday party bus. The post Group Leaves Friend After She’s Late Yet Again, Sparks Major Friendship Fallout first appeared on Bored Panda.
Bored Panda
Bored Panda
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.
Download on the AppStore Get it on Google Play