CORRESPONDENTS have raised concerns about the impending referendum to inscribe the Indigenous Voice to Parliament in the Australian Constitution. Several have pointed out the historical difficulty in achieving an all-states Yes vote. But this seeming historical bias against referendums is worth a closer look.
Since Federation, there have been 44 proposals for change to the Australian constitution, put to voters in 19 referendums, meaning that all but six referendums have contained multiple proposals for constitutional change. The majority of rejected proposals were for changes relating to the functioning of the federal parliament, for expanding Commonwealth powers or for matters affecting relations between the Commonwealth and the states. In many cases these were rejected by voters in all states. And it has been well-documented that the 1999 republican referendum was doomed to failure because of the way the question was framed.
