In his new book, Frank Brennan SJ declares the 2023 Referendum on an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament “a disaster” and asks what lessons can be learned.
Reviewed by Peter Confeggi.
Joining some 60,000 others, the largest movement of Indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, I campaigned tirelessly for a Yes vote in the referendum. When the votes were counted and there was a near nation-wide No, I and many others felt gutted.
Wisely, Indigenous leaders declared a week of silence and many of us joined them. In the following months, words of analysis emerged from the silence. Approaching the first anniversary of the referendum, a highly significant book by Frank Brennan SJ was published, Lessons from Our Failure to Build a Constitutional Bridge in the 2023 Referendum.
It is nearly 50 years since a young Jesuit began listening to Mum Shirl at the Catholic church in Redfern, New South Wales, where many Indigenous Australians found a home. Frank was to spend a lifetime listening to Indigenous voices, bringing his passion, legal expertise, negotiating skills and erudite voice to advocating for justice for, and reconciliation with, Indigenous Australians. Arguably, he is the most significant non-indigenous voice in the Australian Catholic community
Published by Connor Court.
Frank begins by declaring “the 2023 referendum was a disaster” and proceeds to ask what lessons can be learned. Like many others, he believes that it could never have been a success without bipartisan support. Failure to have a Constitutional Convention and a transparent Parliamentary Committee set it up for failure.
The book contains homilies, articles and interviews. Firstly, there are post-referendum homilies in which Frank powerfully weaves the experience of defeat with the Gospel of the day.
Secondly, there are the formal submissions he made to the government, followed by proposed wordings prior to the referendum. Finally, for the more technical reader, there are five notes on justiciability, which he circulated.
Frank makes the insightful observation that the referendum of 1967 and the postal survey for marriage equality in 2017 were both about equality. By contrast, the referendum of 2023 highlighted the uniqueness of Australia’s First Nations people.
As I discovered in door knocking and campaigning, many I met had little experience or knowledge of First Nations people, while many others, backed by right-wing forces, would say “we are all Australian”. Sadly, there was the echo of an assimilation policy of decades long past and failure to recognise the uniqueness of Indigenous Australians as the oldest continuous culture on the planet.
In stark contrast, Frank and many others have drawn on the best of our Australian Catholic tradition. In 1869, Archbishop Bede Polding stood out among his contemporaries in his anguish and rage in support of Indigenous Australians.
Such a prophetic voice can be heard in papal visits to Australia – Paul VI (1970) and John Paul II in his Alice Springs address (1986) – and Francis in Laudato Si’ (2015) where he expresses deep respect for Indigenous peoples and their culture, highlighting the need to learn more from their experience. Engagement with Indigenous peoples and their culture is now part of Catholic Social Teaching!
Frank dedicates the book to Dr Lowitja O’Donoghue, a Stolen Generations woman, brought up Baptist, who liked to worship in the Anglican communion and was made a Dame of the Order of St Gregory by John Paul II in 2005.
Brennan quotes her: “We cannot lose the will to resolve these issues, because they will not go away. But tackling them half-heartedly or high-handedly will be a recipe for continued failure. I believe that solutions are at hand but they will require determination and patient effort, imagination and true generosity.”
While commending this book to all, I recommend it to people of faith.
Indigenous Australians have too often heard No: to a vote, to equal wages and land rights. Through perseverance and the support of non-indigenous voices, they have turned No into Yes.
As Frank says, with lessons learned, realising the vision of the Uluru Statement from the Heart may be the work of the next generation.
Lessons from Our Failure to Build a Constitutional Bridge in the 2023 Referendum, Frank Brennan SJ (Connor Court, 2024). To order your copy, click here.
