It was when the referendum became partisan that we lost the chance of putting it clearly in its historical context
hen the Indigenous voice slogan History is Calling first hit the airwaves last year I contemplated what a gift it would be if 2023 became the year when Australians, for the first time, were actively encouraged to really learn, interrogate and make sense of their shared history on the continent.
Economists, like epidemiologists decades later, became media figures with a public profile. They wrote books and delivered well-paid lectures. Sadly, as a result, Australia has not become a land of informed armchair constitutionalists, their pocket-sized copies to hand, or front bar historians ready to rattle off the many dates of previous attempts to secureThere has not been a roster of historians and lawyers on talkshows adding daily grist to an often threadbare and misinformed public debate.
What makes this different is that the referendum question, despite decades of careful cultivation of the conservatives, became partisan. This was not a factor during the pandemic, or when the neoliberal economic reforms were being introduced.
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