As the nation ushers in a new year following the decisive defeat of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament at the ballot box, there are still those who persist in rejecting the outcome of the referendum. Undeterred, they remain steadfast in their pursuit of race-based objectives covered within the failed referendum, such as legislating the Voice, special entitlements, truth-telling commissions, treaties, and so forth.

Nations are not static; they do evolve and change over time. It is, therefore, vital that we understand the underlying heart of this resistance so we can address it head-on to ensure the country is heading in the right direction.

At its core, the Voice to Parliament was about identity. It was an attempt to redefine the identity of the country under the guise of creating broad economic equality for a specific marginalised race, and to those that oppose said proposition, a need to protect the current traditional national identity by maintaining the status quo.

This issue is not endemic to Australia alone. Many countries have travelled down the same road to their own detriment. Any attempt to redefine the country according to identity is perilous, as it exposes us to the never-ending conflict of culture wars, calls into question the viability of the state, and inevitably leads to decline thereafter. Thankfully, history has provided us with a way forward.

History serves as the collective memory of our nation. Since the day Australia was federated on the 1st of January 1901, successive Prime Ministers have tried to define the identity of our nation. Starting with the first and second Prime Ministers respectively, Edmund Barton and Alfred Deakin, who laid the foundations and implemented the White Australia Policy to preserve its British identity. This policy remained unchanged for the next 45 years.

In 1947, Australia’s first Minister for Immigration, Labor’s Arthur Calwell, announced the relaxation of said policy and allowed for the entry of non-British, European origin displaced persons and refugees. This marked the beginning of a shift away from the strict racial criteria of the White Australia Policy culminating with the complete abolition of the White Australia policy in 1973 by Labor’s Whitlam government. The transition to multiculturalism as a policy was initiated under the Whitlam government and implemented by the successor Liberal’s Fraser government.

With Labor’s Bob Hawke as Prime Minister from 1983 to 1991, there was a desire to break away from Britain and with it came an attempt to recast Australia’s identity and positioning, by emphasising its geographical location and economic ties with the Asia Pacific region. Hawke’s successor, Paul Keating, took this approach a step further by trying to reframe the country as an Asian nation due to our close economic ties. The logic behind this was economics overrides culture in the shaping of the destiny of nations.

A return to our Western British Judeo-Christian identity occurred under the Liberal Howard government. This was further solidified with the defeat of the Australia Republic Referendum in 1999, which resulted in Australia remaining a constitutional monarchy. The Liberal Prime Ministers since – Abbott, Turnbull, and Morrison – have maintained the tone set by the Howard government. We should note that while Turnbull was a self-declared Republican, from a policy perspective he did famously reject the proposal to enshrine an Indigenous Voice in the Constitution.

Labor’s Rudd years brought about the National Apology to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and particularly to the Stolen Generations on February 13, 2008. This set in motion a series of events that led to the Uluru Statement and culminated with current Labor Prime Minister Albanese announcing the Indigenous Voice to Parliament Referendum at the Garma Festival on July 21, 2022. Had it succeeded, it would have set about a process of decolonisation and redefining Australia culturally as an Indigenous country.

In the short span of just over 120 years in the history of our nation, we have continuously tried to redefine our identity and culturally who we are as a nation.

Having a macro view on the rhetoric and actions that have occurred within the past decade prior to the Voice referendum, a clear trend emerges. Indigenous Land Rights claims have significantly increased. Similarly, calls to abolish Australia Day have grown louder to the point that some councils are no longer conducting citizenship ceremonies on said day. Welcome to Country ceremonies have become the norm in private, state, and federal events. State capitals and other geographical locations now have their own Indigenous names. The Aboriginal flag is of equal prominence to the Australian flag. These are just a few of many examples.

Had the Voice referendum succeeded, it would have further intensified the cultural decolonisation process already underway. Special rights would have been accorded in perpetuity and Indigenous identity asserted as the national identity of the country. The nation would be fragmented along racial lines. Resentment and envy would build, thereby reducing the likelihood of collective action as a society. There would be no improvement to the lives of the Indigenous community and only the elite Indigenous society would benefit. The country would experience corruption and economic distress. Social disorder soon follows thereby stressing state institutions to the point where the state breaks down and inevitably fails.

One only needs to look at South Africa as an example. What was once a successful Western nation during the apartheid years, then declared itself a Rainbow nation under Nelson Mandela on May 10, 1994. This term was intended to encapsulate the unity of multiculturalism and the coming together of people from many diverse backgrounds. South Africa adopted a decolonisation, truth-telling, and equity distribution process for the blacks like what was proposed by the Voice.

Today, South Africa’s economy is in tatters, rampant corruption is endemic, social disorder has become the norm. Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) policies have done nothing other than enrich a few privileged black South Africans, while destroying meritocracy in the process. South Africa, while not yet a failed state, is certainly on its way to being one. This is what happens when a country adopts identity-based policies and shifts its national identity. The South Africa of today is no longer a Western nation… Its national identity is that of an African nation and so too are its values.

Identity is a powerful moral idea. Identity can unite, and Identity can be highly divisive. We must realise Western culture isn’t superior to other cultures, but it has brought about tremendous change to the world and mostly in a positive way. An example of this is the very concept of a modern nation-state which has its roots in Western political thought via the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.

For Australia to succeed, it needs to do away with trying to change our national identity, embrace and reassert its Western Judeo-Christian historical and cultural legacy, and define the country based on a common set of shared values and ideals, such as meritocracy, freedom of speech, commitment to the rule of law, and parliamentary democracy. History will show that Australia will not be alone in adopting this approach.

After the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776, the founding fathers of America, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, formed a committee to design the national symbol, The Great Seal of the United States. On the front of the Seal, an eagle holds a banner with the Latin words e pluribus unum, meaning ‘From many, one’. The founding fathers wanted to unify the nation by bringing the 13 colonies and its diverse set of peoples together to become one nation founded on Western Judeo-Christian culture bonded by a common set of values and ideals. A national creed.

Australia needs to decide if we are a nation to be continuously defined by identity or are we a nation defined by our shared values and ideals; my hope would be for the latter.

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