A LACK of bipartisanship and misinformation have been blamed for the failure of the Voice to Parliament referendum, as ‘yes’ supporters begin a painful post-mortem. 

The proposal to create a constitutionally enshrined Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander advisory body was declared defeated within 90 minutes of polls closing along most of Australia’s east coast. 

It failed to garner a majority vote, with the ACT the only state or territory to vote ‘yes’ across the nation. 

Prominent Indigenous activist and academic Marcia Langton suggested Mr Dutton had “cemented race hate into the body politic” in a way the ‘yes’ camp hadn’t foreseen last year. 

“Australians had an opportunity to recognise us in the constitution and do so by allowing for an advisory body to parliament and the government to enable us to more quickly overcome the disadvantages,” she said. 

“With a majority of Australians voting ‘no’ to that proposition I think it will be at least two generations before Australians are capable of putting their colonial hatreds behind them and acknowledging that we exist.”