Murray Goot and Tim Rowse will be in conversation with Nicholas Biddle on their new book The Year Our Voice Broke. The Indigenous Voice Referendum and the Australian Public, the full account of how Australia considered the request for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, appeared to accept it and then rejected it.

The Indigenous request for a constitutionally entrenched Voice was thrust firmly onto the public stage with Anthony Albanese’s promise, on election night 2022, to submit it to a referendum. Leading political analysts, Murray Goot and Tim Rowse, trace the development and fortunes of the Voice, from early conversations between Indigenous leaders and constitutional conservatives, through to the referendum and its aftermath. The Uluru Statement from the Heart had been addressed to the Australian people in 2017, but in 2023 it was competition between the major parties that shaped the Yes and No campaigns.

Alongside this political history, The Year Our Voice Broke examines in detail just how public opinion was sought, shaped and interpreted in wide-ranging research, both published and unpublished. The referendum generated a quantity of polling unprecedented in Australia. Examining how questions were constructed, Goot and Rowse raise vital questions about how complex political ideas are brought to the public, how political campaigns are run and how the No vote may shape the future of Indigenous affairs in this country.

‘Murray Goot and Tim Rowse’s meticulous research and nuanced analysis are particularly needed in the case of the Voice referendum. In The Year Our Voice Broke, they offer a compelling account of what the referendum reveals about our democracy. Important reading for political and polling geeks as well as voters interested in understanding the referendum and its lasting significance’. Dr Rebecca Huntley

Murray Goot is an Emeritus Professor in Politics at Macquarie University. He has been writing on Australian politics and public opinion since the late 1960s. His earlier book with Tim Rowse was Divided Nation? Indigenous Affairs and the Imagined Public (2007). Murray writes occasionally for Inside Story.

Tim Rowse is an Emeritus Professor in the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University. He has been writing on Australian Indigenous affairs since the early 1980s. His most recent book is Indigenous and Other Australians Since 1901 (2017). Tim writes occasionally for The Conversation and Inside Story.

Professor Nicholas Biddle is Head of the School of Politics and International Relations, Research School of Social Sciences ANU. His PhD in Public Policy from the ANU was on the benefits of and participation in education of Indigenous Australians. He is currently Chair of the ANU Academic Board.

Books will be available for signing from 5.30pm and again after the event.

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