Australia’s First Nations peoples had lived on the continent for 60,000 years before the first British penal ships anchored in Sydney some 230 years ago.
Today, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people make up less than 4% of the population, but are much more likely to be sick, imprisoned or to die young than their wealthier white compatriots.
"Yes" vote supporters assured the reform would help fix those persistent inequalities by engaging Indigenous people in crafting policies that affect their communities.
Preliminary results from the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) suggested that most of the country’s 17.6 million registered voters wrote “No” on their ballots, reports CNN.
According to the ABC, only the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) voted in support of the changes.
Tasmania was the first to be declared as a “No» state, followed by New South Wales and South Australia. Because at least four states needed to vote “Yes” for the referendum to pass, the ABC declared the defeat before results were known for the other three states.
In a statement published last after the vote, Indigenous leaders who campaigned for the “Yes” vote called for a week of silence.
"Now is not the time to dissect the reasons for this tragic outcome," the statement read. "This will be done in the weeks, years and decades to come.”
The leaders took the opportunity to thank Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for going ahead with the referendum, while describing the result as "a bitter irony".
"That people who have only been on this continent for 235 years would refuse to recognise those whose home this land has been for 60,000 and more years is beyond reason," they said.
PM Albanese said he respected the will of the Australian people and sought to cast an optimistic vision ahead.
“It’s now up to all of us to come together and find a different way to the same reconciled destination,” Bloomberg quotes him as saying.
“The historic fact that Australia’s story is 65,000 years old remains a source of national pride,” he said. “From tomorrow, we will continue to write the next chapter in that great Australian story, aand we will write it together. And reconciliation must be a part of that chapter.”
"In the months ahead, I will have more to say about our government’s renewed commitment to closing the gap," Mr Albanese added.