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Law Futures Centre and Griffith Law Post Referendum Statement on an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice

Griffith Law School and the Law Futures Centre have affirmed their support for the Uluru Statement from the Heart. We accepted the invitation of First Nations people to join a ‘movement of the Australian people’ to create a better future for all.

We recognised the role of the law in the ongoing dispossession of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who have never ceded sovereignty over their territories. We recognised, too, the law’s responsibility to overcome these injustices. In this vein, Griffith Law School and the Law Futures Centre affirmed their support for the referendum to create an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament.

Unfortunately, the referendum failed to meet the double majority required to pass. The Australian nation has now lost the opportunity to repair the fault line in our law (Castan and Russell, 2023) and our national identity, through constitutional recognition by way of an enshrined Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament.

We deeply regret this outcome, but we accept that the legal mechanism of referendum has functioned according to its text.

We do not accept, however, the ‘great Australian silence’ (Stanner, 1968). We do not accept racism in any form. And we do not accept the ongoing fault line in Australian law.

We are resolute in our commitment to stand with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander colleagues, students, and communities in healing, regrouping, and searching for a solution that will resolve the silence in our system. We commit to anti-racism, and to education and research that uplifts and enhances justice.