On 14 October 2023, a constitutional referendum was held in Australia and the Australian voters, by roughly a 40-60 margin, rejected the proposal concerning Australia's Indigenous peoples. Had this referendum been successful, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples would have been constitutionally recognised as the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an advisory body called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice (referred to as the Voice). This paper first examines how the constitution is amended in Australia and explores the formula for successful referenda. Second, the paper explains how and why the particular referendum question in 2023 was settled on. Then, the paper analyses voting patterns and considers reasons for the outcome, possible alternatives and implication for future. One of the most significant but not well understood features of the referendum is that it was intended to put to the referendum by the Coalition government. However, their inaction and indifference resulted in the Labor government attempting to change the Constitution. This turned it into a partisan contest which the Coalition opposed. While it became the Labor's referendum, the Labor government failed to persuade its supporters to vote for it.

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The author conducted a survey targeting elderly women aged 65 to 79 in City G, Melbourne, in 2006 and 2007.  The aim of this paper is to analyze the data and examine whether a hierarchical compensatory relationship exists between various types of social ties.  The analysis of the data revealed the following three points.  (1) The most significant source of support was "cohabiting family members" for care during hospitalization and "non-cohabiting children and their spouses" for financial support.  However, in terms of emotional support, no single source was dominant.  The proportion of elderly women who could rely on a "spouse," "non-cohabiting children and their spouses," or "neighbours or friends" for emotional consultation and comfort was roughly the same.  (2) The order in which elderly women sought instrumental support was: spouse, non-cohabiting children and their spouses, other relatives, and neighbours or friends.  When they could not rely on individuals in the higher tiers of this hierarchy, those in the next tier most frequently filled the gap.  Regarding emotional support, the following compensatory relationship was observed: the lack of comfort from a "spouse" was not compensated by any other type of relationship.  Apart from this, the inability to seek emotional consultation and comfort from individuals in the higher tiers was most often compensated by "neighbours or friends."  These findings closely align with the results of the author's previous analysis of a survey conducted on elderly women in Takahashi City and Okayama City, Japan.  (3) Age, educational background, and driving ability also influenced whom elderly women turned to for support.

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On 14 October 2023, voters rejected a referendum proposal that would have amended Australia’s 1901 Constitution by establishing a First Nations representative body (a ‘Voice’) to advise the Australian Parliament and Executive on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. While the referendum could be viewed as an affirmation of Australian democratic processes and culture, it highlighted several serious challenges to Australia’s democracy. The first and most important of these challenges was that the outcome left the political and constitutional relationship between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and settler Australians unresolved. The second challenge to Australian democracy is misinformation in political campaigning. The third challenge is the increasing amount spent on Australian election campaigns. Although Australia has campaign finance laws that cover referendums, these laws do not place caps on expenditure and donations, potentially skewing the outcomes of the referendum vote. The fourth challenge is low political trust. Many voters believe that Australia’s existing democratic system and leadership do not work for them. After explaining the Voice proposal, its origins and development, and the path to the October 2023 referendum, this paper explores these four challenges to Australian democracy and assesses the difficulties of some of the measures currently being proposed to address them.

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