An Indigenous woman has thanked Australians for voting against the Voice to Parliament referendum, which was convincingly defeated last weekend.
The woman, who has long opposed the proposal, shared a video on her social media account on Monday praising the community.
“Thank you, all Australians who were aware that they were dividing us on the basis of race and constitutionally entrenching us on the basis of race, an inferior classification, were wrong,” she said.
“Our old way is for the crowd to speak for itself. Old people live on our lands. That’s where the votes are,” she explained.
‘The mob only speaks for others if it has been mandated to do so.’
An Indigenous woman has thanked Australians for voting against the Voice to Parliament referendum in a viral TikTok video
The First Nations woman argued that halting the referendum has allowed her gang to maintain their independence and sovereignty.
“Thanks to a no vote, our gang still has human autonomy and their human and cultural right to speak for their country,” she said.
She tagged her clip with ‘#stillsovereign’.
The woman’s video was viewed more than 407,000 times.
Many viewers and followers in the comments agreed with her sentiment.
‘I voted no and am proud to do so. It’s not for us non-indigenous people to speak for all of you,” said one viewer.
Another wrote: ‘You are very knowledgeable. I have followed you throughout this entire process. I think you have the potential to do a lot of good.”
“Too bad Albo didn’t give that $380 million to the elders to distribute if necessary,” said a third viewer.
‘Thank you!! You are an inspiration to black boys and all Australians, you should be proud of your strength and your ability to ignore haters,” said another.
The woman argued that stopping the Voice referendum has allowed her gang to maintain their ‘human autonomy’ and independence
Australia voted No to the proposed constitutional change, with every state rejecting the proposal and only the ACT voting Yes as the count continued.
The Albanian government continues to deal with the fallout from the failure of the Voice referendum, with the federal cabinet reconvening this week to tackle indigenous disadvantage.
Recent data from remote voting booths showed that large populations of Indigenous Australians were overwhelmingly in favor of the Voice.
This was especially accurate in the Northern Territory and Queensland.
Wadeye in the north of the NT had a 91 per cent yes vote, while the Tiwi Islands, north of Darwin and with an indigenous population of 87 per cent, had support for the Voice at 84 per cent.
Palm Island in Far North Queensland has a 91 percent Indigenous population, while polling booths in the area have a 75 percent yes vote.
Also in Queensland, Mornington Island had 78 percent of voters supporting the Voice. The indigenous population is more than 80 percent.
Areas with large populations of Indigenous Australians were particularly supportive of the Voice, polling booth data shows (pictured is a stand in Midland, Perth)
Broome, Western Australia, is home to approximately 30 percent indigenous people. The Yes campaign won 56 percent of the votes in the region.
Three in four of Yuendemu’s 740 residents also supported the referendum. Some of Mrs. Price’s family live in the community.
Meanwhile, in Lingiari, the seat of the Northern Territory, which has a 40 percent indigenous population, only 44 percent said yes.
The Yes campaign found that 80 percent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were in favor of the Voice – an argument rejected by the No camp.
That claim is based on two polls conducted earlier this year.
An Ipsos poll in January found that 80 percent of Indigenous people supported the Vote, and a YouGov poll published in March found that 83 percent supported the ‘Yes’ vote.