The fight is not over despite Greater Geraldton having some of the highest No voting towns in WA

Three-quarters of voters across Greater Geraldton delivered a stinging rejection of the Voice to Parliament, voting No to changing the Constitution. Before WA polling booths had even closed on Saturday, the race to enshrine a Voice to Parliament in the Constitution had been run and empathically lost. Across Australia, voters flatly rejected the idea of voting in a Voice, or 60.64 per cent to be specific. All states voted No, with the only jurisdiction voting Yes being the ACT. West Australian voters were among some of the most fierce supporters of the No vote at 63.63 per cent, putting themselves as the third highest No voting State in the country, behind Queensland and South Australia. The electorate encompassing the Mid West, Durack ranked the third highest No voting Federal electorate in WA, behind Canning and O’Connor. Only two of WA’s 15 Federal electorates voted Yes. Of the 22,800 people who cast their vote in Durack, 72.18 per cent of voters opposed the Voice to Parliament, leaving just 27.82 per cent in favour of the constitutional change. The Mid West housed two of the highest No voting locations in the State. Moonyoonooka, 13km east of Geraldton, was the town with the greatest opposition of 92.7 per cent voting against the Voice. The polling station in Cervantes recorded 90.53 per cent of votes in opposition, with just 25 of the 264 penning Yes to the ballot paper. Geraldton had just one polling place record a majority Yes, at Bluff Point Primary School, with 685 of the 1016 total votes were in favour of a Voice to Parliament. At the Geraldton pre-polling centre, which received almost 14,000 votes, 79.8 per cent of them were No. No voters in Geraldton claimed to have a strong reason to refuse an Indigenous Advisory Body in Parliament — no one had answered their questions on how it would manifest. The WA Government’s bungled heritage laws also left a sour taste and put many voters off the Voice. The Voice was Groundhog Day for Daniel, a farmer in Geraldton. “The exact same thing happened with the heritage laws, we asked what it’ll look like, they couldn’t tell us and look where we are now.” The sceptics remained strong-headed on the fact that a Voice would do more harm than good, and the entire concept was oxymoronic. Ryannon Lawson, proud No voter, said the Voice would simply exacerbate division. “If they want us to be equal, this is not the way to do it. They’re separating us even more. I want us to step forward as one country, this is just making us divide” she said. When asked her thoughts on the No vote being labelled racist, she deemed it “pathetic”. “People don’t even know what racist means anymore. They use that term to mark everyone — it’s not racist, a No vote is us trying to remain as one.” Voter Catherine Lawson knew there was more to the story when she saw First Nations people voting No themselves. “When I had the Indigenous man telling me to vote no, that’s when I knew. Not to mention they haven’t told us anything about it. They’ve read us the first page of a 150-page document — what else is in there that they’re not telling us?” she said. Though the wound is still fresh, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will not let the fight for constitutional recognition bleed dry. “Tonight is not the end of the road and is certainly not the end of our efforts to bring people together,” Mr Albanese said on Saturday night. “The issues we sought to address have not gone away and neither have the people of goodwill and good heart, who want to address them and address them we will,” the PM said, with his leadership of the referendum set to come under scrutiny. Annette Dalton is 78, and was stationed at the Drummond Cove polling place on Saturday. She was hopeful the Voice would bring the change she and so many had been hoping to see for decades. Ms Dalton remembers a time when she and her Indigenous friends would go to the cinema, and had to sit in different areas, and was ready for there to be a palpable change for First Nations Australians. Her daughter, Geraldton MLA Lara Dalton, a vocal Yes supporter, said she was “deeply saddened” by the referendum result. “I. . . had hoped for a different outcome. The result does not reflect the very positive attitude volunteers brought to the Yes campaign, but now it is up to all of us to look to the future and how we can support the journey towards reconciliation and closing the gap in our country,” she said. Geraldton for Yes captain Michael Rootes echoed the comments that local Yes volunteers had conducted themselves with the “utmost integrity, dignity and greatest respect”. “This isn’t the outcome that our volunteers and supporters in Geraldton were expecting,” he said. Yamatji woman and former State MP Carol Martin made a heartfelt post on Facebook on Sunday, thanking the Prime Minister for “the opportunity to have a farer Australia”. Ms Martin said the Vote was an opportunity to “right the grievous wrongs of the past. . . The message from our people has not been lost, it has been heard”. Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Linda Burney on Saturday night said: “We will carry on, and we will move forward, and we will thrive.” Ms Burney assured the Australian people the loss was not the end of reconciliation. Greater Geraldton Yes/No result Bluff Point: 67.42 per cent/32.58 per cent Bluff Point South: 30.3 per cent/69.7 per cent Cape Burney: 26.8 per cent/73.2 per cent Drummond Cove: 32.4 per cent/67.6 per cent Geraldton Pre-Polling Voting Centre: 20.2 per cent/79.8 per cent Geraldton: 35.5 per cent/64.5 per cent Moonyoonooka: 7.3 per cent/92.7 per cent Mount Tarcoola: 28.5 per cent/71.5 per cent Mullewa: 21.3 per cent/78.7 per cent Rangeway: 32.8 per cent/67.2 per cent Waggrakine: 27.6 per cent/72.3 per cent Walkaway: 12.7 per cent/87.3 per cent Wandina: 26.3 per cent/73.7 per cent Wonthella: 25.2 per cent/74.8 per cent TOTAL: 25.2 per cent/74.8 per cent