An informed voice for change must now decide how to follow the defeat
Thousands of people had gathered amid the red earth and golden grass of a cattle town in the Australian Outback to commemorate an event watershed moment for indigenous rights. Thomas Mayo was there to give a push for the future.
A tall, strongly built man, dressed in a maritime union T-shirt and wearing an amulet in the shape of an indigenous woman’s headdress, he started the day as he was: a proud Australian dock worker whose family roots preceded the British settlement.
When local elders asked to speak to him, he had every reason to begin with resentment or anger. Indigenous Australians – the continent’s first inhabitants who now make up just 4 percent of the population – remain severely disadvantaged as a group, with shorter lifespans and more extreme poverty.
Instead, Mr. Mayo introduced himself calmly, with his eyes cast downward. He then recited from memory what his fellow indigenous leaders called a “statement from the heart.” They asked for a constitutional amendment that would establish a panel that would advise Parliament on indigenous issues. They called it the Voice.
Mr. Mayo spoke out for it in conversations and speeches from dawn to dusk, in a tone that was thoughtful and inviting, hopeful and not angry.
“Naysayers have told us to lower our sights and temper our aspirations for change because of lazy speculation that the Australian people will not support real change for our gang,” he told the crowd as the Sun announced last year day went down. . “I believe this is a miserable caricature of the Australian people. We cannot allow these low-level politics to hold us back.”
Over the next fourteen months he explained the Voice to groups small and large. Sometimes he seemed to be everywhere, on the radio, in newspapers (including this one), at national meetings and knocking on doors in suburbs. Along the way, he told me he was optimistic about the referendum because “there’s just a lot of logic in it.”
He trusted Australians would recognize The Voice’s modesty, which was similar to what already exists in Canada and Scandinavia.
Above all, he trusted that people would listen and vote for what most Indigenous Australians said they needed.
But there was opposition even within the indigenous community. An Aboriginal leader in Parliament criticized the Voice as toothless. Another said it was too divisive. What Mr Mayo saw as a proposal of respect was seen as vague by many Australians, particularly conservative politicians, causing misinformation and lies, including false claims of Aboriginal land grabbing, to gain traction on social media. Opponents took advantage of the confusion – “If you don’t know, vote no” was a popular slogan. And on October 14, with voting compulsory, as always in this country, Australians voted loudly rejected the Voice referendum.
A few weeks later, Mr. Mayo would explore what he had learned from the defeat. On election day, he just looked tired at a polling station. Heavy bags ran like shadows under his eyes; his hair, usually clean-shaven, had grown enough to reveal salt-gray patches.
“I like his calmness,” said Norma Ingram, a Wiradjuri elder who has known him for years, as he watched him speak to reporters. But, she added, the campaign’s impact would linger. The Voice was intended as a first step, a pivot towards greater inclusivity. Even for him it would be difficult to continue.
“It brings out the worst in people,” Ms Ingram said. “It was horrible.”
A Darwin upbringing
Mr Mayo’s parents met in a mining town called Frances Creek in the Northern Territory. His father was a Kaurareg Aboriginal and Kalkalgal, Erubamle Torres Strait Islander man; his mother was the daughter of Polish refugees. Their family, including Thomas and his two younger sisters, later settled in Darwin.
After high school, Mr. Mayo went to work on the wharf, where the port owner tried to disband the union in the late 1990s. The Australian labor movement fought back and Mr Mayo faced his first leadership test.
“I was 21,” he said. “The company brought in all these guys twice my age who thought the boss was a good guy.”
“I’m just teaching these guys to stick together,” he added. “It was really difficult.”
He rose through the ranks of the unions and started a family. A father of five, he didn’t start thinking more deeply about Aboriginal issues until 2014, when funding for Indigenous programs was cut. Protests broke out but little changed, leading Mr Mayo to become involved in a movement to create a constitutional referendum that would help strengthen the power of Indigenous Australians.
In 2017, Mr. Mayo was one of 250 delegates who completed the conference Uluru statement from the heartcalling for a reconciliation program that would start with the Voice and, they hoped, eventually lead to a treaty and a truth commission.
To build support, Mr. Mayo took the original document on the road. A mix of Aboriginal art and text, the signed canvas was the size of a carpet. He rolled it out on the sand in remote communities and on the floors of city offices. For eighteen months he crisscrossed Australia, sharing the document and reciting its words in the steady voice that became his signature.
The Maritime Union of Australia continued to pay him while he campaigned full-time. His colleagues were proud that he was becoming better known, and The Voice gained momentum. In 2022, a new Labor Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, promised to put the proposal to a vote. A few months later, Mr Mayo published a book, ‘Finding the Heart of the Nation’, about the Uluru trip, and it became a bestseller.
The first polls looked promising, but opposition was steadily growing.
Mr. Mayo stuck to the script. When he met college students one rainy morning, he encouraged them to ignore the noise and extremes. “We’re going to win this with the big center of Australia,” he said.
Then the center started turning. Taxi drivers told Mr Mayo that they had heard that the Voice would stop Parliament, and as he tried to combat that misinformation – lawyers confirmed this that the Voice could simply inform decision-making and not hold up legislation – he found that social media was drowning out his voice. The ugliness took over. He was accused of being a communist. Memes depicting his parents attempted to question his indigenous roots. He was attacked with a racist cartoon in a major newspaper, and was confronted with death threats.
“Because I was a recruiter of a strong workers’ union, a big black man and a rugby league player, they hoped I would get angry,” he said.
He never lashed out. A vote for the Voice, he tried to remain friendly.
“He has been a leader who has shown extraordinary dignity and compassion,” said Tanya Plibersek, Australia’s Environment Minister. “He is really focused on the issues, the calls for justice. That’s why he convinced so many people.”
The aftermath
By the time the votes were counted, Mr Mayo had been promoted by the union and had made calls to stand for Parliament. He returned home for silence and reflection – a planned reprieve organized by indigenous leaders. Some were so dejected that they considered permanently withdrawing from public life. Others called for a new, more confrontational approach.
Mr. Mayo landed somewhere between despair and explosive outrage, with a more nuanced picture of anger and mobilization. At home in Darwin, flanked by a bookcase of Salman Rushdie novels and Joseph Heller’s ‘Catch-22’, he said he hoped to write a kind of guidebook of lessons for young people from recent years.
His most important conclusion: “People have to become political. What I mean is that they need to challenge their friends and family and the sources of their information.”
Noting that the “yes” campaign mobilized 70,000 volunteers, he said informing and deploying more people was the only way forward. Instead of condemning social media, he called on people to master difficult conversations and work with institutions – such as unions – that have practical experience.
“We have to adapt quickly,” he said.
“I don’t say to young people, ‘don’t be angry,’” he added. “But what I am saying is that we need to coordinate, we need to have realistic goals and not just anger for anger’s sake.”
So instead of being furious at the Australian people for rejecting the Voice, he said: “I would rather all my anger be directed at those who have lied to the Australian public.”
His voice rose, just a little.
“What we were trying to do will be accomplished one day,” he said, wiping sweat from his brow. “It may take decades, but that will be the case. We just have to do the work to make that happen.”