Yes supporters analyse the defeat of the Voice referendum

A failure of the process, a change in mood in the country and the divide between cities and regions were factors that contributed to the referendum’s defeat over the vote in parliament, leading supporters of the Yes campaign said at the launch of two new books. Source: The Catholic weekly newspaper.

Father Frank Brennan SJ and Damien Freeman, the authors of Lessons from our failure to build a constitutional bridge in the 2023 referendum And The end of the settlementboth published by Connor Court, were joined by senior staff and academics from the Australian Catholic University, members of parliament and a large, engaged audience at the launch on Tuesday at the Peter Cosgrove Centre in North Sydney.

Dr Freeman and Father Brennan were joined for a panel discussion by Kelly Humphrey, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous) of the ACU, and Dr Lisa Buxton, Senior Officer of the Aboriginal Catholic Ministry of the Archdiocese of Sydney.

ACU Chancellor Martin Daubney travelled from Brisbane to present the two books and compared them in extensive opening remarks with the Lamentations of Jeremiahwritten in mourning for the sack of Jerusalem in the sixth century BC.

Like Jeremiah’s Lamentations, the Chancellor said, Dr Freeman and Father Brennan’s books “will themselves be seen as important historical and social documents, giving both context and meaning to the events that Australians watched unfold in the months leading up to the referendum in October 2023.”

The two new publications are “not pleasant reading,” but like the prophet’s mourning poems, they express a spirit of “longing for reconciliation and faith in God’s faithfulness,” Daubney said.

Description of Dr. Freemans The end of the settlement The Chancellor described the book as “a book for our time” and said it contained profound lessons about the risks of polarization and the move away from the “solution policy” aimed at unification.

The book by Father Brennan, Lessons from our failure to build a constitutional bridge in the 2023 referendumcould also have had the more elegant title “I told you so,” joked the Chancellor.

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Lamentations and hope at the book launch of ACU Voice Referendum (By Adam Wesselinoff, The Catholic weekly newspaper)