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After the Voice: Inside the slowdown in First Nations action

November 27, 2025

By TOPAZ McAULIFFE

Since the Voice referendum, something has shifted in corporate Australia. The noise has dropped. The statements have slowed. The glossy campaigns have faded.

In boardrooms and executive teams, there is still talk of reconciliation, inclusion and “doing the right thing”. But the urgency that surrounded the referendum has disappeared. Many organisations are now trying to work out how visible they want to be on First Nations issues, and how much risk they are prepared to take.

You can see it in the data. An Ipsos survey in 2025 found Australians’ interest in Indigenous issues had fallen to its lowest point since 2021, with declining support for key reconciliation priorities such as Treaty and the Voice. A separate analysis of the referendum aftermath by Katie Kiss, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner with the Australian Human Rights Commission, describes a trail of hurt and confusion, and a sense among many First Nations people that the momentum they felt in the lead-up “is gone”.

You can see it in corporate commentary too. The Qantas Chair has publicly argued that companies should steer clear of campaigning on social causes like the Voice, warning that corporate advocacy can look like moral lecturing and backfire. The Australian Financial Review reports that many large companies are now reassessing how they engage on social issues as part of their ESG agenda in the wake of the referendum.

Put simply: the political heat of the Voice has cooled into a quieter, more cautious phase.

For First Nations people inside organisations, and for communities who engage with them, that quiet has a cost.

The slowdown nobody budgets for

I work with organisations on their First Nations impact. Over the past few years, my team and I have supported more than sixty organisations across sectors – from major retailers and infrastructure to professional services and investors.

Across all of that work, one pattern keeps repeating.

Between now and June 30 next year First Nations strategies stall. Not everywhere. Not all at once. But enough that it is now predictable.

The drivers are remarkably consistent:

Budgets are locked or cut.
Leadership and Board changes delay decisions.
Year-end priorities crowd out anything seen as “non-core”.
Teams are tired and planning for the next financial year takes over.

The stated commitment to First Nations outcomes remains. The RAP is still on the website. The values statements are unchanged. But on the ground, activity slows.

Employment targets drift.
Planned supplier engagement is pushed back “until next year”.
Community partners wait on decisions that keep slipping.
Data and impact reporting are parked because “we just need to get through EOFY”.

By the time July 1 arrives, many teams find themselves effectively starting again.

Layer a post-referendum chill on top of an annual stall

This year, the usual end-of-year slowdown is not happening in a vacuum. It is landing on top of the post-referendum landscape.

The Voice campaign did not just fail at the ballot box. Research from the Jumbunna Institute and National Justice Project has documented a sharp rise in racism towards Indigenous Australians in the months around and after the vote, including stereotyping, discrimination and hate speech. Many First Nations people are still dealing with the emotional and psychological fallout.

Inside organisations, First Nations staff are absorbing that impact while also seeing external commitments soften.

At the same time, corporate leaders are under pressure from multiple directions:

Political actors and some shareholders urging companies to “stay in their lane”.
Economic uncertainty and cost-cutting programs.
A broader backlash against ESG and “woke capitalism”

The result is a kind of double freeze. One is cyclical and familiar: the budget-driven stall between now and June 30.

The other is structural: a hesitancy to stay visible and ambitious on First Nations issues after a divisive national vote.

For First Nations communities and businesses, both show up the same way – fewer decisions, slower action, more “let’s revisit this later”.

What this looks like from a First Nations lens

When work slows, it does not slow evenly. A delayed piece of impact reporting may frustrate a sustainability team. A delayed decision on a new First Nations supplier or a traineeship program lands very differently.

On the First Nations side, the slowdown can look like:

Promised roles or pathways that do not materialise on time.
Community partners holding staff and programs together while waiting on renewed funding.
First Nations businesses carrying the cost of stalled procurement processes or deferred contracts.
Internal First Nations network groups being asked to keep “providing advice” while formal commitments pause.

On the corporate side, executives often see it as a timing issue. A short-term pause. Something they will get back to once the new financial year begins.

The problem is that many organisations repeat this pattern every year. The cumulative effect is not a pause. It is under-delivery.

Under-delivery against commitments made publicly. Under-delivery against the expectations of First Nations staff, rights holders and stakeholders. Under-delivery on the opportunity to embed First Nations leadership and knowledge into core business, not just side projects.

Over time, that erodes trust.

The risk in doing less, and the opportunity in doing differently

Some boards are now asking whether they should pull back on visible First Nations commitments altogether, fearing backlash or accusations of tokenism.

That is the wrong lesson to draw from the referendum.

The lesson is not “do less”. It is “do it differently and do it more honestly”.

For corporate Australia, that means:

Fewer big symbolic gestures.
More consistent, disciplined work on the fundamentals: employment, procurement, governance, impact.
Real transfer of decision-making power and resources to First Nations people, inside and outside the organisation.

The slowdown between now and June 30 is the stress test of that consistency.

Any organisation can announce a new target or partnership in National Reconciliation Week or NAIDOC Week. Far fewer can keep momentum on the unglamorous work in the months where budgets, restructures and competing priorities bite.

From a risk perspective, this period matters. Companies that regularly stall on their commitments create a pattern that investors, regulators and communities can see. From an opportunity perspective, organisations that stay the course – even at a lower level of intensity – stand out.

Holding the line, even when you cannot sprint

I work with a lot of executives who are genuinely committed and also genuinely constrained. They cannot magic up a new budget in May. They cannot stop a board-driven restructure. They cannot rewrite history after the referendum.

They can do some other things:

They can ring-fence core First Nations commitments so they are not the first line item cut when pressures hit.
They can keep formal accountability in place, regular reporting to the Executive and Board on First Nations actions, even if the list of actions is shorter than planned.
They can protect relationships with First Nations staff, suppliers and community partners through honest communication rather than silence.

And they can recognise that “all or nothing” engagement models no longer work.

The choice is not between a large, high-visibility program and doing nothing. There is a middle ground where organisations maintain strategic continuity through lighter-touch, fixed-fee advisory support, regular check-ins, and focused bursts of work aligned to clear priorities.

That is the kind of model my team and I have been building with organisations in this end-of-year window. Not as a campaign, but as a practical way to keep First Nations strategies moving when they are most at risk of stalling.

A different kind of leadership test

In the lead-up to the Voice, many companies put their logos on statements of support. They hosted panels, lit buildings, and talked about being on the right side of history.

The test now is quieter and more uncomfortable, it sits in:

Budget meetings, not media releases.
The decision to extend a partnership or delay it.
First Nations staff feeling their work is still backed when the news cycle has moved on.

The slowdown between now and June 30 2026 is not inevitable. It is the result of choices about what matters when everything cannot be done at once.

For First Nations communities, those choices are already being felt. For corporate Australia, this is the moment to decide whether reconciliation and First Nations impact are seasonal priorities or core business.

Topaz McAuliffe is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of 15 Times Better, a First Nations-owned and led business that helps organisations accelerate their First Nations impact. Topaz is one of Australia’s most successful First Nations engagement specialists. She was the driving force behind Coles Group’s award-winning First Nations engagement program, assisting Coles to become Australia’s largest corporate sector employer of First Nations peoples and one of the country’s leading supporters of First Nations businesses, gaining recognition from Fortune, the Australian Human Rights Commission and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.