As an Australian who did vote in this referendum, this is more or less my take as well.
To me personally this one felt like it came out of nowhere, had very poor communication about what anyone was actually voting for. The Yes camp initially seemed to take it as some kind of forgone conclusion that everyone would be for it and if not you were a racist and there was no need to explain it further. When they later did start trying to explain it, they really didn't do any better and the best they seemed to come up with was, vote yes then we'll figure out what the solution looks like afterward.
Essentially this made the 'Yes' vote a vote for uncertainty and the 'No' vote a vote for certainty, which made the no vote an easy sell compared the yes vote.
I think if they had better figured out what the voice to parliament would actually be in practice then it would have been a lot easier to sell or at least deflect some of the criticism and frankly scare tactics from the no side.
Well, everybody is for helping the poors but few people give money in the street.
So we could use your argument in reverse and say people will reject any practical realization of a beautiful theorical idea because reality is always imperfect.
The guy may drink the money. He has a dog. He is still going to be on the street, that doesn't solve the problem.
I give money and gets remarks from some friends like I'm doing a bad things.
It can be summed up as Ideas Are Cheap, Execution Is Everything.
Watching this play out, was reminded of the Australian Republic Referendum from a while ago now. The feeling I had then was that the population was broadly in favor of Australia becoming a republic, but differed on the structure of that republic (popularly elected President, President appointed by parliament etc). In the end, the question put to the people was about a specific type of republic and the people said no. The rejection of that referendum was used to demonstrate that Australians didn’t really want a republic when, in my opinion, they just didn’t want the one served up in the question.
This time around the no vote is being used to suggest that Australians don’t want reconciliation or recognition of Indigenous people in the Constitution. I don’t buy that, either. I feel like there was a rejection of the specific idea of the Voice, but not a rejection of reconciliation.
I’ve been away from the country for a long time but it seems to me that if a plebiscite question was something like, ‘Do you favor an Australian republic?’ or ‘Do you favor recognising Indigenous Australians in the Constitution?’, you’d probably pass both easily. The details - and it’s always the details that trip you up, I know - could then be hashed out afterwards with the new baseline being ‘We are going to be a republic so let’s figure out what sort of republic will get broad support’ or ‘We are going to recognize Indigenous Australians in the Constitution so let’s figure out how to do that in a way that’ll get broad support’.