12/08/2026
A map showing the voice referendum as many Australians have never seen it – with a blue dot showing each remote Aboriginal community that voted yes – has spurred Indigenous leaders and organisations to renew their push for reform in the bush.
The Kimberley Land Council – which represents the nation’s biggest block of remote Aboriginal communities – described the “blue dot map” that Cape York leader Noel Pearson referred to during a televised address 10 days ago as a reminder that “we can’t just accept the status quo”.
Tasmanian spatial analyst Jesse Reilly built the map “out of personal interest” using Australian Electoral Commission and Australian Bureau of Statistics data soon after the proposal for an Indigenous advisory body in the constitution was voted down 60-40 at the referendum on October 14, 2023.
His map, built with industry-standard software and methods, was shared online at the time, but it has gained a new and bigger audience since Mr Pearson referred to it during his landmark return to the Garma festival on the first weekend in August. The 61-year-old had been noticeably absent from the public square since the referendum was lost, but told Garma, the nation’s dominant forum for debate and discussion on Indigenous politics and policy, he must account for the hopes raised, the faith urged and the love lost in the referendum.
His decision to show the “blue dot map” had an instant impact. Kimberley Land Council chief executive Tyronne Garstone told The Australian his organisation, which represents the residents of more than 100 remote communities from 33 native title groups, was inspired to keep pushing for changes to the way remote Aboriginal communities are governed.
“The ‘blue dot map’ is a reminder of what we were fighting for and who we were fighting for,” Mr Garstone said.
“It shows where change is needed most.”
Mr Pearson’s Garma address provided a radical blueprint in which the commonwealth would deal directly with remote Aboriginal communities – the blue dot communities – and there would be commonwealth legislation setting out the mutual obligations of the government and the “bottom million” Australians, many of them Aboriginal.
The Kimberley Land Council, which will hold its annual meeting of delegates across the vast north of Western Australia in two weeks, has not explicitly backed Mr Pearson’s model, but it backs a radical change to the way remote Aboriginal communities are governed. Mr Garstone said remote communities needed to be able to talk to the commonwealth.
“In the Kimberley, where Aboriginal people are such a significant part of our communities, regional governance matters,” Mr Garstone said.
“People in metropolitan areas don’t always see what’s required on the ground, day in and day out, to make real change happen. This map makes that reality harder to ignore.
“For us, this isn’t an abstract conversation. We know what the gaps look like. We see what happens when decisions are made too far away from the people they affect.
“The referendum result didn’t change the need for change. If anything, it makes it more important that we keep pushing forward. The status quo isn’t working for our communities.
“The blue dot map shows us where change is needed most, and where regional governance can make a real difference.”
Mr Garstone said people living in remote Australia needed “the tools, the voice and the authority to make things better”.
“We need the commonwealth to work with Aboriginal communities to address the inconsistencies in state and territory heritage laws,” he said. “The current system is too inconsistent.
“We need an impartial umpire and laws and policies that genuinely empower communities to have a say in the decisions that affect them.”
The referendum was lost, but “we can’t just accept the status quo”, he said.
“We need to keep working towards systems that give Aboriginal communities greater agency, greater authority and a genuine role in shaping their own futures.
“That’s what we voted for in the referendum; the foundations for real change. And we’re still pushing for it.”
Mr Pearson told The Australian: “Jesse’s map really lifted my spirits. Lifted all of us out of a deep, dark place, after the referendum failure. It reminded us for what and for whom we had worked for so long.
“The country might have repudiated us but our people in remote Australia did not. Jesse’s map means nothing to the 27 million. It means everything to the 100,000 of remote Australia.”
Mr Reilly said he was “floored” to see Mr Pearson cite his map. He said he created it because he was curious about how individual communities voted, particularly the difference between urban and rural regions and communities with large Indigenous populations.
