As it became obvious that the Voice referendum was doomed, advocates of its awkward hybridised model insisted it was now or never. They got both.

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On the first anniversary of that heroic miscalculation, the long-term price is much clearer.

Who won? Not Aboriginal Australians, nor the current government which has never fully recovered, nor even a fractured national soul.

Stripped of the hope of a significant reform in the foreseeable future, the once popular project of meaningful recognition, has withered.

In harsh political terms, no constitutional change in this area seems possible for a decade, maybe several.

Australians have taken the "no" vote as a mandate for pulling out of welcomes to country, observed the respected leader, Pat Anderson on Saturday. Tom Calma spoke of a sense of "bewilderment" at the outcome among Indigenous Australians.

This is the cost of a vote that wasn't even close - initially traumatic, then intergenerational in its effect.

Principal among the apologists for forging on without bipartisan backing was Anthony Albanese but he was hardly alone. Most in the "yes" camp dismissed alternative strategies, such as a legislated Voice or tightened wording, in a strategy that only makes sense if you can't lose.

This was catastrophically unrealistic. Proponents underestimated how uncouth the debate would get. Ditto how ruthlessly their plan for a heightened national unity would be depicted as a grotesquely un-Australian pitch for special rights.

Branded, of all things, divisive and racist.

If Indigenous leaders were not seized of Australia's ahistorical coarseness and fearful referendum record, then it behoved the most experienced politicians to insist.

This proposal could not be........

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