I mourn the loss of Australia’s Indigenous voice vote – and won’t forgive the media’s mendacity | Thomas Keneally

The polls had been favourable until a brutal press campaign kicked in against this kindly, long-overdue change

• Thomas Keneally is the author of the Booker-winning Schindler's Ark

Last Sunday, many in Australia profoundly mourned the loss of the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum, the greatest kindly amendment ever to be proposed for the Australian constitution, those dreary old articles of association by which our states and territories rub along together in far-flung federation.

When the referendum was announced in March this year, it was as a result of a message to mainstream Australia from Indigenous Australia, a statement made at Uluru near Alice Springs by Aboriginal representatives. They suggested constitutional recognition of the Aboriginal race's ancient discovery and ownership of Australia, and proposed that their community's disadvantages in modern Australia could be addressed through a group of Aboriginal delegates who would advise on federal laws affecting Aboriginal Australians.

Thomas Keneally is a novelist. He is the author of more than 40 books, including the Booker prize-winning novel Schindler's Ark