We are in an historic phase on Australia’s journey towards reconciliation.

In October last year we dealt with the profoundly disappointing outcome of the referendum on a Voice to Parliament – an appeal to the Australian public to elevate and protect a national First Nations body within the Australian Constitution.

Instead of creating an opportunity to reset our relationships through diverse ways of engaging, opponents of the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are attempting – and will continue to attempt – to seize this result to push their retrogressive and racist agendas.

In the weeks and months post-referendum, there was a flurry of media attention on an imaginary wave of local councils abandoning Welcomes and Acknowledgements of Country.

Like many things in life, the truth is much less dramatic. At the time of writing there have been three local councils – out of the 500-plus LGAs – that have done so.

There have been other councils that debated these propositions but all of them have so far kept these important ceremonies.

In the lead up to 26 January, Woolworths was accused of trying to ‘cancel Australia Day’ by acting on their commercial decision not to stock specific Australia Day products in store, a decision made because of steeply declining sales. Kmart and Aldi also revealed they would not be stocking these products. All simply made business decisions based on changing consumer behaviours that are no doubt reflective of how Australians are reconsidering what 26 January means to different parts of the community. But if we were to believe the headlines, 26 January was cancelled.

Most recently we have seen brazen public acts of racism, no doubt emboldened by the tenor of the referendum debate and defeat. And while shocking and outrageous to some, for many if not all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, these acts are neither surprising nor unexpected.

Seize the moment to build a better nation

Having taken time out – to work through my feelings of disappointment, despair and distress at the referendum result, and to recharge my batteries after the physical exhaustion of the campaign – I now see the clarion call to action to seize the moment.

Now more than ever there is an urgency to the work of reconciliation – to build a better nation that enacts and defends the rights of First Nations peoples to make our own decisions about our own lives and communities.

What the referendum revealed to us is that under the bedrock of mainstream Australian society’s good intentions lies a mantle of ill-informed and misguided conceptions about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and what is at stake if we do not embrace change.

This mantle has been formed by 230-plus years of harmful policies and rhetoric.

Left unchecked or, worse, purposefully ignited, this mantle can erupt into the kinds of racism and bigotry experienced by First Nations people during the referendum campaign and since.

We only have to look across the Tasman to Aotearoa-New Zealand, to glimpse how this could play out if given oxygen.

The New Zealand Coalition Government, ironically elected on the same day as the Voice referendum, has plans to review the place of the Treaty of Waitangi within New Zealand’s laws; has directed that the Maori language is limited, or removed, from use within the public sector; and shut down the Maori Health Authority, Te Aka Whai Ora – an agency set up to improve health outcomes for Maori people – by the end of June.