| Sumario: | In Australia and other settler colonial states, guilt is postulated as being a psychological legacy of colonisation. The guilt-driven narrative has dominated academic and political discourses of reconciliation, especially during the Voice referendum in 2023. However, the distinction between "in-group" and "out-group" in respect to supposed feelings of guilt is arbitrary and contested. Little is known about the invocation of collective guilt beyond White people. The rejection or denial of guilt is considered emotionally callous, racially condescending, or politically indifferent. It is necessary to identify the dissonances and overlaps between dominant settler society and multicultural groups in respect to feelings of guilt arising from colonial injustices. Drawing on a range of empirical and statistical research on Chinese Australian responses to the Voice referendum, this article will examine whether Chinese Australians satisfy the antecedents that lead to guilt, thereby evaluating the effectiveness and limits of guilt as a postcolonial strategy. It will shed light on the politics of presumed overarching guilt and how it applies to multicultural communities. By moving beyond a simplistic Black–White binary, it offers an alternative lens to envision the paths for reconciliation in contemporary multicultural Australia.
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