A two-year campaign, six-figure donations, rallies, blue painted faces, neck-and-neck polls and even bagpipes with flames coming out of them. And after that, the oh so straightforward question: "Should Scotland be an independent country?" (no beating around the fens there).

What was initially dismissed as a bit of a political sideshow blossomed into a tight race. A sweaty David Cameron was even prompted to bring out the relationship metaphors to try and persuade the Scottish people to "stay". "If you don't like me, I won't be here forever. If you don't like this government, it won't last forever," he begged this week. "But if you leave the UK - that will be forever."

With 16 and 17-year-olds allowed to vote and 97 per cent of voters registered, electorate invigorment was skye high (sorry, couldn't help it) during the campaign. In the end, overall turnout was estimated at about 84 per cent, which is really impressive when you consider voting was not compulsory.

So no wonder people were saying that despite the loss for the "yes" campaign, the real winner in the referendum was Scottish democracy ... that and, given the "devolution max" pledge made by the UK's three main political parties before the vote, Scotland has been promised "extensive new powers" for voting against independence.

If you get away from the politics of whether or not the Scots should be indie - and the economic predictions of what would happen if they were - there is a plucky romance to what Scotland has done: asking itself a question that goes to the heart of its identity and existence.

Meanwhile, this week in Australia, we continued to dance and sigh around the question of when we should have a referendum about recognising indigenous Australians in the Constitution. Up in Arnhem Land in his tent camp, Tony Abbott made good (more or less) on his promise to spend a week in a remote community in his first year as Prime Minister. But here, while smoochin' babies and talking to leaders, he also played down calls for a vote on indigenous recognition at or before the 2016 federal election.

"I think it's going to be difficult to run a bipartisan referendum campaign in conjunction with a highly partisan election campaign. That's why I don't think it is really that sensible to have the referendum at the time of the next election," he said. "If we rush prematurely into naming dates, into deciding what the proposal will be, I think we cruel our pitch and I think we jeopardise our chances of getting it all through."

The idea of constitutional recognition is no new idea, however. Before the election, when Abbott pledged to be a "prime minister for Aboriginal affairs," he said one of the "most important things" a new government could do would be "the final recognition of Indigenous people in the Australian constitution". "Within 12 months, we will publish a proposal for constitutional recognition and we will establish a bi-partisan process to try and bring that about as soon as possible," he promised.

Just over 12 months on, a parliamentary committee has been set up to inquire into constitutional recognition and Abbott and Bill Shorten have met to nut out a "bipartisan accord" on the fact that they both support a referendum. The government is then due to announce a draft amendment in "late 2014".

But why all the need for accords and assurances? Why all the prancing and posturing? Both sides of parliament have supported a referendum for years. Labor considered pushing for one during its term in government, before backing away in 2012, on the grounds that the public campaign needed to be better established. (Which begs the question, why hadn't it been?)

All this carefulness flies in the face of strong public support for a change to the constitution. A February 2011 Newspoll found that 75 per cent of those surveyed supported the idea. There may be some debate about the scope of the changes to the constitution, but when it gets down to it, can you honestly imagine a modern Australia voting against the recognition of Indigenous Australians?

They say that much of the world has been looking to Scotland as it decided its independence. For Australia's part, it could learn a thing or two about biting the referendum bullet. If it is a genuine priority of government, why is this issue still in the Never Never?

Judith Ireland is a Fairfax Media journalist.