Indigenous leaders call for representative body and treaties process after Uluru convention

Updated

Indigenous leaders from across the country have outright rejected the idea of mere recognition in the constitution, instead calling for a representative body to be enshrined in the nation's founding document and a process established working towards treaties.

Key points: Constitutional recognition was "totally rejected", says Referendum Council member

Uluru delegation calls for First Nations Voice enshrined in the constitution

Delegation also calls for a truth and justice commission

The Uluru Statement from the Heart is the result of three days of deliberations during the national gathering.

"Proportionally, we are the most incarcerated people on the planet. We are not an innately criminal people," the statement said.

"Our children are aliened from their families at unprecedented rates. This cannot be because we have no love for them. And our youth languish in detention in obscene numbers. They should be our hope for the future.

Sorry, this video has expired Video: Megan Davis says constitutional reform is needed to empower Indigenous people (ABC News)

"These dimensions of our crisis tell plainly the structural nature of our problem. This is the torment of our powerlessness.

"We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own country. When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish. They will walk in two worlds and their culture will be a gift to their country.

"We call for the establishment of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution."

The co-chair of the Government-appointed Referendum Council, Pat Anderson, said an acknowledgement in the constitution was "totally rejected" by all of the meetings and people they spoke to over the six month period.

"This is a long process we've set up now … with people putting up their hands up today and were chosen, we've got a very large working group that will continue to work on this process for the next while," she said.

"When the referendum council finishes its work on June 30, we've got another team — a whole range of people who will go forward and bring this whole matter forward."

Cape York leader Noel Pearson said there was no enthusiasm for a statement of acknowledgment of Indigenous people in the constitution.

He said the delegates agreed that a parliamentary "voice" would be more "substantive".

"It will have a more practical impact Aboriginal people's place in the democracy," he said.

"That's what they've chosen rather than some sort of nice words of acknowledgement."

The announcement is the result of a historic convention in the centre of Australia.

Hundreds of Indigenous people from all around Australia travelled to Uluru to try and reach a consensus on whether a referendum on constitutional recognition was needed, and what it would look like.

There has been bipartisan support for a referendum on recognition, but there has never been a model for change endorsed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Ms Anderson said in the discussions held by the Referendum Council, people said they wanted a treaty.

"In the discussions that we've had in the last six months, people want treaty … they don't want acknowledgment, they want treaty and a truth and justice commission," she said.

Australia is the only Commonwealth country that does not have a treaty with its Indigenous peoples.

Topics: indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, indigenous-policy, community-and-society, nt, australia

First posted</s>'We were never Australians back then': From being counted to being heard

"We were outcasts; we were never Australians back then."

My father was remembering a time when Indigenous people felt locked out of Australia.

His was a hard life of exclusion and discrimination.

I have revisited that time in a special program for ABC television marking the 50th anniversary of the 1967 referendum.

It remains the most successful referendum in Australian history.

Like great moments in our past it has taken on the quality of myth.

It did not make Aboriginal people citizens, we already were. Although certainly did not enjoy full citizenship privileges.

It did not give Aboriginal people the vote, most already enjoyed that fundamental right.

But it was a powerfully symbolic moment. It struck from our nation's founding document, the Constitution, a section that excluded the first peoples of this land from being counted among its population.

It also allowed the federal parliament, for the first time, to make laws for Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders.

It was part of a wave of activism and reform. Old style segregation was being dismantled and the Aboriginal political voice was being heard.

It opened the doors of opportunity to education and employment.

The doctrine of Terra Nullius — that this was an empty land free to be claimed by the British — has been overturned.

That historic 1992 Mabo High Court decision led to recognition of Native Title, increasing the footprint of Aboriginal owned in land in Australia.

But for all the success, 1967 remains a victory half won.

Indigenous people were counted, now they are demanding to be heard.

Indigenous leaders have been meeting this week at the spiritual heart of Australia — Uluru — to try to reach a consensus on the next phase of political reform.

It is referred to broadly as constitutional recognition, but it is much more than that.

What may originally have been conceived as a symbolic gesture of acknowledgment of Indigenous antiquity and culture — some poetic words — has become a catalyst for a more definitive settlement.

After a series of meetings around Australia, Indigenous communities have made clear a preference for substance over symbolism.

A range of options have been discussed including creating autonomous regions, negotiating treaties, or establishing a national representative body to have a voice in Indigenous government policy.

It is ambitious and it is a test of Australia's political maturity.

Can our constitutional democracy encompass the demands of its most impoverished minority?

Arguments for and against are already being made.

I can see shortcomings in the arguments of both sides.

Many Indigenous claims are predicated on redressing a historical legacy of neglect and discrimination.

It lies at the heart of the deplorable plight of so many of the first peoples today. Indigenous people are, as a group, the most impoverished and imprisoned in our nation.

But an argument for lasting political change cannot be based purely on socio-economic inequality.

First, many of the people prosecuting that case are themselves — like me — privileged, and educated. We have closed the gap.

Australians would be entitled to ask why we need "special treatment".

Philosophers Duncan Ivison, Paul Patton and Will Saunders in their book Political Theory and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, write:

"Linking self-government rights to degrees of suffering is problematic. The case for remedial rights depends on there being a temporary measure intended to address specific disadvantage caused by historic injustice. But Indigenous claims appeal to 'inherent', not temporary sovereignty."

Put simply: Indigenous people have rights that are more fixed than a person's current socio-economic status.

Native Title, arising out of the Mabo ruling, is one example.

Today, more than a third of the Australian land mass is under some form of Indigenous title.

It also has broader implications for Indigenous relationship with Australia.

Legal scholar Jeremy Webber has written that "Mabo initiates a process of mutual adjustment that will continue long into the future".

The push for constitutional reform, treaties and recognition is part of that adjustment.

As Webber points out, the Mabo decision is not about recognising two utterly different spheres — Indigenous and non-Indigenous — but a "parallel process" of "restructuring the relationship".

Indigenous Australians as the first peoples have a unique status and heritage. But, how does Australia incorporate that into its democracy?

There are those who dismiss the idea out of hand. Those opponents of reform claim acknowledging Indigenous group rights is antithetical to our liberal democratic traditions of the primacy of the individual.

It is a serious objection that demands serious consideration because it goes to the fundamental question of the primacy of the nation state and the values that define it.

It asks: what does our country stand for?

Australia's history traverses the dispossession and exclusion of Indigenous people and a broader white Australia policy to keep out "coloured races", to today's general acceptance of what Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has called the world's most successful multi-cultural society.

Australia, unlike some other nations, is not defined by race or ethnicity. We do not have a state religion.

Diversity can enrich society but it can also challenge the idea of national unity.

American political scientist William Connelly says the nation is "an imagination of unity … it never simply exists in the present".

One of the founding thinkers of liberalism, John Stuart Mill, also asked the question: what is a nation?

He says it exists where people share common sympathies and unite under the same government.

Clearly, where there is inherent tension between groups it is more difficult to locate those common sympathies and unity.

Philosopher John Rawls spoke about the idea of mutuality and co-operation to achieve justice and fairness.

Society, he said, was a "fair system of cooperation over time, from one generation to the next".

The problem of political liberalism is to define this idea of political justice in our constitutional democracy — where minorities demand to be heard.

The challenge, he said, was to create a system that a "plurality of reasonable doctrines, both religious and non-religious, liberal and non-liberal, may freely endorse, and so live by and come to understand its virtues".

When people feel represented in a democracy then they can also feel allegiance to that democracy.

There are 10,000 distinct peoples in the world — defined around language, racial, ethnic, and cultural bonds — squeezed into fewer than 200 nations.

These are national minorities or stateless nations. Think of the Inuit and Quebecois in Canada, the Sami in Scandinavia, New Zealand Maori or Catalans in Spain, Scots in Britain.

Clearly there is going to be tension. Often this has sparked ethno-cultural conflict, one of the main causes of violence around the world.

Political philosophers like Canada's Will Kymlicka argue that classic liberalism has the potential to peacefully incorporate these demands.

He makes the point that the suppression of group rights — in our case indigenous rights — necessarily erodes the freedom and liberty of individuals belonging to that group.

It follows, he argues, that recognition of group rights can help release and empower individuals to pursue what we see as the "good life".

His critics, though, say Kymlicka proposes a form of "ethnic nationalism" akin to racial segregation.

Rival philosopher David Hollinger says there can be two kinds of multiculturalism: either a pluralist model where people cling to fixed group identities, or a cosmopolitan model that allows people to change shape, to shift across boundaries and adopt hybrid identities.

This the classic "melting-pot" idea. It works successfully for many migrants who merge into a dominant culture in their adopted home.

But it doesn't answer the question about the enduring, inherent rights, of — in our case — Indigenous people.

Individual Indigenous people may choose to pursue different lifestyles and identities but Australian law recognises unique Indigenous claims that require resolution.

Indigenous people are seeking political architecture right now — constitutional reform, treaties — that provide mechanisms for resolving disputes and allowing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples greater input into policy that directly affects their lives and communities.

The opponents of constitutional change also reject the idea of treaties.

Because, unlike North America or New Zealand, Australia did not sign treaties at contact. Trying to retrofit a model that works is problematic, but possible.

The classic rebuff is that a nation can't have a treaty with itself — that it would recognise separatism.

There is a clash between the ultimate sovereignty of the Commonwealth and the position of some Indigenous people that they retain a sovereignty never ceded.

This is contested space, but not insurmountable.

Treaties are ultimately negotiations and agreements and can take many different forms.

Victoria and South Australia are negotiating treaties and Western Australia signed a compensation and land deal with Noongar people that many say is a treaty in all but name.

Another argument mounted against recognising Indigenous rights is that the Constitution should be effectively "colour-blind", free of any mention of race.

But Australia's Constitution has never been colour-blind.

"In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a state or other part of the Commonwealth, Aboriginal natives shall not be counted."

Section 51 (xxvi) empowered the Commonwealth to make laws for "The people of any race, other than the Aboriginal race in any State, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws".

This section has been commonly referred to as the "race power".

Removing or amending those sections were the focus of the 1967 referendum.

Then Indigenous people brought the Australian public with them.

The political climate today is much more fractious and fractured. The stakes for the first peoples of Australia are much higher and the demands much more substantial.

Duncan Ivison says recognition of Australia's first peoples needs to be seen as an ongoing transformation in the relations between Indigenous people and the state.

Indigenous leaders are seeking what they have called a "final settlement", to finish the unfinished business.

Fifty years ago, my father said he did not feel like a citizen; today Indigenous people are still testing the limits of that citizenship.</s>A referendum could be held early next year to enshrine a "First Nations Voice" in the constitution after a historic all-Indigenous convention overwhelmingly backed the move.

In a stunning repudiation, the convention rejected acknowledging Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in the constitution, instead backing recognition in some form of Indigenous representative body in the constitution. It also called for a road map to a treaty.

It has called for a "Makarrata Commission" to supervise agreements between Indigenous groups and government and a period of truth-telling about the treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

"Makarrata is the culmination of our agenda: the coming together after a struggle," says the convention declaration, referring to the word of the Yolngu people of north-east Arnhem Land for treaty or settlement.

"In 1967 we were counted; in 2017 we seek to be heard," said the declaration, which was adopted by around 250 delegates on Friday afternoon before a dramatic closing ceremony at the Mutitjulu community at the foot of Uluru.

The declaration will be presented to the Referendum Council, which will then deliver a report on options for constitutional recognition to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten.

Mr Turnbull and Mr Shorten will address an event on Saturday to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1967 referendum.

It will be the first opportunity for both leaders to respond the the declaration.

Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson challenged both to back the two proposals, telling Fairfax Media: "I hope that the message will become clear this week to Bill Shorten and Malcolm Turnbull that there is a model here that, if they show the necessary leadership, they can bring the Australian people with them to support."

He believed the wording for a referendum question enshrining an Indigenous voice in the constitution could be drafted in the next few months, allowing for a referendum to be held next year. What form the voice could take would then be discussed by a parliamentary committee before legislation was enacted.

"My own personal views are we should go in no later than the next 12 months to a referendum," Mr Pearson said.

A working group would continue to press the case for the proposals, he said.

Referendum Council co-chair, Pat Anderson, said previous dialogues had "rejected totally outright having some sort of an acknowledgement in the constitution".

"Overwhelmingly around the country, people are wanting to negotiate a proper settlement between us all. People want treaty, they don't want acknowledgement and they want a truth and justice commission."

Constitutional lawyer Megan Davis, who has played a key role at the 12 preceding dialogues and the convention, said: "The mob overwhelmingly rejected symbolism or a statement of acknowledgement in the constitution."

Professor Davis said the emphatic view of the convention was not to seek "recognition" as an acknowledgement, but "reform that allows us to participate fully and actively in the life of the Australian state".

The Uluru declaration pressed the case for the changes saying: "With substantive constitutional change and structural reform, we believe this ancient sovereignty can shine through as a fuller expression of Australia's nationhood.

"Proportionally, we are the most incarcerated people on the planet. We are not an innately criminal people. Our children are aliened​ from their families at unprecedented rates. This cannot be because we have no love for them. And our youth languish in detention in obscene numbers. They should be our hope for the future.

"These dimensions of our crisis tell plainly the structural nature of our problem. This is the torment of our powerlessness."</s>Delegates at the First Nations Constitutional Convention at Uluru have issued a powerful “statement from the heart”. They called for the establishment of a “First Nations Voice” enshrined in the Australian Constitution, and a commission to progress treaty-making between governments and Indigenous people.

The Uluru statement reflects long-held Indigenous aspirations. But, in rejecting symbolic constitutional recognition, it puts pressure on Australia’s political leaders. Will they – and non-Indigenous Australians – listen?

The Uluru statement is not a unanimous view. Seven delegates walked out in protest on Thursday, concerned that any reform would lead to a loss of sovereignty. Not all returned.

However, the statement reflects a strong consensus position of Indigenous Australians. It is the culmination of three days of meetings at Uluru, which followed six months of regional dialogues held across Australia.

Grounded in their inherent right to sovereignty, the statement calls for constitutional reform to empower Indigenous people to take “a rightful place in our own country”. The delegates believe this can be achieved through:
• None a national representative body with the power to advise parliament on laws that affect Indigenous people; and
• None a “Makarrata Commission” to supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations, and undertake a public truth-telling process.

Makarrata is a Yolngu word meaning “a coming together after a struggle”.

Indigenous Australians have long fought for their rightful place in their own country.

In 1937, William Cooper, secretary of the Aboriginal Advancement League, gathered 1,814 signatures in a petition to King George V that called for Indigenous representation in the federal parliament. The petition was passed to Prime Minister Joseph Lyons, but cabinet refused to forward it to the king.

In 1963, the Yolngu people in eastern Arnhem Land sent a series of bark petitions to the parliament. In these they called for recognition of their land, resource and cultural rights, and their sovereignty.

The government had transferred their land to a bauxite mining company without consulting them. The Yolngu people explained that that land “has been hunting and food-gathering land for the Yirrkala tribes from time immemorial”, and the:

They expressed their concern that:

A few years later, in 1971, more than 1,000 Indigenous Australians signed a petition organised by the Larrakia people. They described themselves as “refugees in the country of our ancestors”, and called for land rights, a treaty, and political representation. Their voices went unheard.

In 1979, the National Aboriginal Conference, an elected Indigenous body advising government, passed a resolution calling for a “Makarrata”. This resolution sparked talk of a treaty within the federal parliament.

Four years later, a Senate committee delivered a report on the idea of a treaty. It recommended constitutional change to implement a “compact”. That report was also ignored.

In 1998, the Barunga Statement called on the federal parliament to:

Prime Minister Bob Hawke promised to negotiate such a treaty by 1990. But no treaty was forthcoming, and it dropped off the political agenda.

This week Indigenous leaders have again called for a voice in their country. The central concern is an oft-repeated one: that, as a small minority, dispersed across the continent of their ancestors, and continuing to resist the legacy of colonialism, Indigenous Australians have almost no say about legislation that affects them.

A constitutionally enshrined national representative body is an important proposal, but the Makarrata Commission is more significant.

Treaties are accepted globally as the means of reaching a settlement between Indigenous peoples and those who have colonised their lands. They are formal agreements, reached via respectful negotiation conducted in good faith, that recognise an inherent right to some level of sovereignty or self-government.

Treaties have been achieved in the US and New Zealand, and are still being negotiated in Canada. In contrast, no treaty between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians has ever been recognised.

Indigenous Australians are willing to negotiate. But are non-Indigenous Australians ready to enter into respectful negotiations? Or will they, once again, ignore the invitation?

The Uluru summit was organised by the Referendum Council, a body set up by Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten to advise on the path toward a referendum.

Through the Uluru statement, Indigenous people have invited non-Indigenous Australians to walk together for a better future. The statement is the voice of Indigenous Australians. Now is the time for non-Indigenous Australians to hear that voice.</s>During National Reconciliation Week, 28 May to 3 June, Mr Jim Toohey, President of Carers Queensland, is calling on the media to acknowledge the enormous contribution made by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians who care for another person with disability, a long-term physical or mental illness.

“Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are more likely to be carers than people of the broader Australian community, and there has been an increase in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples identifying as carers – from 32,581 in 2006 to 45,328 in 2011,” said Mr Toohey.

Many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander carers accept caring as a normal part of family and community life and may not think of themselves as carers. Some carers have sole responsibility for caring, while others share it.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander carers are more likely to be younger than non-Indigenous Australian carers.The average age of Indigenous Australian carers was 37 years; 12 years less than the average age of non-Indigenous Australian carers. This may reflect higher birth rates at younger ages and earlier onset of many chronic diseases for Indigenous Australians.

For more statistics, see: http://www.carersaustralia.com.au/about-carers/aboriginalandtorresstraitislandercarers/

Unpaid family carers contribute 1.9 billion hours of care in Australia, and the replacement value of the unpaid care provided in 2015 was $60.3 billion – more than $1 billion per week.

Carers Queensland is currently in the Stretch phase of our Reconciliation Action Plan. We are committed to improving the quality of life of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander carers and to effectively continue the journey to reconciliation within Australia. To achieve this, Carers Queensland’s vision for reconciliation in to improve the health, wellbeing, resilience and financial security of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander carers and to ensure caring is a shared responsibility of family, community, business and government.

Carers Queensland is the state’s peak body advocating on behalf of Queensland’s 480,000 unpaid family carers. Go to www.carersqld.asn.au to find out more.</s>In the shadow of Uluru, Indigenous people will present a historic position on changes to the constitution today.

At a national constitutional convention this week, hundreds of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been negotiating on the reforms they will ask the Federal Government to consider.

At the remote community of Mutitjulu, some of the most influential Indigenous people in the country will stand united to deliver their statement.

The proposal to recognise Indigenous history in the constitution has the support of the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and the Opposition Leader Bill Shorten.

But those at the summit have barely spoken about "recognition" and instead prefer reforms to give Indigenous groups more power over laws that affect them.

Powerful land councils have had their say at the talks, representing thousands of members.

Northern Land Council chief executive Joe Morrison said they would reject a "symbolic" referendum.

It is likely the delegation will present a proposal to set up a national representative body, and the statement may also recommend that the Federal Government consider a treaty, in addition to a referendum.

Once the Uluru meeting wraps, recommendations will be written in a report for Mr Turnbull and Mr Shorten.

New South Wales delegate, Sean Gordon, said if Parliament ignored the recommendations and pushed ahead with a different referendum model, he expected many Indigenous people to "walk away" from it.

The convention falls on the 50th anniversary of the 1967 referendum on Aboriginal rights.

Many have described the Uluru summit as the most significant national Indigenous gathering in a decade.

Sally Scales, an emerging Aboriginal leader, said the decision could be the blueprint for her generation.

Ms Scales, 27, is the deputy chairwoman of APY Lands, and said she was representing the views of young Indigenous people.

"I'm all about youth leadership, it's fantastic to be here to be part of this."

Delegates worked late into the night to come up with an agreed position to present this afternoon.

The Referendum Council's co-chairwoman Pat Anderson said it was "inevitable" there would be robust debate.

A small minority of the delegates stormed out of the talks yesterday, saying they did not agree with the direction the negotiations were headed.

Seven delegates walked out and said they would not return.

Jenny Munro from the Sydney delegation accused the Referendum Council of not listening to their position.

"It's not a dialogue, it's a one-way conversation. Every time we try and raise an issue our voices are silenced," she said.

Anangu traditional owner Alison Hunt said she was disappointed to see the group leave.

"We have to be united, speaking as Aboriginal people here meeting today from all over Australia with one voice."</s>The constitutional recognition debate is nothing like 1967

When it comes to the 1967 referendum finally giving citizenship to Aboriginal people in this country, there is one thing that strikes me about the process.

It was the most successful referendum outcome since Federation — because it came from the grassroots, following a series of political and community actions undertaken by Aboriginal people and the ally networks they set up.

The documentary film made by Franny Peters-Little entitled Vote Yes for Aborigines outlines this process extensively.

From the formation of the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI) in the 1950s, running on nothing but volunteer labour, ration books and food donations, to then bringing unions, students, churches, et cetera on board to support the cause, and use their international clout to raise the profile of Indigenous discrimination globally.

Awareness was also raised via political activism such as the Freedom Rides and the Wave Hill Walk Off.

And after 10 long years of campaigning and lobbying politicians, the referendum questions finally went to vote — and even then, it was under a prime minister who wasn't convinced of the necessity of these changes.

Fifty years on, the current push for the constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people feels like it couldn't be more different from the 1967 referendum campaign if it tried.

Community response has ranged from support, to suspicion and questioning, to downright dissent.

This dissent reflects a frustration with a system that has delivered so little in 50 years.

It was during the prime ministership of Julia Gillard (following the Howard government's initial attempt to include recognition in a preamble during the 1999 republic referendum) that the Expert Panel on Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples was formed.

Their extensive report was tabled in 2012 and while examining many aspects of constitutional recognition, it showed that though there was goodwill in both the mainstream and the Indigenous communities; Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people wanted substantive change.

In particular, questions around sovereignty and the prospects for treaty formed part of the expert panel's report.

The findings were that any mention of these concepts within a referendum would cause the referendum to fail, because there was no will for this change from the Australian public.

This caused a lot of Indigenous people to question "why not"?

If all constitutional recognition is going to do is name us in a document specifically written in the first place by colonisers to exclude us, then what is the real point of this push?

The complex Indigenous oppositional reaction goes deeper than that though.

Why is it that in 2017, 25 years after the false doctrine of terra nullius (or land belonging to no-one) as declared by Captain Cook in 1770 was quashed in the High Court of this country, there is still such a resistance from the Australian public and particularly the governing bodies to come to the table?

To recognise the land and cultural rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people?

To develop some sort of framework for reparations, service provision and proper consultation?

To undo the generations of white-washed history and come to an agreement on how this country is going to move forward?

Why is Australia the only Commonwealth country not to have negotiated treaties with the Indigenous peoples?

This disquiet has been exacerbated, rather than subdued, by the Recognise campaign.

While Recognise was continually touted as a "grassroots campaign" designed to educate the Australian public on the issue of constitutional recognition, the fact that it was government-funded and was pushing a very pro-yes line was troubling.

When Indigenous people saw gigantic corporate endorsements for Recognise such as the AFL and NRL, Qantas and various mining companies, it appeared little more than an advertising campaign for government policy.

Yet despite this, it has been difficult for Indigenous opposition to constitutional recognition to gain mainstream traction.

Mostly, this has been because the Government and Opposition have continually stated that constitutional recognition is what Indigenous people want.

For a time, it meant that the only oppositional voices getting heard in the media were those of conservative, white, wealthy men; some notable examples being Cory Bernardi, Gary Johns, and Andrew Bolt.

These men would have us believe that any recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the Original Peoples would amount to "racism", because it would separate us when we are all supposed to be Australians — never mind that some within the Indigenous community reject being called an "Australian" in the first place and see it as an imposition.

This white male dominance has been chipped away at with two tactics: on the ground activism and clever Indigenous use of social media.

On social media we have been able to network and share information free from mainstream media constraints.

Sovereignty campaigns such as Tent Embassies, the assertion of tribal lands and applying for UN recognition (for example, the Murrawarri Republic and the Yidindji nation) have used social media to keep people up to date on developments.

Pages such as Sovereign Union and Vote No to Constitutional Change have argued on the threats to the recognition of Indigenous sovereignty if we are written into the Constitution.

Invasion Day protests have also been staunch spaces for the assertion of sovereignty and due to the power of social media, crowd sizes have been growing every year.

I believe a crucial moment was reached when Recognise, having released a report stating that 87 per cent of Indigenous people would vote yes for constitutional change, were challenged by online media hub IndigenousX, run by Gamilaroi man Luke Pearson.

IndigenousX launched their own survey, as many online activists expressed it was impossible for there to be such broad Indigenous consensus when the referendum questions themselves had not even been defined at that point.

Not only was there little support for Recognise in the first place, but apart from rejecting symbolic measures only, respondents mainly supported the formation of actual Indigenous legislative bodies — a proposal which has been greatly ignored by successive governments.

What does recognition within a colonial document achieve?

I believe that some of the spirit of the grassroots activists of the 1967 campaign has been reflected by these dissenting community voices who have educated via binary coding rather than leaflets, and who have re-embraced the power of protest.

This was demonstrated when Victorian traditional owners rejected constitutional recognition outright at a state government forum in preference for the recognition of sovereignty (via treaties or other means) and the installation of a representative elders' council.

I believe that this grassroots action has been further reflected by the treaty process currently being investigated in South Australia.

Finally though, I believe the need for governments to come to the table, rather than assuming that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people will happily assimilate into their visions of "Australia" without a framework for justice, was what the 1967 campaigners were driving toward.

Their fight for citizenship carried the hope that we would be seen not just as equals, but as people who have a distinct connection in this country, which needs to be properly respected.

And to properly respect this, the government must consult, negotiate, make reparations and educate the public — so the atrocities of yesteryear are not doomed to repeat themselves time and time again.

This is something that mere recognition within a colonial document, written on the false basis of terra nullius, is never going to achieve.

Celeste Liddle is an Arrernte woman and the NTEU's national Indigenous organiser. She also blogs at Rantings of an Aboriginal Feminist.</s>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have rejected the idea of constitutional recognition and will instead push for a constitutionally enshrined Indigenous voice in parliament and a commission that will lead to a treaty.

After a meeting of more than 250 community leaders at Uluru, referendum council member Professor Megan Davis delivered a powerful statement from the group asserting that sovereignty had never been ceded or extinguished.

The statement said that the high rates of incarceration, youth detention and child removal showed the need for a significant practical change, not a symbolic reform.

“These dimensions of our crisis tell plainly the structural nature of our problem,” it said. “This is the torment of our powerlessness.

“We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own country. When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish. They will walk in two worlds and their culture will be a gift to their country.”

It said a makarrata, a Yolgnu word for treaty, was “the culmination of our agenda”.

“In 1967 we were counted,” the statement read. “In 2017 we seek to be heard.”

The outline for reform followed a statement that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were the sovereign first peoples of Australia.

“This sovereignty is a spiritual notion ... It has never been ceded or extinguished, and co-exists with the sovereignty of the crown,” the statement read. “With substantive constitutional change and structural reform, we believe this ancient sovereignty can shine through as a fuller expression of Australia’s nationhood.”

The statement was the culmination of three days of meetings at Uluru, which followed six months of regional dialogues conducted by the referendum council.

It is a significant departure from the more symbolic forms of constitutional recognition discussed by largely non-Indigenous politicians in the past, to which Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten had given their support. But it is consistent with longstanding political campaigns by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, which have focused around securing a treaty.

The proposed treaty commission would be given the dual task of working towards a treaty and engaging in a public truth-telling process.

“Part of this healing of the nation and coming together and having a mature nation, there has to be proper truth-telling in the same way they have done in other countries in the world,” Davis said.

The meetings at Uluru went late into the night, with a number of delegates, including members of the referendum council, working until 4am on Friday to finalise what has been called the statement from the heart of the nation.

Five hours later the remaining delegates gave it their unanimous approval, responding with thunderous applause, cheers, whistles and a standing ovation.

Not all the delegates were in the room; seven walked out in protest at the process and the way the discussion was heading on Thursday, and not all returned.

Delegates were united in rejecting the proposal put forward with bipartisan political support in 2010 for a statement recognising and acknowledging Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first peoples of Australia to be inserted into the constitution.

“All of the dialogues, including the one-day information session in Canberra, rejected totally outright having some sort of acknowledgment in the constitution,” Davis said. “That was totally rejected by all of the meetings and everybody we’ve spoken to over this six-month period.”

The statement also rejected the word recognition, instead calling the proposed changes a reform.

That leaves the federally funded Recognise organisation, which has received millions of dollars in funding over the past five years to gather support for the “recognise” movement, in a difficult position.

But that is not a concern for the delegates or the referendum council, who have been focused on outlining their key demands from any potential reform.

The central plank is the proposed parliamentary voice for Indigenous peoples, a suggestion championed by Cape York leader Noel Pearson.

In an article in the Australian Law Journal this month, Pearson and Cape York Institute constitutional reform research fellow Shireen Morris argued that inserting a new section of the constitution establishing an Indigenous voice in parliament was “the only proposal for substantive and practical constitutional recognition which is both legally sound as well as potentially politically viable”.

In contrast, they argued, a constitutional protection against racial discrimination, which had been one of the most popular proposals going into the Uluru convention, could not be described as politically viable.

Les Malezer, a Butchulla and Gubbi Gubbi man and Australian delegate to the UN permanent forum on Indigenous issues, said Indigenous people did need a genuine voice in parliament to be able to direct and inform policy designed specifically to apply to Indigenous peoples, but said enshrining it in the constitution would not necessarily protect it from political interference.

“The government of the day can interpret what those words mean in the constitution,” he told Guardian Australia.

“So if it just says something like ‘There shall be a body representing Aboriginal people’, well it could be like Atsic [the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, unilaterally abolished by the Howard government in 2005] with 400 elected representatives … or it could be like the Indigenous advisory council led by Warren Mundine.

“A ‘body representing Aboriginal people’ is open to all forms of political design.”

Malezer said there was no proof such an amendment would succeed at a referendum. Both sides of politics have been at best lukewarm on the idea.

“We have really no evidence from polling the public to see that a proposal like that will have majority support,” he said.

The proposal has also been criticised by some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, who say putting a body representing them into the constitution itself abrogates their sovereignty.

That concern was the driving reason behind the walk-out of seven delegates and 40 observers on Thursday.

As a Victorian delegate, Lydia Thorpe, said: “We need to protect and preserve our sovereignty. We demand a sovereign treaty with an independent sovereign treaty commission and appropriate funds allocated.”

The strong words asserting sovereignty in the Uluru statement are unlikely to appease those concerns.

Two delegates from each of the 12 dialogues, and a range of other interest groups and experts, have formed a working group to pursue the changes with parliament and continue consultation with the community.

“It’s this generation’s turn to have a run at it, and we’re going to run at it head-first and butt it down and make it happen this time,” Davis said. “Our very survival in fact depends on it.”</s>As Noel Pearson and others worked on the wording of the Statement from the Heart, into the early hours of Friday morning, the Cape York leader found himself reflecting on the last time a huge effort was mounted to reach a kind of compact between black and white Australia.

It was 10 years ago, in the lead-up to the 40th anniversary of the 1967 referendum, when he and Marcia Langton and Patrick Dodson, the man known as the father of reconciliation, tried to secure a breakthrough moment with a prime minister whose time was running out.

"We thought that in the twilight of the Howard government there might be some softening of the heart and he might seek to remedy his legacy in relation to Indigenous Australians," Pearson explained on ABC radio.

The enterprise fizzled through lack of political will, though John Howard did make a headline-grabbing election-eve gesture: a promise to hold a referendum to recognise Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in the constitution as the first Australians if he was returned.

If you count that as the beginning of the conversation, the national debate about constitution change has now been going on for as long as the campaign that preceded the 1967 referendum.

The difference this time is that, until now, Indigenous Australians have had very different ideas about what form recognition should take, with a strong body of opinion preferring to go down the treaty path.

Now, on the 50th anniversary, after the first ever national Indigenous constitutional convention, a two-track strategy has emerged that could be the making of Pearson's "noble compromise", one that hits the "sweet spot" between ambition and realism, and between conservatism and liberalism.

The very big surprise is that the idea of recognition for its own sake has been blown out of the water and replaced by something potentially much more substantial, more ambitious and more fraught with danger: recognition in the form of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the constitution.

This is a direct response to what the convention declaration calls the "torment of powerlessness" that has been all pervasive in Indigenous communities and grown almost exponentially in recent years.

The aspiration for treaty is accommodated in the second prong of the strategy: the setting up of a Makarrata commission to supervise a process of agreement between governments and First Nations and facilitate truth-telling about history.

Makarrata is a word in the language of the Yolngu people of north-eastern Arnhem Land that means a coming together after a struggle, facing the facts of wrongs and living again in peace. As Pearson told me: "I think it is a very good thing that we are using one of our own ancient languages to describe the kind of reconciliation that we are seeking."

This is a direct response to the will of 12 Indigenous-only dialogues and the three-day convention at Uluru. "Overwhelmingly around the country, people are wanting to negotiate a proper settlement between us all. People want treaty, they don't want acknowledgement," says Pat Anderson, co-chair of the Referendum Council.

So what happens now? Pearson says the process is at base camp, with a long, arduous trek across a vast continent to come – and he is dead right.

The statement now goes to the full Referendum Council where there will be surprise among some that certain options for constitution change, including a recognition that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are the original owners of the land, have not been supported.

The convention and the dialogues have rejected symbolism, but symbolism is important, as the formal apology to the Stolen Generations showed, so long as it is accompanied by actions of substance.

Then the council will send a report to Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten, paving the way for negotiations. The dangers cannot be discounted.

Among them are reservations already expressed about enshrining an Indigenous voice in the constitution by politicians, including the first Aboriginal member of the House of Representatives, Ken Wyatt.

The response of the hard right is predictable: if one section of the population is given its own voice in the constitution, what about other groups? The answer is that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander are special, having been here for 60,000 or more years.

There are also the practical questions, including this one: what guarantee is there that Parliament will listen?

These dangers need to be weighed against the work that has been done, including by the Recognise campaign, to build community support for constitutional change – support that is as strong among conservatives as it is among progressives, and as strong among the old as the young.

The dangers should also be assessed in the context of one simple proposition, that what is being sought is neither revolutionary nor unreasonable.

As the declaration says: "We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take their rightful place in our own country.

"When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish. They will walk in two worlds, their culture will be a gift to their country."

Hilary Charlesworth, the doctoral supervisor of Megan Davis, one of the key contributors at the convention, once told her "the most important thing we can do as legal scholars is to exercise our imagination, to imagine the world as a better place and to set about achieving that".

If the members of the Referendum Council, the politicians, the Indigenous negotiators and, ultimately, the country need a guiding principle as the debate moves from base camp, they could hardly find a better one.</s>Dozens of Australian indigenous leaders walked out of a national meeting on Thursday in protest against a plan to accept constitutional recognition, indigenous leader Geoff Clark told Reuters. Local performers dance during the opening ceremony for the National Indigenous Constitutional Convention at Mutitjulu near Uluru in central Australia SYDNEY: Dozens of Australian indigenous leaders walked out of a national meeting on their future on Thursday in protest against a plan to accept constitutional recognition, indigenous leader Geoff Clark said.

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The National Constitutional Convention of Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders at Mutitjulu concludes with Indigenous leaders calling for a treaty and reforms to the Constitution of Australia, beyond the proposed written recognition, including entrenchment of representative bodies and commissions for Indigenous rights.