Australia will look to how the United States moved towards reconciliation with its Indigenous people as debate over a First Nations voice to parliament heats up.
Indigenous Affairs Minister Linda Burney will on Friday meet US interior secretary Deb Haaland, who is in Australia for discussions about First Nations reconciliation.
Ms Haaland, an Indigenous women from southwest United States, has been tasked by her president with elevating the voice of First Nations peoples and giving them greater visibility.
Her department oversees the government's "nation-to-nation relationships" and treaty obligations with almost 600 sovereign tribes, America's equivalent of Australia's First Nations communities.
She said if Indigenous people had been given a greater voice in society, the impacts of climate change, habitat loss and dying coral reefs could have been lessened or avoided.
"Just as my ancestors cared for their lands, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have care for the lands that sustains communities across this country," she said.
"Many of the challenges we face today could have been lessened or completely avoided if early colonists had valued the stewardship practices and environmental wisdom tribes had cultivated over thousands of years."
US ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy says the secretary "is making it her priority to give Indigenous peoples a greater voice, greater visibility, and greater power as both the United States and Australia seek reconciliation".
Indigenous activist Pat Anderson said the voice was "probably one of the most significant decisions we're going to make as a nation".
At a Senate estimates hearing on Friday, a number of land councils threw their support behind the voice citing a long-term need for their constituents to be heard.
Northern Land Council chief executive Joe Martin-Jard, who heads one of the oldest representative Indigenous organisations in Australia, said a voice was needed to start a conversation about a treaty with First Nations people.
"First Nations people of Australia have never ceded sovereignty, eminent constitutional lawyers agree," he said.
"We understand detail is important, we have always acted on principle of land rights, voice, treaty, truth ... (we) join with all Australians who support a voice to parliament, and who will vote yes in the referendum later this year."
Tiwi Land Council chief executive Robert Graham said his organisation had long advocated for a voice to parliament.
"The Tiwi have a long history of defending their rights and their lands, going back to their successful resistance to the English settlement at Fort Dundas over the period 1824 to 1848," he said.
"The TLC proposed constitutional recognition and representation several decades ago, and welcomes this nation's present engagement in the form of the voice."
