New data shows three quarters of Australians agree it's time for a referendum to create an Indigenous Voice to Parliament — but not all the major parties do.
Vote Compass asked whether Australia should amend its constitution to establish a representative body or "Voice" to advise Parliament on laws and policies affecting Indigenous peoples.
There was clear support for the idea — overall 73 per cent of Australians agreed '"strongly" or "somewhat" that there should be constitutional change to give Indigenous Australians a greater say over their lives.
The push for a referendum was released as part of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, written in Central Australia at an historic gathering five years ago this month.
Pitjantjatjara woman Sally Scales was at Uluṟu in 2017. She said there has been growing support for a Voice since then.
"That was the smart thing about the Uluru statement, it wasn't gifted to the politicians," she said.
The authors of the statement reunited in Far North Queensland in April.
They called on the next Australian government to hold a referendum within the next two years, either in May 2023, or January 2024.
What do Australians think?
Since the last election in 2019, Vote Compass data has shown support for an Indigenous Voice in Parliament appears to be growing.
Overall, in 2019, 64 per cent of voters supported the push for a referendum ahead of the last election. In the latest survey ahead of this year's election, 73 per cent supported the move.
Labor voters are significantly more likely than Liberal-National voters to back a Voice, with 82 per cent supportive of a potential referendum.
Vote Compass data suggests Coalition voters are divided on the issue, with 43 per cent of voters supportive of changing the constitution, while 38 per cent are opposed.
The data reveals support among both groups of voters has risen over the past three years. Greens voters continue to be the party most supportive of the concept, with 92 per cent backing it.
How would it work?
The Voice would be an Indigenous representative body which would advise lawmakers on issues affecting First Nations people.
In 2017, the former Referendum Council said the concept "appealed to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities because of the history of poor or nonexistent consultation with communities by the Commonwealth."
It is not clear exactly what a Voice to Parliament would look like, or how many people it would elect.
It would have a huge task to distil the concerns of hundreds of Indigenous nations and clans across Australia.
But there are common issues it could advise on, across multiple communities, including high incarceration rates, underemployment and access to better healthcare.
How did we get here?
For decades there has been debate over proposals to change the constitution to give Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people more respect and power, known as "constitutional recognition".
The Australian Constitution can only be changed with a national vote, and few have been successful in our history since Federation.
Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull established a Referendum Council to consult with First Nations communities all across the nation to ask them on their favoured model for a referendum.
At Uluru in 2017, about 250 delegates reached a consensus, calling for a referendum to create a permanent "Voice to Parliament".
Then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull rejected the idea, saying it would never gain the support of the public.
What are the major parties saying?
The election outcome on May 21 will determine what the next steps are in the consideration of an enshrined Voice to Parliament.
Tony Dreise, Vice-Chancellor of First Nations Education and Research at the University of Southern Queensland, said the attitudes of Australians were not being mirrored in the major parties policies.
"There is a misalignment between what the majority of Australians are saying about the voice and the position of political parties," he said.
"The data and analysis points very clearly to the fact that through good education campaigns, through good and positive bipartisan campaigns, this vote will get up."
Labor has said it would like to see the Voice progress in its first term if it won government.
But Labor's Indigenous Affairs spokeswoman Linda Burney said first there would need to be a very strong education campaign to ensure a referendum is successful.
"We've got to be very clear eyed about this," she said.
"A referendum needs a majority of people in a majority of states, so that means not only First Nations people, but non-Aboriginal people."
"But I am confident, absolutely confident that if this referendum was put to the Australian public it would be successful at the end of the day."
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has refused to support the call for a referendum and instead has pledged $31 million for dozens of new regional advisory bodies which would be created by legislation, without a referendum.
"It's not our policy to have a constitutionally recognised Voice to Parliament," Mr Morrison had previously stated.
The authors of the Uluru Statement argue that action on a Voice to Parliament must come first, before a Makarrata Commission is established to oversee treaties and a truth-telling process.
The Greens have said they would not stand in the way of reform on a Voice to Parliament, but WA senator and Yamatji-Noongar woman Dorinda Cox said the party's priority was for the national truth-telling process and a treaty be established first.
"Our position is truth, treaty and voice [that's] the sequence we want to undertake," she said.
Senator Cox said there needed to be more work done to consult with First Nations people to ensure they supported and understood the push for a referendum.
"What I have heard is that there hasn't been enough conversation, we can't have a conversation with just a very closed group of people," she said.
"I think we absolutely need to do the work to [listen] to what the grassroots communities are saying."
About the data
- Vote Compass responses have been weighted by gender, age, education, language, religion, place of residence and past vote to match the Australian population, creating a nationally representative sample
- Find out more about the methodology in this explainer
