The three principles of the Declaration – Voice, Treaty, Truth – are drawn from the fundamental principles of self-determination that First Nations Australians have articulated for countless decades. But this is not another political direction of the government. We are talking about resolving our historic grievance of dispossession and colonization. We are talking about a treaty. We are talking about our reconciled nation.
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We cannot allow the government, with its integrated incremental management practice, to control the process. We cannot allow the first principle of the declaration, constitutional recognition, to be achieved without a clear path to resolution and the declaration of truth.
In the absence of full First Nations support for the implementation of the Uluru Declaration, the referendum on constitutional recognition will fail. And if that happens, the historic opportunity for reconciliation will be lost and may never happen again. An informed and unified First Nations community will be able to refute the arguments that will inevitably grow as the nation moves toward Uluru.
In the 1967 referendum, Australians voted overwhelmingly to change the constitution so that First Nations people, like all other Australians, would be counted as part of the population and the federal parliament could make laws for they. We are now preparing for another historic referendum, this one based on the Uluru Declaration. If he succeeds in establishing a constitutionally enshrined voice in parliament, he will improve the power handed over to parliament in 1967. The voice will provide a level of parliamentary accountability to First Nations Australians. Although not a third chamber of Parliament, it will be a mechanism to promote collaboration and partnership, to give a voice to First Nations in drafting laws and decisions that affect them.
Most importantly, the voice can provide an institutional framework for formalizing an agreement or treaty between First Nations Australians and the nation-state, supported by a process of telling the truth.
And, as I say, we will be a better country for that.
This is an edited version of Professor Peter Yu’s keynote address this week at the 2022 Reconciliation Australia National Reconciliation Action Plan Conference.
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