Australia's Aborigines give PM Turnbull ‘roadmap to constitutional recognition’

By Joseph Hinchcliffe

Australia's aboriginal leaders have delivered a report to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull today, recommending the indigenous population be recognised in the constitution as the country's first people.

The report also called for a representative body be set up to advise parliament on indigenous matters.

Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders – with a history dating back some 50,000 years – make up 2.8% of the 24.5 million population.

But the group have disproportionately high rates of suicide and incarceration, ranking near the bottom in almost every economic and social indicator.

Denied the vote until the mid-1960s, they face a 10-year gap in life expectancy compared with other Australians and make up 27% of the prison population. The United Nations has criticised their living standards.

Australia's constitution currently makes no reference to the indigenous population and aboriginal leaders have struggled for generations to gain recognition for past injustices since European colonisation in the 1700s.

The government only issued a formal apology to indigenous people in 2008.

Aboriginal leader Joe Morrison said the report provided a guide to the country's politicians on how to amend the constitution to include indigenous recognition.

Goal of reparations

"Getting the report is one thing, but the prime minister has got to provide the requisite leadership in responding to the matter now put to him and do it in a bipartisan way," Morrison told Reuters news agency.

The exact contents of the report have not been made public and the government has so far declined to comment.

But Friday's report builds on a constitutional convention last month at Uluru, a sacred aboriginal site and iconic sandstone monolith in the country's outback, where indigenous delegates called for "substantive constitutional change".

Delegates also called for an advisory voice in parliament, and the creation of treaties between the government and indigenous people which could eventually form the basis of reparations for past injustices.

Constitutional recognition of Aborigines is a complex issue in a country where Aborigines only began to be included on population census figures after a referendum to amend the constitution in 1967.

Constitutional change requires a national referendum which must be passed by a majority of votes and a majority of Australia's six states. Most referendums fail.