Australian pm urges voters to back creation of Aboriginal voice

SYDNEY: Australia's prime minister made a tearful appeal to voters on Thursday, asking them to support the creation of an Aboriginal voice in lawmaking as he announced the wording of the referendum question.

Anthony Albanese said that Australians had a chance to make up for centuries of injustice, formally recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island groups, and give them a voice in decision-making at a vote later this year.

This is about how our nation sees ourselves. Albanese said that we have the confidence to embrace our history and paint the vote as a chance for Australians to make their country fairer.

He said that what we have done up to now hasn't worked, and he said that the election was a historic democratic opportunity, a chance to show the very best of our national character, our deep sense of fairness, our instinctive respect and kindness for each other.

Sometime later this year, Australians will be asked to vote on a proposal to change the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice Albanese. He said he felt a lot of responsibility about a proposal that is far from certain to pass.

Around 60 per cent of Australians support the constitutional change, but the support has been declining and there are still questions about how the voice would work.

The body will not have a veto on legislation. It is not yet clear how or if the body would be democratically elected.

Albanese tried to allay concerns about the project, but stressed that it was a modest request that was as much about how Australia sees itself as nuts and bolts lawmaking.

Australia's white majority has struggled to reckon with its brutal past for decades.

For more than a century indigenous Australians were not considered full citizens and although their rights are now enshrined in law, there is still deep inequality.

Indigenous Australians are more likely to be poor, to have limited access to education and healthcare, and to be incarcerated than their white compatriots.

A voice to Parliament, enshrined in our Constitution, will mean that our people are heard and listened to on the issues that affect us, said Aboriginal Senator Patrick Dodson.