What was the Referendum Council?

The Referendum Council was the expert body appointed by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten in December 2015 to advise on the next steps for constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Its work produced the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart, the central Indigenous constitutional document of the twenty-first century.

The Council was co-chaired by Mark Leibler (a lawyer and long-standing Indigenous advocate) and Pat Anderson (an Alyawarre woman who had previously chaired the Lowitja Institute and co-authored the 2007 Little Children are Sacred report). Its membership included a mix of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians including Megan Davis (a Cobble Cobble woman and constitutional law professor), Noel Pearson (a Bagaarrmugu man and head of the Cape York Institute), Galarrwuy Yunupingu (a Yolngu leader), Marcia Langton (a Yiman and Bidjara woman and academic), Mick Gooda (former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner), and others. The Council operated for about 18 months from December 2015 to June 2017.

Its work included 13 regional dialogues across the country during 2016 to 2017. The dialogues involved more than 1,200 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander delegates selected through community processes. Major dialogues were held at Brisbane, Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart, Perth, Darwin, Dubbo, Ross River, Thursday Island, Cairns, Broome, and Canberra. The dialogues built toward the National Constitutional Convention at Mutitjulu, near Uluru, on 23 to 26 May 2017. The 250 delegates met for four days and produced the Uluru Statement from the Heart, calling for a constitutionally enshrined Voice to Parliament, a Makarrata Commission, and a process of truth-telling.

The Referendum Council's final report to the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader in June 2017 recommended a referendum on the Voice as the first priority. The Turnbull Coalition government rejected the Voice proposal in October 2017. The Morrison Coalition government from 2018 maintained the rejection but commissioned the Indigenous Voice Co-design Process under Marcia Langton and Tom Calma, which reported in 2021. The Albanese Labor government elected in May 2022 committed to implementing the Voice as a constitutional reform. The proposal was defeated on 14 October 2023, with 60.1 per cent of voters saying No and no state carrying the change. The Referendum Council's work nevertheless remains foundational to contemporary Indigenous policy: the Uluru Statement's Voice, Treaty, and Truth principles continue to guide Indigenous-led constitutional reform advocacy, state-based treaty processes, and truth-telling work like Victoria's Yoorrook Justice Commission.