Uluru Statement from the Heart
| This article is part of a series on the |
| Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice |
|---|
| Proposed Australian federal Indigenous advisory body to represent Indigenous communities. |
The Uluru Statement from the Heart is a 2017 petition to the people of Australia, written and endorsed by the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders selected as delegates to the First Nations National Constitutional Convention. The document calls for substantive constitutional change and structural reform through the creation of two new institutions; a constitutionally protected First Nations Voice and a Makarrata Commission, to oversee agreement-making and truth-telling between governments and First Nations. Such reforms should be implemented, it is argued, both in recognition of the continuing sovereignty of Indigenous peoples and to address structural power differences that have led to severe disparities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. These reforms can be summarised as Voice, Treaty and Truth.
In October 2017, the then Coalition government rejected the Voice proposal, characterising it as a "radical" constitutional change that would not be supported by a majority of Australians in a referendum. Following this, in May 2022 Labor leader Anthony Albanese endorsed the Uluru Statement on the occasion of his 2022 election victory and committed to implementing it in full. However, the Voice was rejected at a subsequent referendum in 2023. The government later backed away from the Treaty and Truth elements of the Uluru Statement, with Albanese stating in 2025 that his government would go in "another direction" and instead focus on "economic empowerment".