Voice | Treaty | Truth
The Uluru Statement from the Heart was presented to the Australian people on 26 May 2017. It is the result of country-wide dialogues between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples guided by the Referendum Council and ending with a National Convention. The Referendum Council was established by parliamentary cross-party agreement to find a form of constitutional recognition that would include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
It is a gift to all Australians, and in summary calls for:
VOICE: to enshrine a First Nations Voice in the Australian Constitution. A voice to parliament would represent people in matters of policy and affairs that affect First Nations people.
TREATY: a Makarrata Commission, where people come together after a struggle to negotiate a way forward. The commission would supervise agreement making.
TRUTH-TELLING: to tell the true story of Australia’s history
Uluru Statement from the Heart combines the statement with signatures of participants, and a painted border
The Uluru Statement from the Heart artwork is made by senior Maruku artist and traditional owner of Uluru, Rene Kulitja with Mutitjulu artists Christine Brumby, Charmaine Kulitja and Happy Reid. It shows two Tjukurrpa stories from Anangu people, described here below.
Middle left: You can see the tracks of Mala, Rufous Hare Wallaby people. The track of the rufous hare wallaby shows that the Mala came from the north.
Top left: Kuniya, the carpet snake was pregnant and about to lay her eggs, came from the east
Bottom left: Kurpalynga, the desert dingo, came from the west
Bottom right: From the south-west can the men of Liru, the poisonous snake people
Top right: Together, the Mala and Kurpalynga left Uluru to the south
In the middle of the painting, where the Uluru Statement is, that is where Uluru is. The Uluru Statement is where all of our different stories come together.
Thomas Mayor, Finding the Heart of the Nation (Melbourne, Hardie Grant Travel, 2019)
“ULURU STATEMENT FROM THE HEART
We, gathered at the 2017 National Constitutional Convention, coming from all points of the southern sky, make this statement from the heart:
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This cannot be because we have no love for them. And our youth languish in detention in obscene numbers. They should be our hope for the future.
These dimensions of our crisis tell plainly the structural nature of our problem. This is the torment of our powerlessness.
We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own country. When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish. They will walk in two worlds and their culture will be a gift to their country.
We call for the establishment of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution.
Makarrata is the culmination of our agenda: the coming together after a struggle. It captures our aspirations for a fair and truthful relationship with the people of Australia and a better future for our children based on justice and self-determination.
We seek a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations and truth-telling about our history.
In 1967 we were counted, in 2017 we seek to be heard. We leave base camp and start our trek across this vast country. We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future.
Our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the first sovereign Nations of the Australian continent and its adjacent islands, and possessed it under our own laws and customs. This our ancestors did, according to the reckoning of our culture, from the Creation, according to the common law from ‘time immemorial’, and according to science more than 60,000 years ago.
This sovereignty is a spiritual notion: the ancestral tie between the land, or ‘mother nature’, and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who were born therefrom, remain attached thereto, and must one day return thither to be united with our ancestors. This link is the basis of the ownership of the soil, or better, of sovereignty. It has never been ceded or extinguished, and co-exists with the sovereignty of the Crown.
How could it be otherwise? That peoples possessed a land for sixty millennia and this sacred link disappears from world history in merely the last two hundred years?
With substantive constitutional change and structural reform, we believe this ancient sovereignty can shine through as a fuller expression of Australia’s nationhood.
Proportionally, we are the most incarcerated people on the planet. We are not an innately criminal people. Our children are aliened from their families at unprecedented rates.
Anangu artists with the Uluru Statement from the Heart. From left: Christine Brumby, Charmaine Kulitja, Rene Kulitja, Happy Reid. Photography by Clive Scollaly.
In October 2017 the Australian Government, under Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, rejected the Uluru Statement from the Heart, and the Referendum Council’s recommendations. The government characterised the call for a constitutionally-enshrined representative body as a proposal for an unconstitutional third chamber in parliament. However, subsequent parliamentary Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition endorsed the proposed voice to parliament in their 2018 report. A co-design process was initiated in November 2019 to devise new models to ensure Indigenous voices are heard at local, regional and national levels of government.
Under the care of Thomas Mayor, the Uluru Statement has been taken to communities across Australia to raise awareness and gain support for its proposals:
The Uluru Statement from the Heart (2017) follows the form of previous petitions made to the Australian Government using Artworks and Statements combined as one document. The artworks depict connection to Country, the stories of Country and the law.
The Yirrkala Bark Petition presented in 1963, written in Yolgnu Matha and English, is made up of two boards with borders depicting country. The petition protested the allocation of bauxite mining leases on lands without consultation with the Traditional Owners. Read more on the AIATSIS website.
The Barunga Statement was presented by the leaders of the Northern and Central Lands Councils, Galarrwyu Yunupingu and Wenten Rubintja, to Prime Minister Bob Hawke in 1988. Saltwater country is painted on one half, and desert country on the other half. Galarrwuy Yunupingu explained: ‘The painting surrounds the words of the statement, showing that our painting for the land and the words that express it in English speak equally. They cannot be differentiated.’ The Statement proposes a negotiated Treaty to recognise ‘our prior ownership, continued occupation and sovereignty and affirming our human rights and freedom.’