More than 250 delegates from across Australia gathered at Uluru to discuss a path to Constitutional recognition at the First Nations National Constitutional Convention. Among them was Dubbo’s Rod Towney.

The convention wrapped with up a communique – the Uluru Statement from the Heart – outlining a road map for first peoples and governments going forward.

“We want a voice to Parliament ensured in the Constitution,” Mr Towney said.

“A representative body of our leaders that has the moral, cultural and intellectual authority to inspect and advise Parliament on laws that impact on us.

“Outside of the Constitution, we want a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations and truth-telling about our history.”

Mr Towney was chosen for the national working party aiming to foster community support and ensure the implementation of the Uluru Statement.

“It’s a great honour,” Mr Towney said.

“We will try to take things further, talk to politicians both federal and state, and get community on side, because something needs to change.”

It is not yet known what form any treaties or voice for first peoples might take, and Mr Towney said more would be known once the final report of the Referendum Council was handed to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten at the end of June.

He said self-determination was the only way to close the gap.

“The education standards are very low, the incarceration of Aboriginal people is more so than ever before and that’s growing – both men, women and young people,” Mr Towney said.

“The health situation is deplorable and when we look at what government spends money on … they say ‘we will do this … because we think it’s best for you’.

“We’ve got to turn the wheel around now: ‘this is what needs to be done, listen to us. You may have to take a risk, but we can get things done if we work that way.”

He called on all Australian people to support the cause.

“We need a voice and we ask people to walk with us and come on the journey.”

For more information about treaty and Constitutional recognition visit www.referendumcouncil.org.au/resources/introduction_to_the_issues

“We, gathered at the 2017 National Constitutional Convention, coming from all points of the southern sky, make this statement from the heart:

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. 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.”