Uluru Statement from the Heart


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 are 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".

Background

2015: Referendum Council

The 16-member Referendum Council was jointly appointed by the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, and Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, on 7 December 2015. The council was to advise the government on steps towards a referendum to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Australian Constitution. It built on extensive work by the Expert Panel on Constitutional Recognition of Indigenous Australians and the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. The council was made up of Indigenous and non-Indigenous community leaders and included:
  • Patrick Dodson
  • Pat Anderson
  • Mark Leibler
  • Megan Davis
  • Andrew Demetriou
  • Natasha Stott Despoja
  • Murray Gleeson
  • Mick Gooda
  • Stan Grant
  • Emeritus Professor Colleen Hayward
  • Tanya Hosch
  • Kristina Keneally
  • Jane McAloon
  • Noel Pearson
  • Michael Rose
  • Amanda Vanstone
  • Dalassa Yorkston
  • Galarrwuy Yunupingu
  • Denise Bowden
In October 2016, the Council released the "Discussion Paper on Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples" to guide discussion. In the group's "Final Report", it was noted that matters outside the discussion papers' key themes were out of scope for the final recommendations. These themes were:
Over a six-month period the Council travelled to 12 different locations around Australia and met with over 1,200 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representatives. The meetings resulted in a consensus document on constitutional recognition, the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

2017: First Nations National Constitutional Convention

The First Nations National Constitutional Convention met over four days from 23 to 26 May 2017. Each of the 13 regional dialogues selected delegates to attend the National Convention along with the convenors and working group leaders, mostly through secret ballot, with a total of 17 delegates for each dialogue. The remaining members of the Convention were appointed by the Referendum Council. The convention concluded with member Megan Davis giving the first public reading of the statement after it was adopted by the delegates. A freedom of information request in 2023 released the meeting records of the First Nations Regional Dialogues and a draft version of the Final Report of the Referendum Council. The draft version included a longer version of the Uluru Statement, which was ultimately included in the Final Report of the Referendum Council as 'extracts from the Uluru Statement from the Heart'.

''Uluru Statement from the Heart''

Text

The text of what is generally characterised as the full statement, but also as the "one-page pitch" of the full document is as follows:
The italics, which appear in the original, denote quotations. The first is from an opinion written by Fouad Ammoun, Vice-President of the International Court of Justice, as part of the Western Sahara case of 1975. This opinion was cited in the landmark Mabo land rights case. The second is from an essay by anthropologist Bill Stanner. The third is from former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam.

Note on ''Makarrata''

Makarrata is a Yolngu word "describing a process of conflict resolution, peacemaking and justice", or "a coming together after a struggle". It originally referred to a ritualised ceremony of "revenge", dispute resolution, and "peace-making" in which members of an aggrieved clan throw spears at a wrongdoer until blood is drawn. In some areas, the ceremony was satisfied by a transgressor being ritually speared in the leg instead of facing the spears head on. Once blood was drawn, the feud was over, with the wrong suffered to the accuser satisfied. Members said Makarrata "captures our aspirations for a fair and truthful relationship with the people of Australia", and the Makarrata Commission would "supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations". The word has also been used to mean "treaty", as adopted by the National Aboriginal Conference in the 1980s in order to use an Aboriginal word for their proposed "Treaty of Commitment... between the Aboriginal Nation and the Australian Government".

Artwork

In keeping with the tradition of the Yirrkala bark petitions and the Barunga statement, the Uluru Statement was made in the form of a work of art. The statement is placed in the centre which is where the power resides. Surrounding the statement are signatures of over 250 delegates who attended the conference and reached consensus. There are 100 First Nations represented in the statement by signers who included the name of their nation.
The artwork surrounding the signatures was created by artists from Maruku art centre in Mutitjulu, led by Rene Kulitja, and painted by artists Christine Brumby, Charmaine Kulitja, and Happy Reid. It tells the story of two Tjukurpa creation stories of the traditional owners of Uluru, the Aṉangu people. One tells how the Uluru landscape was shaped by a fight to the death at the Mutitjulu Rockhole between Kuniya, the woma python with eggs from the north east, at the top left, and Liru, the poisonous snake from the south west, at the bottom left. The other tells the story of the Mala people, represented by the Rufous hare-wallaby who, while holding a ceremony at the top of Uluru, became involved in a dispute with men who came from the west. The men left and created Kurpany, the devil dingo, represented by the dog prints.
The artwork was reproduced as a huge immersive light installation at the Parrtjima light festival in Alice Springs in April 2023, with the festival theme inspired by the statement, "Listen with the heart".

Translations

The Uluru Statement has been translated into over 20 different Australian Aboriginal languages and 60 other languages, as well as Auslan.
In November 2020, SBS Radio announced that their journalists have translated the Statement into more than 60 languages, and there are plans for it to be translated and recorded in more than 12 Indigenous languages.

Length

In the campaign for 2023 Voice to Parliament referendum, some leaders and politicians opposing constitutional change alleged in August 2023 that the Uluru Statement is actually much longer than the one-page document commonly cited. They pointed to documents released by the National Indigenous Australians Agency in March 2023 under freedom of information laws. Documents 1-13 are records of the 13 regional dialogues. Document 14 includes a page titled "Uluru Statement Statement from the Heart", followed by further sections titled "Our Story", "Guiding Principles", and "Reform Priorities", in the same font and heading level as the first page. These sections are also reproduced in the Final Report to the Referendum Council as "extracts from the Uluru Statement from the Heart".
Peta Credlin pointed to comments made by Megan Davis at the 2021–2 Sydney Peace Prize Award Ceremony and during her 2018 Henry Parkes Oration where Davis stated that "the Uluru Statement from the Heart isn't just the first one-page statement; it's actually a very lengthy Document of about 18 to 20 pages…". Disputing this, Davis has stated that the Uluru Statement is indeed one page, and her previous statements referring to other pages was merely " to the many pieces of Information that informed the Uluru Statement or provide context to the statement". She also points out that the official version of the Uluru Statement as hosted by the Referendum Council website since 2017 is one page. Anthony Albanese, in responding to questions about the length in Question Time from deputy opposition leader Susan Ley stated that the Uluru Statement is one page and characterised the dispute as a conspiracy theory that had long been debunked. Pat Anderson, who was a co-chair of the Referendum Council and an architect of the Uluru Statement, supports this view, describing the "Our Story" section as merely a recording of everything that was said at the Regional Dialogues. The NIAA has also stated that the Uluru Statement is one page, refuting claims made by no campaign leader Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. A spokesperson from the NIAA stated the 26 page extract contained "the one page Uluru Statement from the Heart, followed by 25 pages of background information and excerpts of regional dialogues that informed the one-page Uluru Statement" and excerpts of regional dialogues contained in the FOI release "simply reflect the broad range of comments of participants involved in the process" and "do not represent the policy of either the government at the time they were created or the current government". However, in August 2023, Davis and Anderson published a book in which they claim the Statement is 15 pages long.