Watch: What is the Uluru Statement from the Heart all about?

Since then, the Prime Minister has reiterated his dedication by attending the Garma Festival in July, where he revealed the proposed question for a referendum.

Throughout all the talk of a referendum and an Indigenous voice, there has been the recurring discussion of something called the Uluru Statement From The Heart.

So what is this statement? Where did it come from and what does it mean?

The Uluru Statement is a document signed by 250 Indigenous leaders during the First Nations' National Constitution Convention.

The summit took place in 2017 and called for three main objectives to improve the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The objectives were: A voice, a treaty, and truth-telling.

Broadly expanded, the statement sort to enshrine a constitutional Indigenous voice to parliament, and promoting the inclusion of a Makarrata commission which would oversee the process of making the treaty.

It's something that has been discussed for decades, according to From The Heart director Dean Parkin.

Mr Parkin is a Quandamooka man and spoke to ACM while on country in North Stradbroke Island, Queensland.

"Over many years people have said, well, there's something we should do but we haven't worked out the best way to actually make that recognition meaningful," Mr Parkin said.

"When all of those people came together, representatives of all those people came together and said, alright, well if we're going to do, if we're going to recognise Indigenous peoples in the constitution, the only meaningful way that we should do that is by giving Indigenous peoples a voice to parliament.

"And making sure that that voice to parliament has a constitutional guarantee."

If an advisory group is established, Mr Parkin said, it will be made up of Indigenous representatives from across the nation.

The group will sit outside of parliament and will provide comments on matters of legislation that directly involve the lives of Indigenous people.

"Our very strong position through the [From The Heart] campaign has been that it must be about listening to the voices of Indigenous peoples who have been previously unheard," Mr Parkin said.

"We know that there are people in our communities that understand our issues better than anybody, and so we really want to make sure that those voices who understand what works on the ground are sitting around the table advising parliaments and governments."

Currently, there are 11 Indigenous representatives in Australia's parliament. But the voice to parliament advisory committee will sit apart from these representatives, as Mr Parkin explained.

"It's got to be above politics. It's got to be about our own representatives, from our own communities, advising parliaments and governments it can be about which, which persons in which political party or which party is in power," he said.

"It's got to be above that and it's got to be able to advise all parliaments and all governments regardless of who's in power.

"So the voice to parliament is different to that. It sits outside, it's independent. It's not about party politics and it's about making sure that the laws and policies coming out of Parliament actually work on the ground."

There is a long precendent around the world for treaties between Indigenous populations and governments. New Zealand, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Japan, Greenland and parts of the Americas have negotiated these kinds of treaties.

In fact, Canada has over 70 treaties with its First Nations peoples, with some allowing for self-government.

But not all treaties have led to improved conditions for First Nations peoples.

In the US, there are 364 separate treaties signed between 1778 and 1868.

Some of which were used to force Native American people groups off their rightful lands. Many were not honoured by the US government of their day.

Long and confusing discussions around New Zealand's Treaty of Waitangi, signed in 1840, eventually led to the recognition that Maori leaders never ceded sovereignty of their land.

But it was not until 2014 when that was decided.

Treaty discussions with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have been decades long.

Historians often point to the 1963 Yirrkala bark petition as one of the earliest forms of treaty.

In this example, the Yolngu people of north-east Arnhem Land, Northern Territory declared sovereignty over the land on which the federal government had approved the bauxite mine.

In June 1988, Indigenous leaders presented the Barunga Statement to then Prime Minister Bob Hawke.

He promised there would be a treaty by the end of 1990, but alas it did not eventuate.

Since 2007, successive governments have committed to seeing some form of constitutional recognition, but so far there has been nothing concrete.

The voice to parliament idea is far from new. After all, the Uluru Statement was signed in May, 2017. That's now five years ago.

Back then, Malcolm Turnbull was the prime minister. He rejected the idea of forming an advisory group of Indigenous leaders, saying it would become a "third chamber" of the parliament.

Mr Turnbull has since changed that opinion, publicly declaring he would support the constitutional voice and vote yes in a referendum.

In 2020, when it was again suggested that the parliament make moves to address the Uluru Statement, then Prime Minister Scott Morrison ruled it out.

"It's not our policy to have a referendum on the Voice, so why would I be doing that?" Mr Morrison said during the election campaign while speaking at a retirement village in the seat of Corangamite, south-west of Melbourne.

In May, when Labor was elected, Anthony Albanese's third sentence in his victory speech was: "And on behalf of the Australian Labor Party, I commit to the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full."

It's a 440-word statement signed by 250 Indigenous community leaders and bordered by an artwork painted by Maruku and Multijulu artists.

Here is the statement in full:

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 alienated 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.