Walbunja Elder Bunja Smith calls on everyone to support any referendum on a Voice to Parliament

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced Australians will likely be heading to a referendum in 2023 to enshrine an Indigenous Voice to Parliament in the Constitution.

Bunja Smith said a Voice to Parliament would be a tangible step towards closing the gap.

"A Voice to Parliament is a mechanism that will bring about change," Mr Smith said.

"It will be a great tool for our government to make policy that really has an effect on Aboriginal people's lives."

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Mr Smith said successive governments had failed to close the gap, and the cost to do so only increased with time.

"If you really want to do something, you can do it," he said.

"Unless they do something like the Voice, in another 20 years, they're just going to have to throw more at it to fix the problem.

"Now is the time to act."

Mr Smith said the majority of Aboriginal people he had spoken to supported the Voice, but there was a lot of confusion among non-Aboriginal people he talked with.

The Voice to Parliament would act as an advisory body to assist the government to draft policy. It would not have veto powers.

"It would be guiding the principles of policy at the level at which it should be," Mr Smith said.

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"We don't have a high level voice to parliament. What we are getting is old, colonialist thinking still.

"The colonialist thinking to deny Aboriginal people their rightful place in the Australian constitution is a travesty."

Mr Smith said a government even wanting to introduce a Voice was a long time coming, but still fell short of the Makarrata also proposed by the UIuru Statement from the Heart in 2017.

"It's sad it's taken so long to come about," he said.

The Uluru Statement 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.

The Statement calls for the creation of a Makarrata Commission to oversea the establishment of treaties.

Mr Smith said no one was even discussing the possibility of the Makarrata or truth telling yet, and the Voice was the best option being presented for Indigenous people.

However, Mr Smith has seen what he describes as a "maturing" of Australian society, and he is confident any referendum regarding the Voice would be supported.

"The darkness of oppression under a colonialist regime is shifting. It is heartening to see," he said.

When Mr Smith was in primary school, he had only one lesson dedicated to studying Australia's Indigenous people. Now, he sees all local students being taught Aboriginal stories, culture and language.

"I implore all my brothers and sisters in Australia - the whole community - please vote yes," he said.