Bipartisan agreement: Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Labor Party leader Bill Shorten have agreed to work together on the indigenous constitution question. Credit:Andrew Meares Mr Abbott described the recognition campaign as "a great and noble cause" that was supported "right across the Parliament". While Mr Abbott maintains it is too soon to talk about the wording of the referendum question, he says it is clear that the Yolngu people of north-east Arnhem Land and indigenous people across the country want to "see this great historical wrong righted". The Prime Minister will discuss the issue with his advisory council led by Warren Mundine and the Cape York leader Noel Pearson on Wednesday, with the timing, process and wording of the question all up for discussion. Mr Abbott has consistently warned that the more ambitious the question is legally, the more difficult it will be to secure overwhelming support, a view supported by Yolngu leaders.

But other indigenous leaders say it is premature to rule out the inclusion of some form of prohibition of racial discrimination in the referendum question, as proposed by the expert panel set up by the former government. Although he did not meet with Mr Abbott, the chief executive of the Northern Land Council, Joe Morrison, was in Nhulunbuy on Tuesday and warned against opting for the "lowest common denominator". "I'm of the view that it's a question of whether we do a job half or do we do it fully - and I'm more in the camp of, 'Let's do the job fully and sort it out once and for all,' " he told Fairfax Media. While there is a strong push to delay the question being put until 2017, the 50thanniversary of the 1967 referendum, Mr Morrison said 2016 was the 40th anniversary of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act passing through the national parliament. "That could be a significant contribution to the journey of recognising Aboriginal people," he said, stressing that he was not wedded to a particular date.

Yolngu leaders have shied away from including a new prohibition of racial discrimination in the question, with Djawa Yunupingu telling Mr Abbott: "We hate racial discrimination, but this is not our immediate priority. "We accept that this is a continuing discussion with all Australians who feel the pain of discrimination, but we say that it should be separate to our work on recognition." Asked if he was open to a question saying racial discrimination was unacceptable in modern-day Australia, Mr Abbott replied: "Well, of course racial discrimination is unacceptable. "What none of us really want to see is the ordinary legislation of government, the ordinary operation of the executive and legislative power too readily subjected to second-guessing by non-elected judges, and that's the difficulty with trying to entrench that kind of a clause in the constitution. "It will essentially mean that judges can second-guess much more of the ordinary legislative agenda of governments of both sides than has been the case up until now."

Mr Abbott then qualified his remarks, saying he was not ruling things in or out, other than to say, "All of us should want this to be an inclusive, unifying, embracing national journey." Loading "I know that's ambitious, but nevertheless, that's what we want it to be and I think that to start being too prescriptive too soon is to jeopardise the great journey upon which we should all be embarked." Follow us on Twitter