On Saturday the prime minister told the Indigenous Garma festival in north-east Arnhem Land he was respecting the recommendations of the referendum council – to establish an Indigenous voice in parliament – by giving it careful consideration, but warned it would be difficult.

“I am filled with optimism about our future together as a reconciled Australia,” he said. “This is hard and complex work and we need to take care of each other as we continue on this journey. We will have the best chance of success by working together. I am committed to working with you to find a way forward.”

However, at a subsequent media conference Turnbull would not commit to supporting the proposal or to pushing Australians to support it.

“Everyone here and every Australian can trust me to lead Australia in the national interest, to remember that we represent all of us, 24 million Australians, and recognise that as we respond to this proposal we must do so in a way that respects the seriousness of what is proposed and the care with which it should be addressed,” he said.

The co-chair of the now disbanded referendum council, Pat Anderson, told Guardian Australia she felt his comments “backed completely away from everything he’d said” in his speech.

Anderson noted Gumatj leader, Galurrwuy Yunupingu, had told the leaders their speeches were “wonderful words indeed” but said they needed to be taken to the parliament and said to other politicians.

“They were all nodding and everything but they hadn’t even left Gulkula – they just walked outside about 20 feet,” said Anderson. “It just didn’t measure up. What he said outside to the press wasn’t what he said to the forum.”

She said it was disappointing that “so quickly he could do a [180-degree] turn after speaking so sincerely.”

She said there was a “really good lesson” in the events, which appeared to be just “politics”.

We’re going to have to do it again like we did in 1967. Pat Anderson, Indigenous advocate

She said any way forward had to be through the Australian people, encouraged by a strong campaign. “I don’t know if [parliament] is going to do it without considerable pressure from the electorate. We’re going to have to do it again like we did in 1967.”

In his speech Turnbull warned it would be difficult to run a successful referendum, pointing to his unsuccessful efforts for a republic in 1999. “We can’t be weighed down by the past but we can learn from it. Australians are constitutionally conservative. The bar is surmountable … but it is a high bar.”

In his speech, opposition leader Bill Shorten said Indigenous people didn’t need “a ‘Balanda’ lecture about the difficulty of changing the constitution”.

Shorten said Labor fully supported the recommendations for a constitutionally enshrined voice, for a Makarrata – a truth telling process – and for treaties.

He said people should look to the 1967 referendum as an inspiration, not the 1999 one as a warning. “There’s no reason why that can’t be done by the end of this year, the issues have been traversed for a decade.”

“We have had 10 years plus of good intentions, it is now time perhaps for more action.”

He denied accusations his call fora bipartisan parliamentary committee was a delay, and said it was a necessary parliamentary process.

The previous evening Anderson had taken aim at both Turnbull and Shorten, accusing them of making “empty platitudes”. She told Guardian Australia she was angry on Friday night, but on Saturday decided it was “a new day” – until she heard the media conference.

She said the council was at the end of a 10-year process and successive governments over that time had done nothing. “They will do anything and everything except deal with us,” she said.

In its recommendations delivered to government, the council upheld calls by Indigenous representatives at the Uluru summit to constitutionally enshrine an Indigenous voice in parliament.

Turnbull reacted with caution to what he called a big new idea in the debate, but one worthy of discussion.

Anderson said Shorten’s recent remarks supporting other referenda for example on a republic and on four-year terms, without having progressed on this, was like a Monty Python skit. She dismissed his suggestion for a joint select committee working on a referendum question by the end of the year. “We need another committee like a hole in the head,” she said.

Council member Professor Megan Davis said it would be the fifth committee in as many years. “We live in an era of reform inertia,” said Davis, and that was more of an issue than any concern about bringing the Australian people on board.

Some parliamentarians who support reform, including Indigenous MP Linda Burney, have expressed concern the powers which allow the creation of discriminatory laws, were not targeted for amendment.

Davis said the council’s brief was to talk to Indigenous people and that’s what they did: “For the first time in 10 years we’ve finally gone out and asked people what they want.”

The changes to the race powers originally proposed by the expert panel were not priorities for many Indigenous people because the powers weren’t seen as having an effect on their lives, and the changes couldn’t guarantee protection from another NT intervention.

A voice to parliament would have multiple functions and would act as a shield not a sword, and people chose it as “a meaningful right to have a say”, she said.



















