The Voice is a big idea but not a complicated one. It is low risk for a high return. The high return is found in the act of recognition, historical fairness and practical benefit to lawmakers, governments, the Australian people and Australia’s First peoples.

It rests on the historical status of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as Australia’s Indigenous people. It does not rest on race. It accords with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, for which Australia voted in 2009. It is consistent with the convention against the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination. Suggestions that it would contravene that convention are wrong.