Recognising Aborigines 'essential' to republic

THE Australian Republican Movement wants to help build momentum for constitutional change to acknowledge indigenous Australians.

THE Australian Republican Movement wants to help build momentum for constitutional change to acknowledge indigenous Australians, as a first step towards a republic. ARM national director David Morris said the movement "emphatically supports the recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in the Constitution".

Mr Morris said the ARM was consulting with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders to provide support to achieve a "yes" vote to a referendum.

He said the first step to change must be correcting the silence around indigenous Australians in the nation's founding document.

"An essential founding principle of a future Australian republic must be recognition of the first Australians.

"The Australian Republican Movement is starting a conversation in the community about the key principles and values on which a future republic should be based, to reflect our modern identity," Mr Morris said.

Changing the constitution to acknowledge indigenous Australians has bipartisan support.

Julia Gillard has expressed support for the change and Tony Abbott has said that until Australia acknowledged its Aboriginal heritage the nation would be torn. Coalition frontbencher Malcolm Turnbull, a founding member of the ARM and its chairman in the lead-up to the unsuccessful 1999 referendum, this week joined Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan to launch a collection of essays arguing for Australia to become a republic.

Mr Swan said he wanted Labor policy to set out a two-stage process towards a republic, beginning with a plebiscite on the best model.

Mr Turnbull believes the best time will be after the end of the Queen's reign.

"There's got to be the sense that this is an issue of the hour, and it isn't an issue of the hour for determination, at least for most Australians today," he said.