Veteran activist Shirley Peisley urges recognition action

She’s spent a lifetime campaigning for Aboriginal rights, but Shirley Peisley wants to see one final victory.

Shirley Peisley in Sydney yesterday. ‘Don’t give up,’ is her advice for those seeking constitutional recognition. Picture: James Croucher

Malcolm Turnbull has warned of “more complex discussions ahead” in the process towards indigenous constitutional recognition, saying any referendum question “has to be acceptable to indigenous people”.

Speaking at a gala dinner in Sydney, the Prime Minister warned that “rejection at a referendum would be seen as a rejection of reconciliation” and “we cannot allow it to fail”.

Bill Shorten told the gathering of political and social leaders — indigenous and non-indigenous — at Barangaroo Reserve on the harbour foreshore that recognition must be more than “a piece of poetry appended to” the ­nation’s founding document and would inevitably be a step ­towards a treaty, or “post-­recognition settlement”.

“Recognition is not a roadblock to treaty — recognition is the next door we need to walk through together” on the way to an enduring agreement, the ­Opposition Leader said, adding that Australians needed to move past “unthinking panic” whenever a treaty was mentioned.

Mr Shorten said the idea of “a post-recognition agreement, or treaty, or treaties” was simply about coming up with new frameworks for how governments engaged with first Australians.

The first of 12 indigenous community consultations kicks off in Hobart at the weekend, with Mr Turnbull saying last night that changing the Constitution to ­recognise first Australians would ­finally “make our founding document about us, all of us”.

The 16-member Referendum Council is due to make its recommendations on a form of words for a constitutional change to Mr Turnbull and Mr Shorten by the end of June.

Earlier, veteran Adelaide campaigner for indigenous rights Shirley Peisley told the audience it was time for the next step in full indigenous social participation.

Mrs Peisley was deeply ­involved in the campaign for full indigenous citizenship of half a century ago, decided by an overwhelming referendum majority in 1967, and her message to the generation driving the current push was “Don’t give up”.

“I don’t know that I even ever thought of myself as an activist. What does that mean?” the 75-year-old from Adelaide said ahead of the gala dinner.

“I certainly was active in doing things, I got involved in lots of ­activities, but the main thing about it was never standing still, and being very involved in how we could create a better place for Aboriginal people.”

Mrs Peisley said that as far as changing the Constitution, legislative recognition of indigenous people had already happened in all states, and there was no reason it couldn’t happen federally.