All you need to know about the proposed Indigenous Voice to Parliament

It is a proposal that will succeed or fail based on how the Australian public votes in a referendum later this year.

But many people still say they don't really understand what the Voice is.

Recognising the importance of the question, we have brought together some of the key facts about the proposal,

The Voice to Parliament would be a group of people empowered to advise the federal parliament and government of the day on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

According to the referendum working group that has designed the final concept for the Voice, the members of this group would be chosen by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people "based on the wishes of local communities".

A report by University of Canberra chancellor Professor Tom Calma and University of Melbourne provost Professor Marcia Langton describing the likely model for the Voice recommended 24 members, with two from each state, territory and the Torres Strait, five representing remote areas of Queensland, the Northern Territory, Western Australia, South Australia and New South Wales, and one member representing Torres Strait Islanders living on the mainland.

Membership would last four years, staggered so half the members would be up for re-election every two years, with a limit of two consecutive terms for any member.

The group would have two chairs of different genders at any one time.

Because of the diversity and complexity of Indigenous issues across Australia, the country would be divided into 35 regions that would each undertake local community engagement.

These local and regional Voices would provide advice to the national Voice, but also work directly with all levels of government on issues affecting their area.

The referendum is a vote to decide whether to change the constitution by including a new section establishing the Voice to Parliament.

The key part of the new section would read as follows:

In order to succeed, the referendum would need a "double majority": a majority of voters would have to vote "yes" nationally, and a majority of voters in at least four of the six states would also have to vote "yes".

In late 2015 then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten created a 16-person referendum council to advise on constitutional recognition for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

This group consulted with more than 1200 people and led to the Uluru Statement from the Heart, presented at the First Nations National Constitutional Convention in May 2017, which included the call for "a First Nations Voice enshrined in the constitution".

The referendum council then officially recommended a Voice be established in the constitution, prompting the government to create a further committee, which reported back in November 2018 recommending a "co-design process" with the Indigenous community to develop a detailed model for the Voice.

The co-design was led by Professors Calma and Langton, consulting with 9400 people and organisations over more than three years, including extensive meetings with federal politicians across the political spectrum.

The Uluru Statement argued Australia's Indigenous people had been denied control over their destiny since the arrival of colonial settlers, and as a result they had become the "most incarcerated people on the planet", with children taken from their parents "at unprecedented rates".

"We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own country. When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish," it said.

The Calma-Langton report pitched the Voice as a way to give Indigenous people "a greater say on the services, policies and laws that affect their lives to overcome their present level of exclusion from decision-making about the matters that affect them".

The Albanese government has refused to define the scope the Voice would have if the referendum succeeds, saying that would be the parliament's responsibility to decide.

But Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney said the Voice would not be interested in "culture war" issues like changing the date of Australia Day, but focus on "things like incarceration and child removal, housing, health and educational outcomes".

Federal Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said the group would not have power to tell parliament what to do.

"There will be no requirement for the parliament or the executive government to follow the Voice's representations," he said.

"The constitutional amendment confers no power on the Voice to prevent, delay or veto decisions of the parliament or the executive government."

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