The Uluru statement came after three days of meetings at Uluru,which followed six months of regional dialogues across Australia. The convention was organised by the Referendum Council,a body set up by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten to advise on the steps towards a referendum on Indigenous recognition. But it seems the process came up with something the proponents neither expected nor welcomed.
What now? Do we have an impasse that says any process and referendum that does not come from Indigenous people themselves will be unsatisfactory,but the outcome they want frightens the two major parties because they feel the referendum question will not be accepted by most Australians?
Yes,we probably have that impasse. But the first point to stress is:there's no hurry. The 1999 process was hurried and was botched. After all,the dispossession began 239 years ago.
The difference between Aboriginal occupation of Australia and the British occupation is that the Aboriginal occupation was of terra nullius,at least on the human level. Too bad for the megafauna and fire-susceptible plants that were rendered extinct by the first human occupation of the continent. But that is of no constitutional moment now.