Lasa Braking News Australi

Australian Indigenous leaders call for formal 'voice', path to treaty

Dancers from East Arnhem Land at the summit's opening ceremony

A historic summit in Australia has called for a new formal body to represent the nation's indigenous peoples in parliament.

More than 250 indigenous leaders met in Uluru to discuss how to best recognize Australia's first inhabitants.

Crucially, they rejected the idea of constitutional recognition - an idea that was criticized as merely symbolic.

Instead, the delegates called for a constitutionally enshrined voice in parliament and a path to a treaty.

The statement - called the Uluru Statement from the Heart - came after three days of talks at the First Nations Convention.

Proportionally, we are the most incarcerated people on the planet. We are not an innately criminal people, it said.

Our children are aligned from their families at unprecedented rates. This cannot be because we have no love for them. And our youth languish in detention in obscene numbers. They should be our hope for the future, it said.

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.

The convention said it would only accept substantive constitutional change and structural reform" that was not simply a statement of acknowledgment.

It will have a more practical impact on Aboriginal people's place in the democracy, Cape York leader Noel Pearson told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

The statement called for a treaty and said a commission should be established to supervise the process and engage in "truth-telling about our history.

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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-40040145