The Voice to Parliament Handbook

The Voice to Parliament Handbook is an easy-to-follow guide for the millions of Australians who have expressed support for the Uluru Statement from the Heart, but want to better understand what a Voice to Parliament actually means.

'We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future.' These words from the Uluru Statement from the Heart are a heartfelt invitation from First Nations People to fellow Australians, who will have the opportunity to respond when the Voice referendum is put to a national vote by the Albanese Government.

Indigenous leader Thomas Mayo and acclaimed journalist Kerry O’Brien have written this handbook to answer the most commonly asked questions about why the Voice should be enshrined in the Constitution, and how it might function to improve policies affecting Indigenous communities, and genuinely close the gap on inequalities at the most basic level of human dignity.

A handy tool for people inclined to support a ‘yes’ vote in the referendum, The Voice to Parliament Handbook reflects on this historic opportunity for genuine reconciliation, to right the wrongs and heal the ruptured soul of a nation. This guide offers simple explanations, useful anecdotes, historic analogies and visual representations, so you can share it among friends, family and community networks in the build-up to the referendum.

If the ‘yes’ vote is successful this book will also become a keepsake of an important and emotional milestone in Australia's history.

About the Authors

Thomas Mayo is a Torres Strait Islander man born on Larrakia country in Darwin. As an Islander growing up on the mainland, he learned to hunt traditional foods with his father and to island dance from the Darwin community of Torres Strait Islanders. In high school, Thomas’s English teacher suggested he should become a writer. He didn’t think then that he would become one of the first ever Torres Strait Islander authors to have a book published for the general trade. Instead, he became a wharf labourer from the age of seventeen, until he became a union official for the Maritime Union of Australia in his early thirties.

Kerry O’Brien is one of Australia’s most respected journalists with six Walkley Awards including the Gold Walkley and the Walkley for outstanding leadership. In his decades at the ABC he reported for the trail-blazing current affairs programs This Day Tonight and Four Corners, presented Lateline for six years, 7.30 for fifteen years and Four Corners for five. In 2019 he was inducted into the television industry hall of fame. He has covered all the big historic Indigenous issues of his time, including land rights, deaths in custody, Mabo, the Stolen Generations’ inquiry, the birth and death of ATSIC, the intervention and the Uluru Statement from the Heart. He was a member of the Eminent Panel advising the Queensland Government on a path to treaty.