Chris Bowen | Voice gives the power to make practical difference

Yes to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in our Constitution, yes to giving them their best chance of being properly heard with a Voice.

And the need for listening to get better, practical results has never been more urgent.

First Nations Australians have had a continuous connection to our country and its landscape for 65,000 years.

But this landscape is now on the front line of climate change, as our country experiences unprecedented bushfires, devastating floods and skyrocketing temperatures.

We know there is no inequality in the world that climate change doesn't make worse, including the inequality experienced by First Nations people.

For First Nations families living in substandard housing in remote communities it means facing hotter, more extreme weather while our Torres Strait Islander brothers and sisters respond to rising sea levels.

We can't tackle climate change successfully without listening to the needs of the communities most impacted by it, including those communities on the forefront of the energy transition.

That's why we are developing a First Nations Clean Energy Strategy to ensure Indigenous Australians have a say in energy policies and programs as part of the transformation to a net zero economy.

We've already started talking with communities with roundtables held in Port Hedland in WA, in Alice Springs in the NT and in Cairns in Queensland. We're hearing about the challenges of energy affordability and reliability and the huge opportunities of renewable energy investments to create long term financial returns.

The strategy will be co-designed with First Nations communities and organisations, including our First Nations Clean Energy and Emissions Reduction Advisory Committee.

This committee will guarantee the views of First Nations Australians are priority in the design and implementation of clean energy and emissions reduction policies that support community aspirations.

Enshrining a Voice to Parliament will ensure this sort of listening is standard practice - giving advice on key issues facing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

It will deliver something that the current approach simply isn't: a difference.

We cannot keep trying the same solutions and somehow expect the result to change. That's what a "No" vote would lead to: more of the same old approach that has already seen decades of governments spending billions of dollars, only for the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia to keep widening.

Life expectancy for Indigenous Australians is 8 years shorter than non-Indigenous Australians, the suicide rate is twice as high and there are worse rates of disease and infant mortality.

So much of that is because we haven't been listening to the people who could steer us in the right direction: the people with the wisdom, the experience and the sort of insight you can only get by living in a place and calling it home.

MORE VOICE TO PARLIAMENT:

Let's face it, the idea for the Voice could never have come from politicians. It began as conversations among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people right across our vast continent.

So many people over so many years in towns, regions and remote communities, talking together to work out how to get Canberra to listen. What they ultimately came up with was not a demand but an invitation in the form of the Uluru Statement from the Heart in 2017.

The statement reads, "with substantive constitutional change and structural reform, we believe this ancient sovereignty can shine through as a fuller expression of Australia's nationhood".

The last referendum was in 1999.

Referendums don't come around very often.

There won't be another opportunity to make the constitutional change needed to ensure First Nations Australians are recognised and consulted on matters that impact them.

Now is the time for Australians to unite and say Yes.