On 26 May 2017, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islandermembers of the government-and opposition-appointedReferendum Council released the Uluru Statement fromthe Heart (Referendum Council 2017). This documenthas been on a significant geographical and politicaljourney since its release, including a widelypublicised rejection under the Turnbull government(Wahlquist 2017) and a growing contemporary momentumtoday (Synot 2019). However, it has been widelyregarded in the context of ‘treaty’ documents, inthis case calling for a First Nations Voice inparliament (McKay 2017, 2–3). Despite the persistentreferences to recognition within the statement, thistreaty focus is often read in opposition to therhetoric of the ill-fated Recognise campaign forconstitutional recognition of Aboriginal and TorresStrait Islander peoples (McKay 2017, 2;Reconciliation Australia 2017). As Daniel McKay putsit:

Indeed, this moment arguably marks the culmination of abroader set of tensions between political strategiescentred on symbolic recognition, such as federal orstate recognition of native title, and strategiescentred on more concrete forms of political oreconomic redistribution, such as the permutations ofland rights legislation (Laing 2007). These tensionsplace the famous Mabo High Court decision of 1992and the subsequent Native Title Act of 1993 into awider context. Indeed, in the years since the Mabodecision, it has become customary to point to thediscrepancies between its extraordinary symbolicresonance and its relatively limited political andeconomic benefits for the majority of Aboriginal andTorres Strait Islander peoples (Behrendt 2002;Ritter 2009). One argument suggests that nativetitle might even actively impede land rights, inpart because native title can so often be formallyrecognised and extinguished at the same time(Behrendt 2002, 1–2).