Uluru Statement From The Heart Come On Down

We gathered at the 2017 National Constitutional Convention

Coming from all points of the southern sky

Make this statement from the heart

Our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes

Were the first sovereign nations of the Australian continent

And its adjacent islands

And possessed it under our own laws and customs

This, our ancestors did

According to the reckoning of our culture from the creation

According to the common law from time immemorial

And according to science more than sixty thousand years ago

This sovereignty is a spiritual notion

The ancestral tie between the land, or 'mother nature'

And the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who were born therefrom

Remain attached thereto, and must one day return thither

To be united with our ancestors

This link is the basis of the ownership of the soil

Or better, of sovereignty

It has never been ceded or extinguished

And co-exists with the sovereignty of the Crown

How could it be otherwise

That peoples possessed a land for sixty millennia

And this sacred link disappears from world history

In merely the last two hundred years?

With substantive constitutional change and structural reform

We believe this ancient sovereignty can shine through

As a fuller expression of Australia's nationhood

Proportionally, we are the most incarcerated people on the planet

We are not an innately criminal people

Our children are aliened 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 our future

These dimensions of our crisis

Tell plainly the structural nature of our problem

This is the torment of our powerlessness

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

They will walk in two worlds, and their culture will be a gift to their country

We call for the establishment of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution

Makarrata is the culmination of our agenda

The coming together after a struggle

It captures our aspirations for a fair and truthful relationship

With the people of Australia

And a better future for our children based on justice and self-determination

We seek a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process

Of agreement-making between governments and First Nations

And truth-telling about our history

In 1967, we were counted

In 2017, we seek to be heard

We leave base camp and start our trek across this vast country

We invite you to walk with us

In a movement of the Australian people

For a better future

Society's enormous

Alienation breeds

Loneliness so sad

We need company

So get off those little screens

And find out what it all means

Gather 'round the campfire

The campfire of humankind

So come on down

Come on down

To the stompin' ground

Come on down

Faces are glowin'

Strange music plays

Smoke adds distortion

In a magical way

Time passes freely

We're all passing through

A night 'round the campfire

Is gonna do it for you

So come on down

Come on down

To the stompin' ground

Come on down

So come on down

Come on down

To the stompin' ground

Come on down

Everybody

Come on down

Come on down

To the stompin' ground

Oh, won't you come on down?