No Foxy, it's nothing about the simple act of recognition; it's about elitist politics practised by Aboriginal intellectuals who have never experienced the squalor and violence of remote living, endured by 21% of Aboriginals (79% live like the rest of us). They are aided by white manipulators also keen to retain their power and extremely lucrative careers. I have just finished reading "The Break-Up of Australia", and there is no way I would vote yes in a referendum, so disgusted am I by the plight of 21% of Aboriginals living in remote settlements (79% live in cities and towns, continuing their preference for white civilization which started in the 1890s). It's not my role to persuade anyone of anything, but I believe that if you read the book, you would agree with me. In 2012-2013, $30 billion of taxpayer money did not make a dent in the shocking savagery (by males) in remote settlements. Have you heard any of the so-called Aboriginal leaders talk about this? No. They want a referendum to give them more money and power, while poor bloody real aborigines continue to suffer Stone Age, patriarchal violence, child abuse, rape and murder. It disgust me that there is bipartisan support for this disgraceful con.

"Recognition Referendum via which Australians are actually expected to hand over 60% of our continent to 3% of the population."
Aboriginal leaders will get money and power including Yackandandah beehives and mineral spring, the Darwin railway , Darwin, iron ore , coal, Darwin highway, barrier reef, Blue Mountains and film rights to Uluru. Also Treasury building and control of the Mint.

The Australian Aboriginal people have a modern relationship to Indians going back some 4,000 years, so there is doubt that today's Aboriginals can claim to be the first people.
.

It is true that there has been, historically, a small number
of claims that there were people in Australia before Australian
Aborigines, but these claims have all been refuted and are
no longer widely debated. The overwhelming weight of evidence
supports the idea that Aboriginals were the first Australians.
However, the issue in the Constitutional recognition debate
is about recognising that there were people in Australia when
Europeans arrived to colonise it. There is no possible doubt
that the Australian Aborigines were in Australia when
Europeans arrived. Whether there were people in Australia
before them is irrelevant to the recognition of Aboriginal
people in the Constitution.

http://www.theconversation.com/explainer-what-indigenous-constitutional-recognition-means-31770

Dear ttbn,

I'll try to get hold of the book you recommended after
Christmas.

Wrong Foxy.... if there were people here before Aboriginals then they certainly were NOT the first people and their claims of "Terra Nullius" would be both hypocritical and wrong. Supporting and fostering this claim would be dishonest.

Aborigines are Australian, they are identified by others as Australian hence "Australian Aborigines" hence there is no need to single them out as a specific racial group in the Constitution... we are all AUSTRALIAN and all born here are INDIGENOUS.

You mean Aboriginals claim Terra Nullius and say they didn't exist? Yes all born here are Indigenous and we can walk into any house in Australia and take their animals , vegie patch and daughters for sex.