Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner June Oscar says Australia's ready for Indigenous Voice to Parliament

Nearly a thousand First Nations women are converging in Canberra this week for the Wiyi Yani U Thangani - or We are the change - national summit to elevate the voices of young Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander women and girls.

It comes as the country prepares to decide on whether an Indigenous Voice to Parliament should be recognised in the constitution in Australia's first referendum since 1999.

The Human Rights Commission's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner June Oscar, who is leading the project, said the Indigenous Voice to Parliament would bring back First Nations input into policy and funding decisions.

The two-decade void was created after the Howard government abolished the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission following controversial allegations levelled against its chairperson Geoff Clark.

Ms Oscar said she agreed with comments made by Indigenous Affairs Minister Linda Burney, suggesting the Voice model would give legislators greater confidence in dealing with local issues, such as the increase in violent crime in Alice Springs.

"We've seen the very opposite [since ATSIC's disbandment] where we've had politicians deciding on funding and budgets and programs, totally removing the input from Indigenous peoples," she said ahead of the summit's start on Monday.

"This will enable voices from a local level to be able to raise the issues that are priority in the area to a national level - for it to be responded to.

"There are no more excuses."

The commissioner said she remained hopeful the referendum, which will be held between October and November, would be a success despite critics coming from across the political spectrum.

One of those critics is Ms Oscar's colleague, Human Rights Commissioner Lorraine Finlay, who said in an opinion piece in March she believed it would "insert race into the Australian constitution in a way that undermines the foundational human rights principles of equality and non-discrimination".

Ms Oscar said the views were Ms Finlay's personal opinion, and not reflective of the Human Rights Commission, and maintained the country needed to be respectful to the diversity of views.

"I do appreciate that there are a range of opinions about the Voice," Ms Oscar said.

"It should not be in question that First Nations peoples, as the original inhabitants of this country, have unique rights.

"One of these rights is for Indigenous peoples to create representative structures like the Voice so we can participate in decisions that affect us.

"We need to overcome the barriers of racism, or discrimination, and ... the ongoing impacts of a colonial system and, I think, I believe Australian people are ready for this change."

The commissioner's work on the Wiyi Yani U Thangani project has been underway since 2018 when she was appointed to the role.

Ms Oscar said it was "shameful" the last engagement process for First Nations women had been done some decades earlier in 1986.

"I think it's important that women are able to to know that their voices are important and that they are being heard and that they are being responded to," she said.

"It's shameful that we haven't been acknowledging First Nations women's issues, solutions, and voices on those matters in the history of this country."

The project's 576-page report, which was released in 2020, asked First Nations women around the country what areas they wanted to see improvements in to advance the outcomes for their communities.

"Women said they wanted their inclusion to be guaranteed, not dependent on token gestures or the favour of individual politicians," Ms Oscar said.

"They wanted permanent structural mechanisms at a national level for our people to ensure they are heard and responded to.

"Women said, very clearly, that piecemeal and ad hoc policy and programs are no good because they do not provide consistency."

The national summit's Youth Forum begins on Monday before it officially begins on Tuesday and runs across Wednesday.