Bamaga, Cape York: Tony Abbott has warned advocates of strong constitutional recognition for Indigenous Australians that they will "probably end up with a proposal that won't pass" if they go for everything they would like in the referendum question.
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The Prime Minister has also made plain that he does not support Noel Pearson's proposal for an Indigenous advisory body to be enshrined in the constitution, saying the Parliament could establish such a body if it was deemed necessary.
In an exclusive interview with Fairfax Media, Mr Abbott maintained he had laid out the parameters for community debate on the question, but would not pre-empt the outcome of Indigenous-only conferences.
"I've said it has got to be worth doing, but it's got to be doable," he said.
"It's got to be something that Indigenous people feel is a significant advance, but it can't be something which is so significant a change to the constitution, as our foundation national document, that it gets rejected by the wider community for seeming to set up two classes of citizenship.
"I don't want to pre-empt the outcome of the community conferences, but I suppose I would encourage people to realise that if you go for everything you'd like, you'll probably end up with a proposal that won't pass."
Talking at the end of a week in remote communities in the far north of Cape York and the Torres Strait, an upbeat Prime Minister also asserted Australia had "turned the corner" on the road to reconciliation and closing the gap on Indigenous disadvantage. He said a revolution in remote classrooms was "going to change individual lives and transform individual communities".
"I don't say that everyone's life is transformed as yet, but enough lives are in the process of being transformed for us to be much more confident about the future for Indigenous people than at any time in the last couple of hundred years."
Mr Abbott recently agreed to support Indigenous-only conferences on constitutional recognition after initially rejecting the idea on the grounds that they could produce "something akin to a log of claims that is unlikely to receive general support".
Although he has signalled his opposition to the most controversial recommendation from the expert panel on recognition - a ban on racial discrimination - he is yet to say explicitly that its inclusion would sink any referendum.
His comments for Fairfax Media, however, suggest the model he will be most comfortable with would give succinct recognition, remove one racist clause and amend the race power to become an Indigenous power.
Mr Pearson proposed the Indigenous body to be consulted on laws affecting Indigenous people as an alternative to a racial discrimination prohibition, which he is convinced will be opposed strongly by constitutional conservatives as akin to a bill of rights that would increase the power of the judiciary over the executive.
Mr Abbott also made plain his opposition to a separate proposal for recognition to be in the form of a lengthy declaration outside the constitution.
"If you think that some kind of lengthy declaration on the place of Indigenous people in Australia over time is really important, the Parliament could deal with that," he said.
"If you think that a new representative body to provide advice to government is the way to go, the Parliament could deal with that. What we should be on about is an appropriate form of Indigenous recognition which I suppose acknowledges the reality of modern Australia, which is that we have an Indigenous heritage, a British foundation and a multicultural character."
The government is expected to announce the membership of a Referendum Council to oversee national consultations in the next two weeks.
