Tony Abbott has moved to heal a rift with Aboriginal leaders over their push to establish a unified Indigenous position on what constitution recognition question should be put to the people.
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The Prime Minister has invited the four leaders who proposed a series of Indigenous conferences to debate the issue to meet with him in Canberra on Thursday.
After rejecting their proposal earlier this month on the basis that "it might produce something akin to a log of claims that is unlikely to receive general support", Mr Abbott appears ready to embrace the idea.
The shift follows a meeting between Mr Abbott and Noel Pearson last week in Brisbane where the Indigenous leader argued that the proposal represented the process most likely to produce a successful referendum.
A breakthrough at the meeting would set a positive tone for Mr Abbott's week-long visit to Indigenous communities in the Torres Strait and at the tip of Cape York in far-north Queensland next week.
Mr Abbott is expected to tell the four – Mr Pearson, Patrick Dodson, Kirstie Parker and Megan Davis – that he is willing to support Indigenous conferences within an overall process designed to secure consensus on the referendum question.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has already supported the proposal for an "Indigenous-specific process" and has not been invited to attend the meeting on Thursday. He has welcomed Mr Abbott's apparent change of heart.
In his letter rejecting the Indigenous leaders' proposal, Mr Abbott accepted that "community conferences need to take place in ways that give Indigenous people ample opportunity to have their say".
"Doubtless, some of them could take place in largely Indigenous areas, with largely Indigenous participation," he wrote.
But he insisted that an Indigenous position should form "at the same time that a general community position is also forming" and maintained the proposal for a separate Indigenous conferences "jars with the notion of finally substituting 'we' for 'them and us'".
Indigenous leaders felt so strongly about the need for Indigenous conferences that they were willing to proceed independently if the government chose not to fund an "Indigenous-specific process". It is understood the Indigenous conferences could cost around $5 million.
Mr Dodson co-chaired the expert panel that reported in January 2012 and supported the insertion of a new clause in the constitution banning racial discrimination by government.
Mr Pearson initially proposed the ban but has put forward an alternative model because he believes the ban will be opposed by constitutional conservatives and could have unintended consequences. His model would see a new Indigenous body recognised by the constitution with a voice to the national parliament.
Both leaders have agreed to throw their unqualified support behind whatever model emerges from Indigenous conferences.
Ms Parker is the co-chair of the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples and Dr Davis is a Professor of Law at the University of New South Wales and an acting commissioner of the NSW Land and Environment Court.
In their letter, the four argued that an independent process for Indigenous people to reach consensus is "crucial if we are to ensure Indigenous support for a model".
