Indigenous Voice to Parliament bill passes Senate

The constitutional alteration bill cleared the upper house on Monday without amendments, with 52 votes in favour and 19 against.

The Prime Minister will now be tasked with setting a date for the referendum, which he said can he held anytime between two months and 33 days and six months from now. It is widely expected to be held in October.

"Parliaments pass laws, but it is people who make history," Mr Albanese told reporters in Canberra.

"This is your time, your chance, your opportunity to be a part of making history. It will be a moment of national unity, a chance to make our nation even greater. A gracious chapter in the great story of Australia."

The Senate's public gallery was filled with yes supporters, who stood to their feet and erupted with applause when the legislation passed.

House members Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney and Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus were among those in the Senate chamber to watch the bill pass.

In an emotional address to the media shortly after, Ms Burney paid tribute to Aboriginal elder and key government Voice figure Pat Dodson, who in April took a leave of absence to undergo medical treatment.

"We have done it," Ms Burney said.

She said the move brought them a "step closer to unifying Australia".

"Today, the political debate ends. Today we can start a national conversation at the community level about what a Voice is, why it's needed, and how it will make a practical difference."

Shadow attorney-general Michaelia Cash was among those voting in favour of the bill, despite kicking off a rare wave of third reading speeches to speak against the proposal.

She claimed the bill would "change this nation's constitution in a way that will destroy one of our most fundamental values, equality of citizenship".

But she said the majority of her party would vote to pass the bill "because we believe in the people of this nation and their right to have a say on this issue".

While the Liberal party formed a position to oppose the Voice, they said they would not stand in the way of the referendum.

Liberal MP Julian Leeser, who earlier quit his party's frontbench to campaign for the Voice, said it has been "a long journey to get to this day".

He described the Voice as "a safe change" but one that was needed to help close the gap in expected life outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

"There's this gap that's not closing. It's a gap that means that a young Indigenous man is more likely to go to prison than to go to university, that an Indigenous person is nine times more likely than the rest of our country to be unemployed, that an Indigenous person is two and a half times more likely to die by suicide than the rest of our country," he said.

"That's not acceptable. That's why we need this change. That's why we need to consult Indigenous people on the policies and laws that affect them."

Among those voting against the bill were senators Pauline Hanson, Matt Canavan, Alex Antic and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price.

Independent senator Lidia Thorpe, who also voted against the bill, described the proposal as "tokenistic" in her speech.

"You wave your flag and wear your deadly black earrings and feel real good about it. We're hearing all these beautiful, heartfelt stories about how this is going to fix our lives, it's going to solve everything," she said.

"Meanwhile, our children are being tortured in prisons. Our babies are being stolen from their mothers' arms. Our people are taking their lives."

Senator Thorpe quit the Greens earlier this year after clashing with the party over her position on the Voice.

The bill passed the lower house last month, with 121 votes to 25.

With the bill having now cleared Parliament, the "yes" and "no" campaigns are expected to ramp up.

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Liberals for Yes national co-convenor Kate Carnell said today the debate moved out of Parliament and into the community.

She said the campaign would now "start empowering Liberal voters to vote yes, to show Liberal voters how what's in the constitutional change is very much in line with Liberal values," she said.

In the lead up to the Senate vote, Yes23 campaign director Dean Parkin told Sky News people could expect to see a bigger presence from the "yes" camp.

"We'll be throwing the kitchen sink at this campaign," he said.

"You'll see it on the airwaves, you'll see it on TV and you'll see it in your streets."