Watch: Everything you need to know about the Indigenous Voice to Parliament and upcoming referendum

While speaking at the Garma Festival at the end of July, the Prime Minister announced his commitment to seeing "a successful referendum in this term of parliament".

During the same speech, Mr Albanese outlined the set of questions that Australians would likely answer during the referendum.

"We should consider asking our fellow Australians something as simple but something as clear as this: Do you support an alteration to the constitution that establishes an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice," the Prime Minister told the gathering in north-east Arnhem Land on July 31.

"A straightforward proposition. A simple principle. A question from the heart. We can use this question and the provisions as the basis for further consultation, not as a final decision, but as the basis for dialog."

So what will an Indigenous voice to parliament look like, and what will the referendum process involve?

The referendum will seek to determine whether Australians want to officially recognise a group of representatives known as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.

This group will hold an advisory role and will be consulted by the government on proposed legislation that directly affects the lives of Australia's Indigenous people.

"Writing the voice into the Constitution means a willingness to listen won't depend on who is in government or who is prime minister," Mr Albanese said in July.

"The voice will exist and endure outside of the ups and downs of election cycles and the weakness of short-term politics.

"It will be an unflinching source of advice and accountability, not a third chamber, not a rolling veto, not a blank check, but a body with the perspective and the power and the platform to tell the government and the parliament the truth about what is working and what is not.

"To tell the truth with clarity, with conviction, because a voice enshrined in the Constitution cannot be silenced."

Anthony Albanese is not the first prime minister to propose recognising Indigenous Australians in the constitution.

The matter of a constitutional voice in parliament is something that Mr Albanese has been quite vocal about. On election night in May, he began his victory speech by saying he was committed to the Uluru Statement.

His first words as the Prime Minister-elect were:

"I begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet," he said on May 21.

"I pay my respects to their elders past, present, and emerging. And on behalf of the Australian Labor Party, I commit to the Uluru Statement from the heart in full."

But it's been a long journey to this point.

In 2007, then prime minister John Howard proposed a preamble to the constitution that would recognise Indigenous people as the first inhabitants of the land.

Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard promoted the concept of a voice to parliament in 2012. The then Labor government set up a panel of experts in January 2012 who proposed constitutional changes.

In 2017, the Uluru Statement from the Heart was endorsed by 250 Indigenous leaders at the First Nations' National Constitution Convention.

Its members and signatories requested a constitutional voice be enshrined.

The 440-word Uluru Statement from the Heart shared three key purposes: a Voice to Parliament, Treaty, and Truth.

Referencing the successful 1967 referendum to include Indigenous people in population counting, the statement asks for the right to be given a voice on legislative matters related to Indigenous Australians.

Prime Minister Albanese has proposed three sentences be added to the Constitution to enshrine the voice to parliament. The sentences are:

In order to have these statements written into the Constitution, the government must ask Australian citizens to vote in a referendum. And the question that has been drafted for that referendum is this:

"Do you support an alteration to the constitution that establishes an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice?"

A referendum is a complicated process.

There hasn't been a referendum since 1999. A whole generation of voters wasn't even born then!

The Australian Electoral Commission defines a referendum as a national vote to change the Constitution. Just like with an election, voting in a referendum is compulsory.

But unlike an election, a referendum requires a double majority to pass. A majority of the national population has to agree to the proposed statement, and then at least four of the six states must have a majority of yes votes too.

Since federation in 1901 there have been 44 national referendums, but only eight have been successful.

One of those was the May 27, 1967 referendum which asked the following question:

"Do you approve the proposed law for the alteration of the Constitution entitled- 'An Act to alter the Constitution so as to omit certain words relating to the People of the Aboriginal Race in any State and so that Aboriginals are to be counted in reckoning the Population?"

It sought to change sections 51 and 127 of the Constitution, providing the government with the power to enact laws for all Australian people, including Indigenous people, and to count Indigenous people among the nation's population.

This referendum recorded the highest ever yes vote, with 90.77 per cent in favour of making the changes.

Next year will be the 56th anniversary of that historic referendum, and so there has been some early speculation that the upcoming referendum may be held on May 27, 2023.

The date for the referendum is yet to be announced.