The majority of Aboriginal people do not want the Australia Day date changed, a prominent Indigenous academic has said.
'It is very apparent that most Indigenous people are saying don't change the date,' said Megan Davis of the University of New South Wales.
Professor Davis is a constitutional law expert who has consulted with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people across Australia on Indigenous issues.
With tens of thousands of people taking part in 'Invasion Day' rallies in most capital cities on Wednesday, Ms Davis said the push to stop celebrating Australia Day on January 26 'won't make a difference to the underlying issue and the unfinished business as (Labor senator) Patrick Dodson called it'.
Professor Davis works with the Uluru Dialogue, the campaign by Indigenous leaders to have a voice to parliament enshrined in Australia's constitution.
She told The Australian the original problem Indigenous people had was 'the dispossession which did not cede Aboriginal sovereignty'.
Activists (pictured) dance during an Invasion Day rally in Brisbane on Wednesday, January 26, 2022
'The Uluru Statement from the Heart ... was issued as an invitation to Australians to meet with us and walk together in a movement of all Australians for change,' she said.
Professor Davis said altering the constitution would be far more than a symbolic change and that 'a constitutional amendment is the toughest change of them all.
