Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has used the first day of parliament for the year to urge support for an Indigenous voice.

Mr Albanese said the voice to parliament, which will be put to a referendum later this year, should be above politics.

“We need to get the detail right and there would be a process, as well as that parliamentary debate about the legislation, and I’d want to get as much agreement as possible,” he told reporters in Canberra on Monday.

“I want this to be a long-term reform to benefit Indigenous Australians, to help close the gap.”

The latest Newspoll indicated 56 per cent of respondents supported the voice while 37 per cent were opposed.

“Polls come and go – what matters is when people cast their vote,” Mr Albanese said.

“The call for a Indigenous recognition in our constitution and consultation on matters that affect them will not have an impact on most people’s lives, but it might just make some people’s lives, some of the most disadvantaged people in our country, better.”

The question people will be asked at the referendum on the voice will be known by the end of June.

The wording must be endorsed by both houses of parliament before Australians cast their votes.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has consistently called for more details on the Indigenous voice.

The Liberals have yet to come to a formal party position on the voice, with shadow treasurer Angus Taylor indicating further talks were still to take place in the party room.

“I’ll let those processes go through their usual pathways, what I will say is that we still don’t have any sort of detail from the government that allows us to make a sensible decision on this and this is the real challenge,” he said in Canberra.

“The beginning of the pathway is for Labor to give us the real detail as to what they want to do. That’s what we’re missing.”

Nationals senator Jacinta Price said the elements that would form the voice had not been made clear.

“It’s a Trojan horse, as far as I’m concerned, to say that ‘there’s all this information there’, but we don’t know what part of that information is in fact going to form the voice,” she said.

“I put it to the prime minister … prove to the Australian people through a legislative model that (the voice) works before you try to mess with our constitution.”

Tony Burke, the manager of government business, said more than enough information had been provided.

“I can’t think of any referendum proposal where there has been more process than this,” Mr Burke said.

The Greens have called for a treaty to be implemented before the voice.

But Labor senator Pat Dodson, the government’s special envoy for reconciliation, stressed the need to secure the voice first.

“To have a treaty, you have to have a voice, you have to have an entity, you have to have a group of people that have a standing or that have credibility,” he said.

Crossbench senator Jacqui Lambie said Mr Albanese was “on notice” to prove how a voice would make a practical improvement to the lives of Indigenous people, following an outbreak of violence in Alice Springs.

“It’s out of control out there mate … it’s time to come in with some tough love,” she said.

By Andrew Brown in Canberra