Tamworth doctor supports Voice to Parliament on health grounds

"We live in a first world country, and we've got this group of people who are living significantly shorter [lifespans] than the rest of us," Dr Nesbitt said.

"I really believe this Voice will change things, not overnight, but it's the foundation upon which other good policies can be built."

Dr Nesbitt has been practising for about five years and now works as an anaesthetist in Tamworth. He will be one of more than 17 million people voting in Saturday's referendum.

During his time working in Alice Springs, and remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in the Northern Territory, Dr Nesbitt said he noticed a lot of people were over-represented in renal medicine.

"Indigenous people get put on dialysis at about 20 times the rate of non Indigenous patients, and we very frequently put patients in their 20s on dialysis," he said.

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He said a Voice to Parliament is humane and could also reduce the cost to taxpayers.

"It costs about $120,000 a year to have somebody on dialysis," Dr Nesbitt said.

"Putting somebody on dialysis at 20... that's a 40 or 50 year investment, which ends up being millions of dollars over that patient's life."

He said Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people need a "seat at the table" from the very beginning of policies and legislation that impact on their communities, which is what the Voice to Parliament aims to do.

"No two communities are the same, which is why individual communities and people from those communities need to have a say in how funding gets spent," Dr Nesbitt said.

He gave the example of how a community could advocate for subsidies on store-bought water, which currently retails at a higher price than fizzy drinks in most areas.

"So kids don't end up with diabetes when they're 21 and kidney disease when they're 28," Dr Nesbitt said.

While working in the NT, Dr Nesbitt was doing postgraduate study in public health with a component being Indigenous health policy and health economics.

In July this year, the Productivity Commission released the third Closing the Gap report, which showed only four of the 19 targets were on track.

The on-track targets included: preschool enrolments; the number of employed people aged 25 to 64; a reduction in the number of young people in detention by 30 per cent; and increasing land mass subject to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander's interests or legal rights.

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