Australians will find out more details about the Indigenous voice to parliament in the new year, ahead of a referendum expected to be held in late-2023.
The federal government has faced criticism from the National Party for not releasing more details about how the consultative body would work ahead of calling the referendum.
But two co-authors of the Indigenous voice co-design report now overseeing the federal government's working group on the matter said there was plenty of detail already available and more would be released.
Professor Tom Calma, a co-chair of the working group, said the final wording and timing of the referendum was being discussed.
"Nothing's worse than going out prematurely and then having to change," he told ABC radio on Monday.
"We're taking our time because we know the referendum won't happen until the end of next year - at the very earliest - or early in 2024."
Prof Calma said the referendum and the consultative body were two separate issues, with the latter to be ultimately decided by the parliament.
"This is a bit bewildering, really, that people say they don't have information when it's been available," he said.
"The referendum is just about the Australian constitution ... the government, should the referendum get up, will put through legislation that would allow a national voice to be established, but the national voice will be informed by local and regional voices."
Professor Marcia Langton, a leading academic, was confident the final model of the parliamentary advisory body would be similar to the recommendation in the co-design report.
"I can't imagine that there is a better model out there. I can see some tweaks, but we put in over two years of work (and) we consulted with thousands of people," she said.
"I'm very confident that the voice will look much like our proposal, our detailed proposal in our final report."
Last week the federal National Party announced it would not back a proposal to enshrine an Indigenous voice to parliament as it would create "unnecessary layers" of bureaucracy.
But Prof Langton said the Nationals were injecting "misinformation and vitriol" into the debate.
"I'm really quite disappointed that people ... believe that there's no detail when we've personally handed the report to them and discussed it with them," she said.
"'We cruised the corridors of Parliament House over and over again and tried to speak to as many people as possible."
Prof Langton said the Indigenous voice was too important to play "nasty" politics with.
"It would be terribly unfortunate for all Australians if the debate sinks into a nasty, eugenicist, 19th century style of debate about the superior race versus the inferior race," she said.
