Federal Labor MP Linda Burney was not considered part of the Australian population until she was 10 years old.
It was not until the 1967 referendum, which included indigenous Australians in the census and gave the federal government power to make laws for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, that this finally changed.
"For 10 years I lived my life in invisibility so far as the NSW government was concerned," she said in an address to the Australian National University on Wednesday night.
Ms Burney, the first indigenous woman elected to the House of Representatives, does not remember the referendum campaign because there was no television at her country NSW home.
"But I know that before I was 10 I was in some ways a non-citizen or at best a second-class one," she said.
Earlier, Ms Burney revealed she did not vote in an election until she was 27, as voting was compulsory for everyone except indigenous people until 1984.
"I took this exclusion to mean that we didn't have to vote because we were not as important as everyone else," she posted to Twitter.
"I realised one day that not participating in the system was counterproductive."
Addressing the ANU, Ms Burney said celebrating the 50th anniversary of the 1967 referendum was not enough.
"It should be a call to action," she said.
The historic vote laid the foundations for moments including the Mabo land rights decision, a royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody, and prime minister Kevin Rudd's apology to the stolen generation.
It was not a singular victory but a step in a far longer and more complex journey, Ms Burney said.
"Something is still missing. This project is far from over," she said.
Ms Burney urged Australians to take heed of the 1967 vote as the country moved towards a referendum on recognising indigenous people in the constitution.
No matter how just and well crafted the proposal put forward was, it would mean nothing if it was not winnable, making pragmatism and political leadership imperatives.
She said the vote would provide the opportunity to reconcile Australia's past with its present but it would not be painless.
"A small community can be won over by a huge margin but it means nothing if they cannot convince the broader one," Ms Burney said.
"Recognition will need to be owned by all of us."
