At the opening of our Statewide Treaty Gathering, the Assembly Co-chairs Ngarra Murray and Rueben Berg outlined where things were at on the journey to Treaty and what comes next.
Thank you Aunty Jill for that fantastic retelling of the history of our collective journey to Treaty here in Victoria.
It’s important to be reminded of all the effort and struggle from so many staunch leaders, community members and activists who consistently stood up for our rights, demanded that our peoples be recognised and respected, and got us to where we are today.
And where we are is the cusp of getting Treaty done. It’s very much within our reach. This weekend is about having some more important conversations before we actually sit down with Government and start to negotiate statewide Treaty later this year.
For those who perhaps weren’t with us this morning or who I haven’t met before, my name is Ngarra Murray.
I’m a proud Wamba Wamba, Yorta Yorta, Dhudhuroa and Dja Dja Wurrung woman. And along with Rueben Berg here, I’m a Co-chair of the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria.
I’ll start by acknowledging the Wadawurrung people as the Traditional Owners of these lands. I pay my respects to their Elders past and present, and I thank all First Peoples for coming along today and thanks all the deadly dances this morning.
It is really powerful to have this space and time to come together and celebrate our culture, so good on everyone involved and others who are really helping to make sure our culture and ways are kept thriving and will continue to be passed down to our future generations.
Aunty Jill has kindly reminded us what’s gone on before us, what’s happened to get us all to this point, and it’s my and Rueben’s job to explain what comes next – what does the pathway ahead that the Assembly has cleared look like. And what are the choices that we need to make together.
I’m so excited about the next 12 months because I really believe that 2024 and 2025 are going to be landmark years for our people.
For so long we’ve been striving for Treaty. We’ve be yearning for our inherent rights as First Peoples to be respected and upheld. We’ve been fighting for our voices to be heard. We’ve been working to build collective power and the ability to have a genuine say over the matters that affect us.
Now, if we decide to come together with a united voice, we can get Treaty done.
We can herald a new era of Treaty and Aboriginal self-determination. Nothing about us, without us.
That’s what Treaty is all about – our people making the decisions about our communities, our culture, our Country.
The Framework that the Assembly has established works at two levels.
Firstly, it will allow Traditional Owners of Country to negotiate Treaties that reflect the particular aspirations and priorities in their areas.
They’ll be able to do it at their own pace, in their own ways – it’s not a one size fits all approach.
Treaty will result in local Aboriginal communities having the ability and tools to develop and deliver practical solutions at a local level.
This is so important. We are the experts. You mob know your communities. You know your people, your Country, your lands and waters, your stories. You are the experts in your lives.
You know more about what your community wants and needs, than some politician whose loyalty is to a political party and who thinks they know best.
So when it comes to local issues, the Treaty framework will put locals into the driver’s seat.
Secondly, the framework allows the Assembly to negotiate a Statewide Treaty. This is the Treaty that will drive the big picture reforms at a Statewide level.
I’m going to get Rueben to explain that in a bit more detail shortly, but essentially that’s about taking the various decision-making powers that Government has about Aboriginal people and putting those decisions back into Aboriginal hands.
We’ve got the Assembly to democratically represent our First Peoples across the state. But now it’s time to step up its roles and responsibilities. We’re talking about a version of the Assembly that has the decision-making powers when it comes to Aboriginal matters.
Together, that’s what we’ll be pushing for. In other areas of the government’s work we’ll want the Assembly to be able to provide advice and guidance, but when it comes to core matters about Aboriginal people, we want the decisions being made by Aboriginal people.
That’s the whole point. Nothing about us, without us. We’ll determine our future.
This isn’t just a philosophy that we’re striving to achieve – it’s a philosophy we’re embracing as we do things. Self-determination is not only our destination, it’s how we get there.
An example of this that I’m really quite pleased and proud to share is a decision made last month at our last Assembly Meeting.
After much yarning, and assessing the various standards we had agreed to set, Assembly Members voted to create a new seat on the Assembly – one for a representative of the Wamba Wamba / Wemba Wemba peoples.
As a Wamba Wamba woman myself, I was obviously very happy to see this happen and I want to just congratulate everyone who helped make that a reality – well done.
This is an example of us doing things our own way. Mob will decide who mob is and how we organise ourselves.
We will not let Treaty be limited by colonial systems and ways of thinking.
Before I ask Rueben up to talk a bit more about the plans for the Statewide Treaty and how the next couple of days unfold, I’m going to give a quick outline of where we’re at and the next steps…
So I’m not sure how much you know about the Treaty Negotiating Framework – and I know there’s a session tomorrow dedicated to all the details, so anyone wanting a deep dive can attend that, but a quick reminder about the architecture we have in place.
The first thing the Assembly did was negotiate the establishment the Yoorrook Justice Commission to undertake a Truth-telling process, because a message we heard loud and clear when we first started our community engagement was that there could be no Treaty without Truth.
We’ll be hearing from one of the Truth-telling commissioners in a session on Sunday. They’re doing a lot of important work. I’m looking forward to presenting the Assembly submission at the Yoorrook hearings in a week or so as part of their inquiry into Land, Sea and Sky justice.
And of course you might have seen that just this week the Government gave it’s response to Yoorrook’s first round of recommendations.
It came nearly a year after the report was submitted, so pretty frustrating to see the Government dragging its feet, and to be honest the Government’s response is a bit of a mixed bag.
It’s vague on really important topics and disappoints with a slow timetable for raising the age of criminal responsibility. This means that in the meantime Aboriginal kids are still at risk of getting caught in the quicksand of the youth justice system.
But look, it does also give us plenty to work with – somethings they’re already doing, somethings they’ve agreed to in principal and somethings we’ll certainly be able to pursue in Treaty negotiations.
Dont worry – we are wary of promises written in the sand! The Assembly will be dogged and focussed on holding Government to account and keeping them to their promises.
We’ll make sure Treaty delivers tangible structural change. Because ultimately, we want to use Treaty to move away from piecemeal arguments about which policies are good and bad, and instead focus on who is best placed to be developing the policies and transfer those decision making powers.
We believe when it comes to Aboriginal communities that Aboriginal people are the experts. That’s why the Treaty negotiation framework aims to ensure Aboriginal communities have the ability and tools to develop and deliver practical solutions at a local
The other two key building blocks we put in place to help get Treaty done are the Self Determination Fund and the Treaty Authority – and of course we’ve also got sessions on both of those topics tomorrow as well.
Yoorrook will continue to make recommendations about practical solutions over the next year and these will very much inform many aspects of what we’ll seek to negotiate in Statewide Treaty.
Meanwhile, the Self Determination Fund has two key functions:
Firstly, it’s going to help resource Traditional Owners to get themselves organised and prepare for their own Treaty negotiations.
Secondly, it’s going to be a shared resource to help build wealth and prosperity for First Peoples communities. Try to repair the economic disadvantage that has flowed down and compounded each generation since invasion and dispossession.
We can’t change the past, but we can address the stolen wealth by repairing the impact. We can demand investment in a better future for our communities. A chance for First Peoples to prosper.
When our communities are thriving again, when we’re in control of our own lives – that’s when we’ll be able to come together as equals, and with respect, with everyone who now calls Victoria home and create a future together.
The final building block is the establishment of the Treaty Authority. This will serve as the independent umpire – helping guide us through disputes.
Those disputes might be with Government, but they might also be amongst ourselves. So it is good to have respected Community figures, grounded in our culture and Lore, to help guide us and find common ground and identify our shared objectives.
The next milestone will be when the Treaty Authority says it’s ready to assess applications for the groups who want to negotiate Treaties.
This will include the Assembly. We have to show that as a representative body, we’ve done our homework and that we meet the standards outlined in the Treaty Negotiation Framework.
Once we get that green light, we can start negotiating the Statewide Treaty. We don’t have exact dates, but I would imagine we’ll be sitting down with Government by about September and getting down to it.
This means we’ve only got a few more months to really sharpen our negotiating focus and decide what our key priorities are.
Now, we’re always holding yarning events across the state, our Members and engagement team are available every week – there’s plenty of ways to have your say and give us feedback. We also have an online survey running at the moment, so make sure you get on to that.
So this Statewide Gathering is part of our efforts to explain to Community the priorities that us elected Assembly Members are working on, based on our all engagement with Community so far, and provide another chance for people to give more feedback and help further shape the priorities.
It’s going to be really important that when we sit down with Government, we know what we want, and that we know we have the backing of our Communities.
So with that in mind, I’m really so glad you’ve all come along to the Gathering to learn more about the details and to have your say.
How good Treaty is, how strong it is, how much it improves the lives of First Peoples in Victoria, depends on you all. For Treaty to be as strong as possible, we need a united front, we need to power up to ensure treaties are in our future.
We need to harness our collective strength and wisdom. We want your feedback and ideas.
So thanks again. Listen, learn, dwell on the topics, and then let us know what you think! Whether that’s here, or in follow up conversations, phone calls, emails or on the survey, it doesn’t matter – it’s all welcome.
And of course, make sure you help spread the word. We need all mob to know they are welcome and needed – get them to enrol with the Assembly to show their support and have their say.
I’ll now hand over to Rueben, who’s going to talk more about the Statewide Treaty.
Thanks.
