My name is Ngarra Murray. I’m a Wamba Wamba, Yorta Yorta, Dja Dja Wurrung, and Dhudhuroa woman. I’m Co-Chair of the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria.
Our countries – right across this state – hold the markings of our history. This is country that has felt thousands of generations of footsteps and was criss-crossed by our families.
I offer my respect to Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people, ancestors, elders, and family clans. I recognize the way that their old people have fought to provide the best for our people collectively. The Wurundjeri have been generous and shared, and provided a platform and a place for the fight for equality. I also acknowledge all First Peoples in the room today, particularly our Elders.
The First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria jumped at the chance to partner with AIATSIS for this summit, and we are excited to connect with mob from across the country, hold space to have important yarns, come with open minds and a willingness to share, learn, encourage, and celebrate Indigenous brilliance.
There are some big things underway here in Victoria on our journey to Treaty, and I’m keen to share an update – particularly with the mob from interstate. Since 2016, we’ve been laying the foundation for treaties.
Decisions made by mob, for mob. Real self-determination.
That’s our primary aim with Treaty here in Victoria – taking decision-making power and putting it back into Aboriginal hands. Sure, there will be important advisory roles, and powerful accountability functions, but the centrepiece will be making sure decisions primarily about Aboriginal people are made by Aboriginal people.
Everyone in this room knows, when it comes to Aboriginal communities, when it comes to our cultures, our languages, our land and waters, our ways of caring for Country – the experts are, of course, Aboriginal people.
So let me give a recap of how we got here and what’s next.
To the Government’s credit – in 2016 they answered the call that our people had been making for generations. A call for Treaty. They moved quickly to set up the Treaty Advancement Commission where Aunty Jill Gallagher began our treaty dialogue. Things moved up a gear, of course, in 2019 after the Assembly’s first election was held.
The 32 elected Assembly Members began the work of listening to mob in every corner of this state about how the journey to Treaty should unfold. With community input, we decided what the system and processes should look like and how they should work. How to make sure everyone feels ownership of the treaty process and can be heard. How to do things our way that respects and upholds our lore and cultural authority.
We got to work creating a Truth-telling process – the Yoorrook Justice Commission. Developing the ground-rules and framework that Treaty negotiations would take place in. Establishing a Self-Determination Fund to support Traditional Owners to start preparing for their journeys to Treaty.
By the time our second elections were held last year – Victoria was a state with two Treaty laws in place. Two treaty laws that bind us and the State to treaty making.
So now it’s crunch time.
The current group of elected Members have had a year to have the conversations and to listen to Community’s ideas, hopes, needs, and aspirations. And now it’s time to start finalizing our plans and the priorities that we’ll take into negotiations when we sit down with the Victorian Government in a few months’ time.
One point to explain is that although we say Treaty for Victoria, we actually mean Treaties – plural. We’re going to have many Treaties. The Negotiation Framework we’ve agreed to with the Government will allow the various Traditional Owners across Victoria to negotiate Treaties in their areas that reflect the priorities on their Country.
So at this level, Treaty will result in local Aboriginal communities having the power, authority, ability, and the tools to develop and deliver practical solutions at a local level on their countries. This is so important. We are the experts. You mob here – you know your communities. You know your people, your Country, your lands and waters, your stories. You are the experts of your lives.
Separate from Traditional Owner Treaties there will be a Statewide Treaty. This is what the Assembly will negotiate to secure big-picture, statewide, structural reforms. As mentioned, the focus of Statewide Treaty will be transferring decision-making power from the Government to the First Peoples’ Assembly.
We want to do this because it’s Aboriginal people that should be making the decisions about Aboriginal matters. For too long we’ve had policies made to us, or for us. It’s time we had a turn at making the decisions for ourselves.
Now, some decision-making powers will be more complex to transfer, but we want to negotiate a process and timetable for starting that. If you think about all the decisions that the Minister for First Peoples currently makes about Aboriginal communities, that’s a very good starting point for what decisions we think a future version of the First Peoples’ Assembly should be making. We’ll be pushing for that and much, much more.
So at some point after this Treaty is made, in the not too distant future, I want to see a Victoria that doesn’t have a Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. No Minister, because there’s nothing left for one to do! Because decisions about First Peoples will be made by democratically elected First Peoples representatives. Our mob.
No disrespect to Minister Natalie Hutchins! She’s a great, dedicated Minister who has been instrumental in getting this journey off the ground – she’s been walking with us on this journey for some time. So thank you, Natalie.
But those days have gone now. It’s time to do things our way. That’s what self-determination is about. This is what it will mean in practice.
Other priorities for these early negotiations are likely to include:
- How to best implement key recommendations from the Yoorrook Justice Commission’s truth-telling process. Healing through truth-telling and education.
- What functions, in addition to the decision-making powers, would this future version of the Assembly have and how they would work. For example, accountability powers to keep the Government to its promises. Hold government to account. And we’ll make decisions about how best to allocate resources.
- And ways to ensure our sovereignty, our dignity, our culture, our languages, and our inherent rights as the First Peoples of this land are properly recognized and respected.
- We’ll share and celebrate our cultures with everyone who now calls Victoria home, and where everyone can enjoy and share a healed and healthy country.
So again, cast your mind forward – There’s no politician making decisions to us. Instead, there’s a strong, democratic, self-determining, permanent version of the Assembly representing all First Peoples in Victoria. We – as First Peoples – will have our spaces, we’ll make the decisions that affect us.
Can you picture it? I can, because we are well on our way to getting there.
And I think a lot of our hard work provides a bit of a roadmap for other mobs to consider. Obviously, things need to be tailored to different areas and mobs – we can’t take a cookie-cutter approach. But I do want to stress the power of having a representative body. The formation of the First Peoples’ Assembly was a bold declaration of self-determination. It was about saying we, the First Peoples, are here. We will organize and govern ourselves. We will assert our sovereign rights. We will determine collectively what we want. And the government can negotiate with us as equals.
We’ve shown the progress that can be made when we work together. Sure it’s hard work. Sure we have our debates – but we sort that out behind closed doors amongst ourselves. We talk and talk and talk until we find the common threads and then we talk some more to distill them into one unified voice. That way, when the Assembly speaks to the public and to Government, it speaks with a united voice. And there’s nothing stronger than that. Nothing stronger than mob standing together. A mobilized force. Because we are strong, we are resilient, and we are deadly.
The fight for justice began with our ancestors and continues today through all of us. The old people’s strength and determination could not be moved. We thank them as it’s because of our old people that we are here today.
Here in Victoria, we will negotiate a Treaty that empowers our communities to develop and deliver practical solutions about local issues and it will improve the lives of our people for generations to come. This is what I want everyone to keep in mind on the national stage. Treaty is within our reach. Treaty will happen. Treaty will be for the generations. I want us to remember the strength we have when we all work together.
Thank you.
This speech was given at the 2024 AIATSIS summit. To read Co-Chair Rueben Berg’s speech, click here.
