Statewide Treaty Bill 2025

The Statewide Treaty Bill 2025 has been introduced and, if it passes both Houses of Parliament, will give effect to the first treaty in Australia between First Peoples and a government. There have been calls for Treaty for decades on a state and national level, and the Victorian Government and First Nations representative bodies have been working towards a Statewide Treaty since 2016.

This Bill Brief provides an overview of the Bill and the process leading up to its introduction. It covers insights into the key pillars of Treaty, truth-telling, land rights, self-determination and decision-making. It describes the key body established by the Bill—Gellung Warl—and details the functions of Gellung Warl’s decision-making arm of the First People’s Assembly, its truth-telling body Nyerna Yoorrook Telkuna, and its accountability arm Nginma Ngainga Wara.

Responses to the Bill and Treaty are varied. The opposition is critical of the proposal, while there has been a range of responses from the crossbench. Many First Nations and other stakeholders have expressed varying levels of support, which are outlined in the paper.

Other Australian states and territories have also progressed in the process of developing treaties, and this paper details how these processes have altered in response to changes in government or in the political climate. Treaty also has a long history overseas, and the paper provides an outline of the roles of treaties in different contexts, including selected treaties between Indigenous peoples and colonial and post-colonial governments in Aotearoa/New Zealand, Canada and the United States.