Wednesday, 15 October 2025

 Paul EDBROOKE (Frankston) (15:15): I begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet and pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging. I also want to say this from the bottom of my heart: I am sorry for what you had to hear in this chamber yesterday. There is no excuse for people in privileged positions like ours to show such ignorance of our shared history.

I go back to 2022. I remember a lovely crisp morning when our democratically elected traditional owners, the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria, walked proudly into this Parliament. They wore ochre on their faces, possum skin cloaks on their backs and the weight of generations on their shoulders, and they came in here to speak about treaty. For a moment there was unity. For a moment hope filled this place. On that day there was bipartisan support for treaty. The member for Murray Plains, the then shadow Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, stood here and said:

This side of the house, both the Liberal and the National parties, are committed to working with the Indigenous community on treaty as well.

We stood, we clapped. The members of the First Peoples’ Assembly left. It was a rare moment of unity, but as the political winds shifted in the Liberal Party, so did their conviction on treaty. In 2024 the Liberal–National coalition announced they no longer supported treaty in Victoria. There was no consultation. The traditional owners found out via the media is my understanding. What was the reasoning? It was some vague BS about the treaty act that no-one really understood. The next day the opposition leader stood before cameras and said treaty would divide us. He said he wanted to close the gap, though, but apparently not by listening to the Aboriginal community that overwhelmingly supports treaty.

Let us be clear: rejecting treaty, rejecting a chance to build something fairer and braver, proves exactly why we still need it. Let the record show that when the leaders of the First Peoples’ Assembly visited the chamber yesterday and spoke so eloquently, those opposite could not even stand up and applaud, as per custom and practice, as per the first time the First Peoples’ Assembly reps were in here. That is not an oversight, that is a bloody message. That is a message of what is to come.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Kim O’Keeffe): Parliamentary language, please.

Paul EDBROOKE: Thank you, Acting Speaker, for reminding me about parliamentary language. The facts are simple: Victoria’s Aboriginal community says treaty is how we get better outcomes. The Productivity Commission agrees, calling treaty the kind of structural reform needed to close the gap. And for anyone who has been asking for a foundation of evidence, like the Leader of the Nats yesterday, there it is – the Productivity Commission. Yet the Liberal–National coalition has promised to scrap treaty within 100 days if elected. That is not neutrality. That is not just letting people down. That is another message there. That is betrayal.

I challenge those opposite to look the traditional owners in the eye, look at the people who formulated treaty, look at the members of the First Peoples’ Assembly and tell them you will take treaty away from them, tell them you will take justice away from them. Be brave and do that. This is not about politics. This debate is about integrity. If you abandon principles for political convenience, you end up with neither. If you listen to fear, you silence hope. If you call equality division, as we have seen happen quite a bit in the last 24 hours, I believe you have forgotten what leadership is.

I want to thank the members of the First Peoples’ Assembly, the current co-chairs Rueben Berg and Ngarra Murray and the former co-chairs Aunty Geraldine Atkinson and Marcus Stewart. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for your trust. That trust must have been tested more than we can ever imagine. God knows how you find it in yourselves to trust us after generations and generations of being misled and lied to by people who are white.

Let us be honest: since John Batman’s dodgy treaty in 1835, Aboriginal people have been lied to and misled by white leaders time and time again. The interesting fact is that that really dodgy treaty was declared void just two months later by the actual governor – it was that bad. But nearly two centuries on, we are standing here today with the same betrayal in a new form. Two years after the opposition stated they supported treaty, for some reason – we do not know what – they now do not support treaty. The backflip from supporting treaty in 2022 to rejecting it in 2024 is another chapter in that sad story. We have heard the weasel words. We have heard the contradictions and the myth that no-one knows about treaty. Apparently that was the issue yesterday: no-one knows about treaty. But in the next breath it was, ‘Everyone must know about treaty, because treaty will divide us.’ It is not just confusing, it is cowardice.

I want to clear something up about a language issue that has been used as an excuse by the opposition as well. As Troy McDonald, reserved seat holder for the Gunaikurnai, explained, Gellung Warl is a word from the Tatungalung people of the Gunaikurnai nation approved by the Gunaikurnai elders council. It relates specifically to the Gippsland Lakes. That is respect. That is the truth. Asking people for the facts – that is how this process should work. But the truth is for some, and we have seen it time and time again, it is too hard to admit what happened. It is too hard to face the inconvenient truth. It is too hard to face the past. It is too hard to say sorry, and it is even harder to right the wrongs. It is easier to look away overseas, watch the news and talk about atrocities overseas instead of facing the ones in your own damn backyard. So I say: how, honestly, can anyone listen to what our co-chairs of the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria said so eloquently yesterday in this house – how can they listen to their grace, their patience and vision – and still decide that they will not support treaty? Some of the excuses we have heard are like, ‘I know a blackfella,’ ‘I grew up with an Aboriginal bloke,’ or ‘This bloke knows my dad.’ What are you talking about? They are the worst excuses possible. You have got Aboriginal people here, traditional owners, telling you what they want, and you are just spitting in their face and saying no.

I am absolutely proud to commend this bill to the house. This is the first treaty with traditional owners in Australian history, and Australia is the only Commonwealth nation without one. This is our chance right here, right now to choose courage over convenience and fear, to choose truth over comfort and to choose unity built on respect, not denial of things that we do not want to hear happened in the past. Treaty is not radical. What is radical is pretending that history never happened. Let history show that this Parliament on this day chose to listen to and walk with traditional owners, not walk back on our commitments. I commend this bill to the house.

 John MULLAHY (Glen Waverley) (15:23): I acknowledge the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people as the traditional owners of the land on which we are meeting, and I pay my respects to their elders, past and present. I acknowledge the Wurundjeri and the Bunurong people as the traditional owners and custodians of the land that makes up my district. It is an honour to rise in support of the Statewide Treaty Bill 2025, a historic step to right the oldest and deepest wrong in our state’s story. This bill is not only about law or recognition; it is about truth, respect and the act of finally placing First Peoples at the centre of Victoria’s future, where they have always belonged. At its core this bill recognises something simple yet powerful: sovereignty was never ceded, and justice delayed for more than two centuries must now be delivered.

Victoria as we know it was built on lands taken without consent or treaty. Colonisation was not a peaceful meeting of cultures, it was a violent rupture that tore families, languages and spiritual connections apart. The treaty process asks us to listen, truly listen, to the voices of First Nations Victorians, whose laws and cultures have guided this land for more than 60,000 years. And as we listen, we must reckon with the truth of how British colonialism shaped not just this continent but the world.

Colonisation was not an accident of history, it was an ideology that justified exploitation, theft and violence under the banner of civilisation. Its reach was global, from South Asia to the Caribbean, Africa and Ireland, where communities were uprooted, resources plundered and self-determination denied. It is no coincidence that the same British Empire which declared this land terra nullius – empty – also presided over famine and eviction in Ireland, my ancestral homeland. In the 1840s, as blight ravaged Irish crops, the British government, blinded by arrogance and ideology, refused to act. While men, women and children starved, ships laden heavy with food left Irish ports for the empire. Over a million people died and 2 million fled, including to these shores. It was not a natural disaster but a moral failure of colonialist ideology, the prioritisation of profit over humanity. That famine taught us a timeless truth: colonialism is not simply history, it is a system that devalues lives deemed lesser, suppresses culture and strips people of their sovereignty.

The same empire that treated Irish lives as expendable dismissed the First Peoples of this land as invisible. Both were ruled through arrogance and fear, seen as problems to be managed or civilised. In Ireland penal laws crushed faith, language and identity. In Australia the same mindset denied Aboriginal people any rights to their own country. Both endured dispossession and trauma, yet both held on to story, song and spirit. They survived what the empire sought to erase. As an Irish Australian, I see in treaty not just justice for First Peoples but a shared lesson in resilience and renewal. The Irish rebuilt through memory and song, rebellion and community. The First Peoples of Victoria have done the same, preserving languages once banned, passing down knowledge and fighting for land, truth and self-determination. The Statewide Treaty Bill honours that spirit. It stands on the shoulders of those who refuse to be silent – generations of Aboriginal leaders who demanded governments listen.

This bill gives effect to the first treaty between First Nations people and the Victorian government, and it builds the framework for those to come. It lays the foundation for a future built on partnership and respect, one where Aboriginal Victorians help shape the policies that shape their lives. But before treaty, there must be truth. The Yoorrook Justice Commission, Australia’s first truth-telling process, allowed survivors to speak and forced the state to confront its history. Truth-telling, like Ireland’s oral tradition, is sacred. It is how people remember who they are and how they change. We cannot turn away from what the truth shows: the massacres, the forced removals, the missions, the incarceration rates and the health gaps that still flow from colonisation and from government policy.

For those of us of Irish descent, this moment carries deep meaning. We know what it is like to have a culture suppressed and our language silenced. We know the silence that follows empire and the strength it takes to break it. We know the wound colonisation leaves behind, and because we know, we stand in solidarity with those who have suffered the same. If Ireland’s famine taught us anything, it is that conscience must never be dulled by distance or indifference. The ships that left Cork while people starved remind us that power without compassion is tyranny. This bill ensures Victoria does not repeat that mistake.

Some say treaty divides us. I say it unites us in honesty and respect. You cannot build a fair future on a lie. Acknowledging the First Peoples of this land and their enduring sovereignty does not diminish anyone else’s belonging, it strengthens our shared one. When most of Ireland finally won independence, it did not end hardship, but it meant Ireland’s future was at last decided by Irish hands. So too must the First Peoples of Victoria have a voice in shaping theirs. That is not division, that is dignity.

The Statewide Treaty Bill 2025 is an act of moral leadership. It honours the world’s oldest living cultures and acknowledges the shared wounds of empire. It tells our children we are not afraid of truth, that we can face our past and rise stronger for it. Let us not be timid – let us be worthy. When the story of the 60th Parliament is told, may it be said that we chose reconciliation over denial, justice over convenience and courage over silence. Let this be our legacy: a Victoria where the ghosts of colonialism and past government policy no longer dictate our future but where respect and partnership light the way forward. I commend the bill to the house.

 Iwan WALTERS (Greenvale) (15:30): In rising to speak in support of the Statewide Treaty Bill 2025 I acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation and pay my respect to their elders. I also acknowledge that two things can be simultaneously true: together we built a tolerant, diverse, robust liberal democracy in the British parliamentary tradition, where people drawn from all over the world contribute, call home and live in freedom, peace and prosperity, and yet that process of colonialisation and economic development in the British agricultural and industrial tradition, turbocharged by the extractive boom of the goldrushes, has left a legacy of violence, dispossession and deep hurt among the people who were here before British settlement and who retain the enduring connection to this place and its country that the First Peoples’ Assembly co-chairs talked about in their landmark orations in this house this week.

There is abundant empirical evidence regarding the value of self-determination – the Productivity Commission, academic research and lived experience. Aboriginal community controlled services produce better, more sustainable outcomes for Aboriginal people and their communities. They achieve better results, employ more Aboriginal people and are often preferred over mainstream services. Building the capacity and the capability of the community-controlled sector also drives sustainability and self-determination by equipping organisations to set the policy direction for, and independently plan, the services they provide for their people. As Rueben Berg said this week, this is not a world-leading initiative, ‘but it is ours’.

I want to reflect on a couple of other examples from around the world. New Zealand and Australia have a deep bond and an often-intertwined history bound by the Commonwealth geography and the intense experience of allyship in two world wars and indeed bound by shared parliamentary traditions evolving from self-governing colonies into dominions, into nation states with independent and sovereign parliaments under the same constitutional monarch. Yet New Zealand from 1840 has had a treaty, the Treaty of Waitangi, signed at the Bay of Islands with 43 Northland chiefs, with over 500 Maori chiefs signing it as it was taken around the country subsequently in the next eight months. Today the Tiriti of Waitangi is widely accepted as a constitutional document that establishes and guides the relationship between the Crown in New Zealand, embodied by the New Zealand government, and Maori.

Do we consider New Zealand a lesser parliamentary democracy or a jurisdiction where the sovereign will of the people is somehow subverted because of a more deep and more reconciled relationship between the state and its Indigenous peoples? Are Indigenous Victorians worth less? There will be those in this chamber, and I suspect particularly in the other place, who will seek to sow division, discord and fear on the basis of this debate in the wider community. They will talk about a third chamber, of a stratified society, of unequal citizenship and make odious comparisons between this democratically elected Parliament and tyrannical regimes in other parts of the world. They will say one thing in Brunswick and a very different thing in Beveridge and Broadmeadows. We have seen it before, we know the playbook, and we anticipate the petition, but reckoning fully with our history does not marginalise, ignore or in any way diminish the extraordinary successes that make modern Australia a great country; instead it acknowledges the complexities and challenges of a full history that also includes empirically proven massacres, dispossession and the forced relocation of Indigenous people, the separation of families and the introduction of diseases that have collectively caused immense suffering and long-term disadvantages that endure into the present.

The capacity to initiate the type of process that has led to this bill and to work in partnership with the Indigenous community is in itself a marker of a strong, self-confident and successful society, one where the complexities and nuances of history and historical fact are not consigned to oblivion or obfuscated by a glass-jawed, brittle and reactionary nationalism that just cannot handle the truth. Nothing in this bill compromises the parliamentary sovereignty that is a central pillar of our democracy and its institutions. Consultation is just that; it is not an override. This legislation and the things it creates are products and decisions of this Parliament. They will be subject to the oversight and decision-making of future parliaments and the Victorian people who elect them. As the Premier said in her second-reading speech, at the heart of this bill:

… is a practical purpose and a simple principle: all families are better off when they have responsibility over their lives, their future and the things that affect them.

Aboriginal families are no different.

Treaty makes sense because it gives Aboriginal people a say in how their services are run.

Our first treaty sets clear rules to achieve real, practical change over time.

Treaty doesn’t take anything away from anyone.

It’s about improving people’s lives and giving everyone a better future.

We all are united in wanting that better future –

in this place, or at least on this side of the chamber –

one that is just, fair and equitable for all Victorians, including First Peoples, one where the gap between First Peoples and other Victorians has been closed.

That gap still endures; it endures because more babies from Aboriginal backgrounds are born with a low birth weight. They have higher levels of perinatal mortality. There are high levels of smoking during pregnancy. There are, as a consequence, fewer opportunities for Aboriginal babies to be born healthy and to thrive. This leads to lower levels of educational attainment and employment, with 56 per cent of Aboriginal people in employment compared with 78 per cent of the broader adult population. It leads to a burden of disease among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that is 2.3 times higher than that of non-Indigenous Australians. Among First Nations people, mental and substance use disorders are the leading contribution of that disease burden. It leads to households which are poorer, with 35 per cent of First Nations adults living in households with equivalised gross household incomes in the bottom 20 per cent of incomes nationally.

This is a gap that justice and decency demand to be closed. It is one that current and previous approaches have failed to close. It is one that I hope a new approach, founded on reconciliation and self-determination as embodied in this treaty bill, can close.

 Paul MERCURIO (Hastings) (15:35): I am happy to rise today to speak on this bill, and I pay my respects. What is treaty? On that side of the house, treaty is a wonderful destination that they support, but they do not have the moral courage to take the journey to get there. They support it, but they do not support it. Sorry – what is treaty? Treaty is 246 pages, 51,018 words of what could be described as pretty complex information and very worthy, and I thank everyone that put that together. What is treaty? Treaty is truth-telling. Treaty is healing. Treaty is hope. I have spoken in this chamber about hope, and that hope lives rent-free in my heart on many occasions.

I want to thank Uncle Peter from Willum Warrain for spending time with me a week ago and talking about what treaty means to him and his mob and the Kooris of Victoria. And of course you cannot talk about treaty unless you talk about truth-telling, and we talked about that. We talked about the displacement; we talked about the murders; we talked about the rapes; we talked about the stealing of children; we talked about the high suicide rate; we talked about the dismay, the despair that Aboriginal people feel, that Aboriginal people have lived through. It got me thinking about three friends, boys from south Queensland. They were a mob from south Queensland. They came from a family of 11. I am not going to mention their names, because I did not ask permission, but you would know them. We worked together in the entertainment industry, in dance and drama and theatre and film. They were incredibly talented, incredibly bright, and they were deadly young people.

I thought we were all the same. I thought we danced our own steps, and indeed we did dance our own steps. We danced around Australia and in fact around the world. After talking to Uncle Peter I understood them better, because one of my friends had had an opening night that was a very successful opening night, and they went to the party afterwards, and he disappeared, and some of his friends went to find him, and they found him hanging in a tree. He had the world ahead of him – three kids and a wife. He left his brothers. Fourteen years later, his brother, who was an amazing musician, who was also at the peak of his career, took his own life. And I realised, as I said, I thought we danced our own steps. I danced my own steps, but they did not. They danced white man’s steps. They danced these other steps that were not their own. I thought we were the same, because I had hope that lives rent-free in my heart. They did not, and I realised this. In their hearts they had sorrow and deceit and betrayal and anger and displacement and hate and racism. And it is such a hard and heavy burden for them to hold in their hearts, that they could not, and they did not, just like many other First Nations people.

So what is treaty? It is truth-telling. It is healing. And when we heal, my hope is that we will take each other by the hand and walk softly across the great country of Victoria and indeed walk softly together, united, across this great country of Australia. That is treaty. I commend the bill to the house.

 Luba GRIGOROVITCH (Kororoit) (15:40): I proudly acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nations as the traditional owners of the land on which we are gathered here today at the Parliament of Victoria, and I proudly acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands of my very own electorate of Kororoit. I pay my respects to their culture and their elders past, present and emerging; I acknowledge their strength, resilience and continued connection to country.

I acknowledge and I thank the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria – some of whom are still here today, which is wonderful to see – without whose tireless work and perseverance we would simply not be here today. I want to make mention of the beautiful smoking ceremony that took place yesterday. What a wonderful way to start a week of Parliament. It was a really reflective moment and, again, would not have happened without those behind it, so thank you so much for that wonderful smoking ceremony.

This is a historic moment and one that we in this place should all be really proud of. It is the first in our nation’s history and one that I certainly am very proud of. As we know, the Allan Labor government is committed to true reconciliation, to truth-telling, to treaty with its First Peoples. We know that families are better off when they have responsibility and empowerment over their lives. It is not a complicated proposition. Aboriginal families are no different. This can only occur by empowering and supporting Aboriginal people through self-determination. The Allan Labor government knows that true reconciliation begins with understanding our past and acknowledging First Peoples’ continued custodianship of this country. Self-determination and treaty will put this into action. Treaty makes sense because it gives Aboriginal people a say in how their services are run.

Our first treaty sets clear rules to achieve change over time. This does not take anything away from anyone. Despite what those opposite want to say, it does not take anything away from anybody. It is about giving to people what is rightly theirs. It is about improving services and about improving lives. Governments already spend a huge amount of money trying to close the gap. But it is not working, and that is why we need this change. If we listen to the people directly affected by the policies, we will always get better outcomes, and that is why the Allan Labor government is bringing forward this legislation to enact the commitments made by the state of Victoria in Australia’s first negotiated treaty with First Peoples. As I said at the beginning, this is a historic moment for all Victorians – a moment that requires courage, a moment that requires determination to show real leadership and to enact real change for all Victorians.

Through our history First Peoples have been excluded from social and economic opportunities, and that is disgraceful. It is a plain, simple fact that should shame all of us who sit in this place. The policies and practices of government have created social inequities that haunt us still today. Treaty, however, will give us a pathway to change what is not working, to finally give First Peoples a say on the policies that impact their lives. It is just common sense. If you listen to the people, you get better outcomes for the people. Treaty is about making sure that First Peoples get a say over their health care, their families’ housing, their kids’ education and the practice of their culture both now and into the future. By giving this say to First Peoples we give them the power to improve their lives and their futures, to restore self-determination, pride and social equality to First Nations people in our state, everywhere. I proudly and humbly commend the treaty legislation, and I again want to thank each and every person who has been behind making this landmark legislation. I commend the bill.

 Ella GEORGE (Lara) (15:44): I am honoured to rise today to speak on the Statewide Treaty Bill 2025, and I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which the Parliament meets, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin nation. I acknowledge the Wathaurong people of the Kulin nation, the traditional owners of the lands I represent in this place, and I thank them for the thousands of years of care that they have taken of their country.

Aboriginal land was never ceded, sovereignty was never ceded, and for far too many years successive governments have not acknowledged this. Governments have ignored our state’s past and the experiences of Victoria’s First People. Governments have made decisions about and for First People, thinking that they know best, and governments have not listened to First People.

Treaty is an opportunity for all Victorians to listen deeply to First People and truly hear what they have to say. Treaty will help us all better understand our past and acknowledge the pain and trauma inflicted on Victoria’s First People, much of which was explored through the Yoorrook Justice Commission. Treaty will work to close the gap on outcomes relating to health, education, housing and employment between First People and other Victorians. Treaty will finally give First People in Victoria a real voice and a real say in decision-making that impacts them, and treaty is an opportunity to walk together and build a better future for all Victorians, a fairer Victoria, a more equal Victoria.

I am so proud to be a member of the state Labor government that is committed to treaty, voice and truth. I want to talk about truth. Over four years the Yoorrook Justice Commission heard the truth, with over 1350 submissions and more than 250 witnesses. This truth is hard to hear. Yoorrook tells us about the heartbreaking impacts of colonisation. Country was taken rapidly, people were displaced and at least 50 massacres were recorded, and it is likely that more took place. Colonisation is not just an event from 1834, when Gunditjmara country was taken. The impacts are felt today. Colonisation has driven inequality in our state between First People and other Victorians in education, in health, in housing, in employment, in political representation and in this place right here. First Peoples are over-represented in the criminal justice and child protection systems. This is the history of our state, and we need to do better. The Statewide Treaty Bill 2025 is an opportunity to do just that.

This bill aims to address the injustices and disadvantages experienced by Victoria’s First Peoples, as highlighted in the Yoorrook Justice Commission’s report. It is designed to help close the gap. The legislation will establish Gellung Warl to work alongside Victoria’s democratic institutions while operating independently from the government. The bill and the treaty are not about creating a new legal framework but are about enhancing the inclusion of First People within the existing systems of law and policy. Self-determination, which is widely accepted as a fundamental right, is put into action through this treaty.

I would like to thank the members of the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria and the co-chairs Rueben Berg and Ngarra Murray. I thank them for their powerful contributions in this place on the floor of this Parliament on why treaty matters. I thank the former co-chairs Aunty Geraldine Atkinson and Marcus Stewart, and I acknowledge the role that they played in bringing this bill before the house today. I thank the Yoorrook justice commissioners for their dedication to truth-telling, four years of hard work of hearing all those truths, many of which had not been heard before or listened to by governments before. I cannot imagine how hard that work would have been. And I thank the Minister for Treaty and First Peoples and the member for Geelong for their commitment to this important legislation.

Victoria does not have a proud history when it comes to the pain and trauma that has been inflicted on its First People. We have a legacy of historic injustices. The harmful impacts of colonisation are present, driving systemic inequality, a loss of language, a loss of culture and deep intergenerational trauma. This bill can start to change that. It will not fix everything, and it certainly will not fix everything overnight. There are still years and years and years of hard work ahead of all of us. But by taking action now, by establishing Gellung Warl, by listening to the truths that First People are telling government, by establishing this treaty and by working together we can start to right the wrongs of our past.

We can build a shared legacy with Victoria’s First People, and we can build a stronger, fairer state for every Victorian.

To those opposite I say: it is not too late. It is not too late to support treaty, to walk with all of us together towards reconciliation, to back treaty and to back Victoria’s First People. I am proud to stand here in this place and say that I will be voting to establish treaty in Victoria. Treaty represents justice, self-determination and the pathway to closing the gap for a better future for all Victorians. This bill is a commitment to Victoria’s First People that we will do better, because we must do better. I commend this bill to the house.

 Sarah CONNOLLY (Laverton) (15:51): It is with great pride that I stand here this afternoon and rise to speak on the Statewide Treaty Bill 2025. I would like to begin my contribution with an acknowledgement of the traditional owners right across this great state that we call home, particularly those in the gallery today. This is a moment of tremendous pride that you must be feeling, and I have to assure you that we on this side of the house feel it, and I feel it standing before you.

I am going to be going home to my hometown, which is in northern New South Wales, for Christmas this year, and that is where the Bundjalung people come from, I think we call it, up on the Tweed Coast. The town that I grew up in was a very sleepy beachside village, a little bit like that town we watched in the show called SeaChange. But now you need a couple – well, a bit more than a couple – of million dollars to live there, thanks to the Hemsworth family, to go and live up there on the north coast. But the town that I grew up in was deeply, deeply racist. There were the people that looked like me, and then there were the others who lived on the other side of town. That side of town is still filled with some of our beautiful Indigenous First Peoples, and the side of town that I am talking about, that folks up in Kingscliff will know, was in Fingal Head, which is a place that continues to flood up on the north coast. So every time there is a flood, our First Nations and Indigenous communities get wiped out there on the lower floodplains.

I have not said this here in the house before, and I have not asked permission to speak about it, but I think I will, because I think that my cousin will be filled with a tremendous amount of pride. My cousin met his wife when he was 14 years old, and they fell in love at school. They got married at about 19 or 20 and now have three beautiful – but very full-on – young boys. I cannot wait to go home this Christmas and tell them about treaty, that we have done it and that I got to speak on it here in this place – and about the importance of it.

As I said, I grew up in a really racist town, and some of the debate and the comments that I have heard here in this place have really cast my mind and reflections back to what it was like growing up in Kingscliff and the kinds of intellectual reasons people would give for refusing to help, assist and enable First Peoples and Indigenous communities there on the north coast to make a step forward – to create a much more inclusive community and town. So many of those reasons, I realise, were really just intellectual racism. I have heard that yesterday and today – well, not today, because they have decided not to speak any further on it, but particularly yesterday – in some of those arguments put forward here in this place.

What I cannot wait to go home and tell my cousin’s three boys is that we did it here in this state, and that this process kicked off all the way back in 2019 with the establishment of the First Peoples’ Assembly. I have to acknowledge the tremendous and incredible work over all of these years. It has been such a journey to get us here – almost 10 years to get us here – and I acknowledge the incredible work over all this time and that these people have helped pave the path forward to get us to this moment in time.

We also had the Yoorrook Justice Commission, the first truth-telling commission in Australia, whose work detailed the long history of injustice that has been caused here in Victoria as a result of colonisation. Members before me have made incredible contributions about that type of colonisation.

Many people might not realise that our state governments and our parliaments are much older than our federal government, because before Federation we were colonial governments, and those governments did in fact engage in so many of these injustices. It was our state governments that perpetuated the stolen generations, both here in Victoria and across the country. Whilst we cannot change the past, we can at least acknowledge the future and the pathway that we want to walk together on. This is not just a symbolic treaty that we are speaking on here today. This treaty will give Aboriginal Victorians a real say in how their services are run. It will make a real and profound change to the way they are represented in these services. This treaty is not some new or radical concept, as those on the other side have tried to talk about.

This treaty is going to make a huge difference. It will be such an important part of Victoria’s history, and I am so proud and so glad to sit with colleagues on this side of the house that want to be on the right side of history. I cannot wait to go home at Christmas to tell my family, my friends and my cousin and his three young boys, because this will mean something to them. They will understand exactly why this is important, and although they live in New South Wales, they will know that Victoria is again leading the nation in doing the right thing in fighting for equality and for a fairer and more just Victoria. I wholeheartedly commend this bill to the house.

 Steve McGHIE (Melton) (15:57): I rise today to contribute to the Statewide Treaty Bill 2025. My office is on the lands of the Wurundjeri people, with my electorate extending south to the lands of Bunurong people and the Wathaurong people, and I wish to acknowledge them as the traditional owners of what we in this place refer to as the Melton district – my electorate. I would also like to pay my respects to their elders, past, present and emerging and acknowledge all First Nations people who are watching today.

I extend my appreciation to the Yoorrook Justice Commission and to Ngarra Murray and Rueben Berg as the co-chairs of the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria. I would like to thank all First Nations community organisations and individuals who have contributed to this bill and this journey to treaty and who are doing great work every day in their local Aboriginal communities around our state.

I would also like to talk about a couple of great organisations supporting First Nations people in my community, the first one being Djirra, who are based in Kurunjang and who support women through family violence situations. I will give a shout-out to Djirra’s CEO Antoinette Braybrook, who is truly an incredible woman, a great member of our local community and a powerful advocate for all First Nations people. The other organisation is Kirrip Aboriginal Corporation in Melton South, another great organisation in my electorate which supports many, many families but in particular our younger Indigenous people through the youth justice system, supporting them to reintegrate into society. They do fantastic work, with a strong focus on our community. These organisations are only two amongst many that do such important work to champion Indigenous voices and support their communities through making positive impacts.

I do not want to give too much attention to all the naysayers, but I feel the need to address what those opposite are spewing. It is disgraceful that they have stated that they will repeal this treaty within their first 100 days if they happen to be elected next year. They keep talking about how there are separate, different rules for Gellung Warl. I am not aware of what they are referring to because I do not think they explained their position all that well.

We continue to see poorer outcomes in employment for our Indigenous people, and in education, in health and an over-representation in the criminal justice system – the list goes on. Since colonisation First Nations Victorians have been subjected to laws that have suppressed their ability to perform cultural activities, to speak their language and to share cultural information with their children. The First Peoples’ Assembly will not have veto power over policy and legislation, as has tried to be expressed by those opposite in this chamber.

Business interrupted under sessional orders.