Thursday, 30 October 2025

 John BERGER (Southern Metropolitan) (23:15): (2070) My adjournment today is for the Minister for Treaty and First Peoples in the other place. Last month negotiations were finalised between the Victorian government and the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria for the Statewide Treaty Bill 2025 that was introduced into Parliament and has been passed tonight. The journey towards truth and treaty has been ongoing over a decade, and I am proud that we as a government have committed to facilitating self-determination, truth-telling and respect for our First Nations communities here in Victoria by establishing a permanent representative and deliberative body for First Nations people, in Gellung Warl.

My community in Southern Metro Region sits on the lands of the Wurundjeri and Bunurong people, and I have First Nations-led organisations doing crucial work in my electorate. One of these organisations is the Ngwala Willumbong Aboriginal Corporation, a statewide community controlled organisation whose headquarters are located in the electorate of Prahran and who has program centres across the state. They have served Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families and communities across Victoria for over 50 years by providing holistic, specialist and culturally sensitive alcohol and drug treatment and recovery, homelessness programs, public intoxication responses, counselling, family violence and youth services, and more. Ngwala Willumbong saves lives, and their operations are vital and indispensable to communities across the state.

The action that I seek is for the minister to inform me how the implementation of the legislation, particularly in regard to introducing the powers and purposes of Gellung Warl to advise the Parliament and the state government in relation to matters that affect First Peoples will hold the state government to account in relation to its commitments. The impact of its actions on First People will strengthen the work of Aboriginal community controlled organisations like Ngwala Willumbong, who service Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people both in Southern Metropolitan Region and across the state.