Thursday, 13 August 2026

 Renee HEATH (Eastern Victoria) (22:27): (2695) When the Statewide Treaty legislation passed just about every – if not all – Labor member posted a video and a selfie celebrating themselves and the government’s achievements. With that, we saw the demonisation of anyone else who held a different view. I did not vote for the treaty. I believe we need reconciliation, but as I outlined in my speech at the time, I do not believe that is how it will be achieved. Regardless of background, we often have far more in common than we have differences. However, I am not afraid of a good debate and I love the battle of ideas.

This has been very eye-opening for me, though, because with the level of self-righteousness that was shown by Labor MPs, bordering on arrogance, I might add, I really thought that they must have believed it. However, the government has not complied with its own legislated treaty process once. Excuses have varied from ‘This doesn’t have a significant impact on Indigenous Australians’ – which, by the way, was something said by politicians who in their speeches said that only the First Peoples’ Assembly could make an assessment like that – to other excuses like, ‘Well, time didn’t permit.’ This has demonstrated the staggering difference between what Labor say and what they do. This was a headline just yesterday: ‘Victoria’s new First Nations advisory body has made its first intervention on government policy under nation-leading treaty powers’. So for the first time the treaty process got a run. They told the government to pull the bill. The government ignored their advice, and we just passed said bill about an hour ago.

It is not often that I quote anything from the Greens in this place, but I agree with the Leader of the Victorian Greens on this one:

The Labor government can’t go out there and champion treaty on one day, and the next day completely ignore the principles of it.

Someone else I do not normally quote in here, Senator Lidia Thorpe, said the government was using the whole treaty process as a photo opportunity, and I will quote her too:

Labor celebrated Treaty, took their selfies and filled their socials with how historic it was. But Treaty means nothing if the Government ignores First Peoples when they exercise the powers that Treaty gives them.

These two raise very good points. I have absolutely no issues with differences of opinion. I love hearing different opinions and arguing them on their merits. However, if you believe in something, you back it in. My adjournment is for Premier Ben Carroll. The action that I seek is for him to tell the Victorian people if Labor are going to scrap the treaty or if they plan to keep it in name only, while continuing to completely undermine its principles.