The path to treaty requires more than writing in the sand

The path to self-determination for Australia’s first peoples shines with powerful political rhetoric. Bob Hawke gave it his best in 1988, the then-prime minister declaring at Barunga, “there shall be a treaty negotiated between the Aboriginal people and the government on behalf of all the people of Australia”.

In a speech at Redfern in late 1992, Hawke’s successor Paul Keating delivered one of the most celebrated acts of truth-telling: “We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life … it was our ignorance and our prejudice.”

Prime minister Bob Hawke receives the Barunga Statement from Galarrwuy Yunupingu in 1988.Credit: Sydney Morning Herald

The survivors of two centuries of dispossession and abuse, he said, could not be denied their place in modern Australia.

“I am confident that we will succeed in this decade,” he concluded. The speech is widely considered one of Australia’s finest.

Seeking something of her own Redfern moment last week, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk reannounced her government’s intentions to pursue truth-telling and treaty, offering a 500-strong audience of corporates and community leaders gathered in the heart of Brisbane a history lesson wrapped in colourful flourishes of goodwill.

Paul Keating delivering his celebrated Redfern address in late 1992.Credit: Kylie Anee Picket.

“Our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage is unique,” she said. “It is a gift to all Australians, and to the world. And we have this opportunity to change our story and walk together into a much brighter tomorrow.”

The speech was a dressed-up do-over from August last year, when the government announced it would legislate for a First Nations Treaty Institute (FNTI) and a Truth Telling and Healing Inquiry. The new piece of information was that the legislation would come before parliament these sittings – almost three years later than requested by an advisory panel in early 2020, just as the pandemic reached Australian shores.

The laws would “enshrine a treaty with Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples forever”, Palaszczuk said. But she was jumping the gun by years, if not decades. The legislation would not be a treaty, but a framework for a process.

A key question: What would a treaty or treaties look like?

Examples from the US include indigenous court systems and prisons on traditional lands. The Nisga’a Treaty in the Canadian province of British Columbia provided for the creation of laws, as long as they fitted with the country’s constitution. Other outcomes ranged from tax rebates to road improvements.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has re-announced her government’s commitment to truth and treaty. Credit: Nine

Their manifestation in Queensland would be a matter for individual communities, according to Mick Gooda, a member of the Treaty Advancement Committee. He described Wednesday’s speech as historic.

“One of the issues we’re going to have is how does community decide what it is. What is the community?” He said. “I remember the premier and I talking in an airport one day and I said, ‘I think we’re a fair way from treaties at the moment’ ... We’ve got a lot of things to sort out because of the way people were moved around in this state.”

Gooda did not envisage the formal component of the truth-telling process, which would have “elements” of a commission of inquiry, to begin this year, but local “activities [would begin] almost right away”.

Directions from colonial days

Palaszczuk’s speech recalled her days as a lawyer when, researching at the British Library in London one day, she came across discussion of Australian treaties.

“I have never forgotten what I discovered,” she said.

“Deep in these documents were directions from the British Colonial office to ‘make treaties’.”

She continued by acknowledging Australia’s repeated failures to fulfil that direction, while other Commonwealth nations such as Canada and New Zealand had.

“... All efforts to establish one in this country have died in a desert of ignorance and indifference, where they have stayed for more than 200 years,” she said.

Then Greens senator Lidia Thorpe, who advocates for treaty before Indigenous Voice, taking part in this year’s Victorian Invasion Day rally. Credit: Alexi J. Rosenfeld

“Well, I am here to tell you, friends, that ends now.”

Most other states or territories have flagged similar intentions or begun the work, though it has often been slow-moving or beset with problems.

The Victorian government and the state’s elected body called the First Peoples’ Assembly launched a truth-telling commission in March 2021. The inquiry, called the Yoorrook Justice Commission, has heard from more than 200 elders.

But it has been plagued with division, prompting several key people, including the chief executive, to walk away.

In the Northern Territory, treaty commissioners Ursula Raymond and Mick Dodson spent two years travelling to listen to communities. Dodson resigned in 2021 after, according to Sky News, a complaint to the government that he had verbally abused a woman at a football game in Darwin.

The work was completed by respected Aboriginal SC Tony McAvoy, among whose recommendations was a process to move to “First Nations governments” operating within local council jurisdictions.

“Over time, it is proposed they will take on a wider range of responsibilities ... according to any agreements reached between them, the NT government and, hopefully, the Commonwealth,” he wrote.

Over the recent Christmas break, the territory government responded. “Unfortunately, there is no consensus view”, it said.

It would instead “test” the recommendations with another round of consultation directed by the government itself.

All those talking politicians

A “brilliant speech”, Palaszczuk’s office told this masthead after her keynote, while unable to provide any detail about how the government proposed to work with Indigenous communities to achieve their shared vision.

Craig Crawford, the Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander partnerships, has only provided a vague timeline up to this point.

The government has set up a $300 million fund, including at least $10 million a year to the FNTI, to advance good intention into action.

But money and speeches are the easy part.

At its heart, the success of modern treaties in Australia would require the established order to cede elements of something it has kept tightly gripped (with some notable exceptions) from colonial times to Hawke’s broken promise and beyond: Power.

Yolngu band Yothu Yindi captured the frustration in the punchy ’90s track Treaty with a deeply political message.

“Back in 1988, all those talking politicians. Words are easy, words are cheap. But promises can disappear, just like writing in the sand.”

The obligation for the Palaszczuk government and those to come is to follow through with detail, work and will.