New laws allowed Qld to be hearing First Nations truths. It’s not

There was cautious promise when state MPs passed landmark laws to set wheels in motion towards treaties with the dozens of First Nations who first called the area we know as Queensland home.

The Palaszczuk Labor government’s laws sailed through the Cairns sitting of regional parliament in May with cheers and major party support (even if the LNP has copped internal criticism since).

The May 2023 sitting of Regional Parliament being set up in Cairns.Credit: Queensland Parliament

But while the laws were passed and shortly after signed off by the Governor, a key countdown timer written into them hasn’t been pushed by government.

The Interim Truth and Treaty Body set up alongside the government’s 2022 commitment to the process, a body that helped design the laws and steer them through lengthy public consultation, gave advice to the government in August about the next steps.

What went unsaid in the press release was what this advice was or when the government planned to proclaim the laws – a legislative tool used to control the timing of their start date after being passed and required for this set to actually have effect.

Once it does so, the government would have three months to set up the Truth-telling and Healing Inquiry under the laws; laws already almost three years later than requested by another advisory group in early 2020.

Terms of reference are to be given to the head of the Department of Treaty, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships, Communities and the Arts within a month.

Five months on from the bill passing, the department is yet to call for people interested in the five positions steering what will eventually be a three-year board of inquiry able to force the government to hand over documents, or department bosses to appear at public hearings.

We asked the government about the timeline on Monday. A spokesperson for Treaty Minister Leeanne Enoch would not be drawn on details.

After the weekend referendum saw the modest Voice proposal rejected by most Australians, and most resoundingly in Queensland, both of the state’s major party leaders have reaffirmed support for the inquiry and longer-term treaty making – in their own ways.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said she believed people still agreed work was needed to improve the wellbeing of First Nations peoples and “bring justice, reconciliation and material improvements to [their] lives”.

Opposition leader David Crisafulli, who voted No but publicly said his MPs could campaign for Yes (even if only one did), reiterated similar commitments from his party on Sunday.

However, any treaties under a state LNP led by him would not include money. His “serious” focus would be on truth-telling, targets to improve Indigenous people’s lives and accountable ministers.

Targets and accountability are one thing; something many politicians have pledged but failed to deliver. Asking First Nations peoples what they want, and listening to that, is another thing entirely.

What response would Crisafulli or Palaszczuk or some future leader give to an inquiry that made calls similar to Victoria’s Yoorook Justice Commission for Indigenous people to be “put in the driver’s seat” of the criminal justice and child protection systems?

We can only guess. That’s also only one area where colonisation, along with historical and contemporary dispossession and disadvantage, rears its head.

And, Treaty Advancement Committee member and Gangulu man Mick Gooda has made clear, whatever form broader deals have taken with Indigenous groups elsewhere around the globe, those worked out here over coming years and beyond will be a matter for individual communities.

If both Labor and the LNP really are as committed as they say about improving the lives of First Nations people in the state after the failed Voice vote, they must turn attention to this task and genuine ears to the community – and keep them there. Seriously.

Sean Parnell sends an exclusive newsletter to subscribers each week. Sign up to receive his Note from the Editor.