James Campbell: Jacinta Allan’s Treaty Bill a disgrace and a sad day for Victoria
Jacinta Allan and her government have stuck two fingers up at the people who elected them, by passing — with almost no public debate at all — a Bill which goes far further than anything Anthony Albanese was proposing.
Almost exactly two years ago after a vigorous public debate a majority of Victorians voted against inserting a Voice to parliament into the Australian Constitution.
Last night Jacinta Allan and her government stuck two fingers up at the people who elected them, by passing, with almost no public debate at all, a Bill which goes far further than anything Anthony Albanese was proposing.
The so-called Treaty legislation is nothing of the sort.
A treaty implies an agreement between two sovereign entities.
But Aboriginal Victorians aren’t members of a separate caste defined by the law as outsiders to our body politic.
They are citizens of a democracy who — until last night anyway — enjoyed the same rights as everyone else.
Moreover, as a glance at their leadership will attest, the majority of them are not descended entirely from the people who were living here before Europeans arrived in the early 19th Century.
Most of them are Victorians who are partly descended from the original inhabitants, partly descended from people who have arrived since then.
Last night however the parliament of Victoria decided that 65,000 Victorians whose ancestors were here before John Batman and Co arrived in 1835 will henceforth have rights and privileges that are to be denied to the rest of the seven million people who live here.
Henceforth, the interests of those 65,000 people will be at the centre of the state’s political life.
Make no mistake this Bill will change how we are governed, both symbolically and in substance, starting almost immediately.
It isn’t just that kids between prep and year 10 will be forced to endure propaganda — sorry “truth telling” — under a curriculum developed by Indigenous authorities.
Public servants will now have to be trained to make sure they are “culturally capable” of implementing the will of the minority.
Is it any surprise that Gellung Warl – as the First People’s Assembly has been renamed – will be given “a dedicated, named room” within our parliament with its members and staff are to be given access to the building?
But though Gellung Warl will be in Spring St and of course paid for by the rest of us, the parliament will have no authority over it, not even the power to determine who gets a vote for it, or how that vote is conducted.
Understand too, this isn’t the end, it is just the beginning.
This Treaty Bill doesn’t won’t end the squabbling and the demands.
It’s just the start of a process that will end with myriad local treaties handing over who knows what privileges.
It’s a disgrace and a sad day for the state.
Now ask yourself a question: Did you understand this was on the ballot when Daniel Andrews was re-elected three years ago?
Shouldn’t we be given say over it now?
