Chance for indigenous voices to be heard on path to treaty

Voting is open for an assembly to decide how the Victorian government negotiates treaties with the state’s traditional owners.

‘It’s going to affect my children and generations to come’ ... Bri Apma-Hayes, 16, and Wadi Corstorphan, 18, cast their treaty votes at Geelong Library. Picture: David Geraghty

Sixteen-year-old Arrernte girl Bri Apma-Hayes is making history with the first vote she casts.

Her ballot paper, deposited safely into a box in a corner of Geelong Library on Thursday, was cast in an election that will see Indigenous Victorians pave the way to the nation’s first treaty process.

It’s also one of the first times that minors have been allowed to vote in an official election.

She and friend Wadi Corstorphan, an 18-year-old Waanyi woman, voted for their representative in the First Peoples Assembly, an early step in the long and complex process that will deliver treaties between the state of Victoria and its First Nations people.

Bri said she was looking forward to voting in a federal election when she turned 18, but her treaty vote was much more personal. “The first thing I’m going to be voting in is indigenous, black, something that’s going to help my people and impact my people for generations to come,” she said.

The 32-person assembly will decide how the Victorian government negotiates treaties with the state’s traditional owners as well as establishing an authority to act as an independent umpire in the negotiation process.

Unusually for elections conducted in Australia, this poll is open to people aged 16 and over, instead of the usual 18.

About 30,000 Aboriginal people are eligible to vote, with polling closing on October 20.

Ms Corstorphan voted for the first time in the May federal election but said voting in the assembly felt more significant.

“I feel this more personal and I feel like as an indigenous person, especially as a young indigenous person, it’s going to affect me more,” she said.

Bri hopes a treaty will lead to schools teaching more history from the perspective of Aboriginal people, the date of Australia Day moved and a reduction in the number of First Nations people entering the prison system.

“Whatever comes out of this treaty is going to affect future generations like it’s going to affect me,” she said. “It’s going to affect my children and generations to come.”

Ms Corstorphan said her late mother would be proud of her voting, which honoured the struggles and achievements of her ancestors. “They fought in the dark so we could stand in the light,’’ she said.