Protesters plead with David Crisafulli to keep Indigenous truth-telling inquiry

Aboriginal elders who endured segregation and racial discrimination are pleading with Queensland Premier David Crisafulli to retain the truth-telling inquiry he plans to axe.

Aboriginal elder and former union official Robert Anderson, best knows as Uncle Bob, said truth-telling was very meaningful to him. Picture: Dan Peled/NewsWire

Aboriginal elders who endured segregation and racial discrimination are pleading with Queensland’s new Premier David Crisafulli to retain the powerful truth-telling inquiry his government is preparing to axe.

In one of his first acts after the October state election, Mr Crisafulli ordered an immediate end to the independent inquiry, earlier established with Liberal National Party support to probe the impacts of colonisation and publicly air past injustices against First Nations people.

Mr Crisafulli backed Labor’s 2023 laws to set up the three-year inquiry and create a “path to treaty” with First Nations groups, but withdrew his support last year after 68 per cent of Queenslanders voted no in the voice referendum.

A group of about 150 protesters gathered outside state parliament on Tuesday morning, on the first sitting day since the election, calling on Mr Crisafulli to keep public hearings running to ensure a true record of Queensland's history.

Ngugi elder Bob Anderson, who grew up in Brisbane when “boundary” streets prohibited Indigenous people from entering the city at night, said truth-telling and the collection of the oral history was “very, very meaningful” to him.

“It opens up and clears the pathway upon which we travel as a society and as a nation,” said the 95-year-old longtime activist and original native title claimant to Mulgumpin (Moreton Island).

“People have got to have the opportunity to release themselves from the stress that they’ve encountered.”

Gamilaraay man Paul Spearim – the father of Australian musician Thelma Plum – also implored Mr Crisafulli to continue public hearings, telling the crowd that elders such as Mr Anderson had spent their lives campaigning for Indigenous rights and should have the opportunity to share their stories.

“Nothing about us, without us,” said Mr Spearim, the Queensland Conservation Council’s Protect Country Strategist.

“I work with First Nations people. We don’t go into community telling them what to do; we go into community asking them what they want us to do. That is how we heal ourselves and work positively and respectfully with our First Nations people.”

Inquiry chair Josh Creamer last week decided to resume operations despite the state government’s directive to cease work, because it has not yet moved to repeal the Path to Treaty legislation that enshrines the inquiry.

At a press conference held inside parliament while protesters were gathered outside, Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie confirmed the government would formally repeal laws but would not say when.

“There might be 150 protesters but five million Queenslanders passed a vote on the 26th of October for the government to scrap path to treaty, and we have a mandate, and that’s what we’re going to do,” he said.

“We had a position that we were not going to proceed with path to treaty and truth-telling, we put that position to the people of Queensland and people of Queensland voted for a fresh start.”

Labor MP Leeanne Enoch, the first Aboriginal woman elected to Queensland parliament, who attended Tuesday’s protest with opposition MPs, said truth-telling could give government practical solutions to close the gap.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of in telling the truth. What is there to be afraid of? The data, the history, the evidence?” she said.