Queensland election: LNP about-face ‘hurts reconciliation’

Queensland’s Truth-telling and Healing Inquiry chair says David Crisafulli’s promise, if elected, to scrap the hearings will be ‘a significant step backwards’ for Indigenous reconciliation.

Queensland Opposition Leader David Crisafulli on Wednesday announces a Crime Prevention School for Townsville. Picture: Liam Kidston

The chair of Queensland’s Truth-telling and Healing Inquiry says state Opposition Leader David Crisafulli’s promise, if elected, to scrap the hearings into the experiences of Indigenous people in the state will be “a significant step backwards” for reconciliation.

Inquiry chair Joshua Creamer on Wednesday described Mr Crisafulli’s reversal of the opposition’s support to pass 2023 legislation setting up the inquiry and a path to treaty with First Nations groups as a “political decision” that will deny Queenslanders a true record of history.

The three-year inquiry began public hearings only in September and involves the collection of the oral history of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Queenslanders, and documentation and submissions of government departments and church-run institutions.

It was also set up to investigate the contemporary experience of Indigenous Queenslanders and deliver recommendations to improve health, housing and education outcomes for Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders.

Liberal National Party MPs voted in favour of the then-­Palaszczuk Labor government’s “Path to Treaty” laws in May last year, with Mr Crisafulli saying it was an “opportunity Queensland should embrace wholeheartedly”.

“I do so (in supporting the legislation) in the hope that it can be a catalyst for true accountability of government – a catalyst for mat­erially improving the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in this state,’’ Mr Crisafulli told parliament.

After later facing criticism from LNP rank and file, and amid public debate over the then-looming voice referendum, Mr Crisafulli withdrew his support for the laws.

Mr Creamer, Queensland’s first Indigenous barrister, said it was an “extraordinary” act.

“I think it’s surprising that an inquiry operating with a level of integrity and conducting critically important work, that’s been set up under legislation, would be ceased by a political decision,’’ he said.

Queensland’s Truth-telling and Healing Inquiry chair Joshua Creamer. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

“I just find it extraordinary.”

Only a few inquiries have ever been abandoned in Queensland, and all because of legal issues.

LNP MPs later claimed the Labor government’s admission that the state may have to pay tens of millions of dollars in reparations as part of treaty negotiations with traditional owner groups motivated their withdrawal of support.

Mr Creamer said the truth-­telling inquiry was entirely separate to the push for treaties and shared the same legislation only in being set up. “Inquiries are a common and a critical part of the way that governments have operated in Australia now for over 100 years, recognising that there is an issue that needs to be properly inquired into,’’ he said.

“There’s a collective view that that needs to be in our history.

“We are taking oral history from Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people, we are going through thousands of documents and taking submissions from government and institutions and compiling that into reports and recommendations.

“Our role is focused on, firstly, our past and providing an accurate record of history, and in improving current outcomes.”

Mr Creamer said some members of the Indigenous community were “devastated” by the LNP stance and, if they were elected, “It’ll be a significant step backwards in our journey of reconciliation in Queensland’’.

In Townsville on Wednesday, Mr Crisafulli said he had reneged on his commitment after the voice referendum because of the “vitriol during that debate … I wasn’t prepared to make the same mistake the Prime Minister made. I would point to you on my interest and record in working with those (Indigenous) communities, and going into those communities and you might like to contrast that with the current government.”

In a statement, Labor Premier Steven Miles said the truth-telling inquiry and treaty negotiations were about improving outcomes for the state’s Indigenous communities.

“Now more than ever, it is so important that governments of all levels work with First Nations ­peoples and their communities to Close the Gap in life outcomes,” Mr Miles said.