Truth-Telling and Healing Inquiry chair Joshua Creamer tells new Queensland Premier to ‘front up’

The new Queensland Premier has been challenged to show his face in Aboriginal communities after ordering an immediate stop to Truth-Telling and Healing Inquiry hearings.

Truth-Telling & Healing Inquiry chair Joshua Creamer. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

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The chair of Queensland’s Truth-Telling and Healing Inquiry says newly elected LNP Premier David Crisafulli should have the decency to “front up” to First Nations Queenslanders after he ordered the immediate end of hearings.

Joshua Creamer had not spoken to Mr Crisafulli about the inquiry’s future before Thursday’s advice from the new government to halt proceedings, nor had anyone from the LNP responded to communication that was sent ahead of the election.

“During the course of our truth-telling government session, it was quite obvious that there have been 165 years of failure in the policy delivered for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people,” he said.

“This decision is just a another item in that legacy. It’s complete failure to listen to the demands of the community, expectations of community, to address the concerns and to make decisions without any consultation with myself or significant people in the community.”

The three-year independent inquiry legislated in Queensland’s Path to Treaty has held five public hearings since it was launched in September, with community consultation under way in several ­Indigenous communities. Information sessions planned for this weekend on North Stradbroke Island will go ahead without the support of the inquiry, with further public hearings scheduled for December likely to be cancelled.

Mr Crisafulli said his government would focus on Indigenous home ownership and education.

“We campaigned and said that we wouldn’t be progressing with that,” Mr Crisafulli said.

“I didn’t use inflammatory language, I didn’t seek to divide. We will do better for them than what they’ve had. We’ll give them the opportunity to own their home one day, we’re going to improve education for their kids, improve safety in their community and health outcomes. This is the team that will do it and will be held ­accountable.”

Mr Creamer argued the government could focus on more than one policy at a time.

Director of Minjerribah Moorgumpin (Elders-in-Council Aboriginal) Corporation Dale Ruska believes the decision is a repetition of history, and another example of governments deciding what is right for Indigenous Australians.

“We’ve proven to ourselves over many tens of millennia that we are quite capable of being in control of our own self-determination and identifying what our own needs are,” Mr Ruska said.

“We encourage government to start to show respect to that for us and to hopefully walk alongside us together.”