Qld Path to Treaty: Laws to discard offensive terms, rules

Offensive terms and outdated sections of law controlling Indigenous people’s lives and movements will be removed as part of Queensland’s landmark treaty legislation.

Interim Truth and Treaty Body co-chairs Cheryl Buchanan (right) and Sallyanne Atkinson (centre) with member Seleena Blackley at Parliament House on Wednesday. Picture: Dan Peled/NCA NewsWire

Offensive terms and outdated sections of law controlling Indigenous people’s lives and movements will be replaced or removed as part of Queensland’s landmark treaty legislation, as the state government moves toward “righting persistent wrongs of the past”.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, before a packed public gallery in Parliament, introduced laws on Wednesday that would provide the scaffolding for Queensland’s push for truth-telling and treaties with First Nations people.

Once the laws are passed it will allow the creation of a five-member truth-telling and healing inquiry, which will hold hearings and compel government to front up and provide evidence similar to a normal inquiry but customised to have a culturally appropriate approach.

A section of the treaty laws also amend parts of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities (Justice, Land and Other Matters) Act of 1984, including replacing offensive outdated language with terms such as “Aboriginal person” and “Torres Strait Islander people”.

Outdated sections of the law which controlled how the property of Indigenous people would be managed, and how they could deposit “savings with banker”, will be removed.

“Repealing them is an important and necessary step toward righting persistent wrongs of the past and ensure compatibility with the Human Rights Act 2019,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

While the legislation moves through the machinations of Parliament, the Interim Truth and Telling Body, co-chaired by Indigenous activist and writer Cheryl Buchanan and former Brisbane lord mayor Sallyanne Atkinson, will continue laying the groundwork for a truth-telling inquiry.

Kalkutungu woman Seleena Blackley, the youngest member of the 10-person interim body, said acknowledging Queensland’s past through truth-telling might help liberate non-Indigenous people more than Indigenous people.

“(There’s) that shared understanding, that shared truth so Indigenous and non-Indigenous people can come together,” she said.

Ms Atkinson said talking about Queensland’s colonial past could be “very, very painful”, but it needed to be done so what occurred and “atrocities perpetrated” could be acknowledged.

Indigenous Affairs Minister Craig Crawford said the path to treaty would honour generations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who have called for self-determination, truth telling and agreement-making”.

“This is our moment in time – to right the wrongs, to finish unfinished business, and to bequeath to our future generations a path forward,” he said.

The preamble of the newly introduced laws note the recognition that “the colonisation of Queensland occurred without the consent of Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples and often against their active resistance”.

And that “Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples assert they have never ceded their sovereignty over their lands, seas, waters, air and resources and they continue to assert their sovereignty”.

Originally published as Qld Path to Treaty: Laws to discard offensive terms, rules