Less than a year ago, on a stage in the middle of Melbourne’s John Cain Arena, Ngarra Murray placed her ochre-stained palm onto a kangaroo skin alongside the imprints of other First Peoples’ Assembly members.
asserted
Murray → place → members
This was the cultural assent given by Aboriginal people to an historic, statewide treaty setting out the terms of a new relationship between black and white Victoria.
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This → give → Victoria
The pelt also carries the prints of former premier Jacinta Allan and minister for treaty Natalie Hutchins, two women who have since quit politics but had a hand, both literally and figurative, in the most profound social policy change during Labor’s 12 years in office.
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who → carry → office
Murray, who was then co-chairing the assembly alongside Rueben Berg, says the kangaroo skin and the authorising power it represents is essential to understanding treaty.
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it → co → treaty
It also helps explain why Jess Wilson’s promise to repeal within the first 100 days of a Coalition government the laws enacting treaty can go only so far.
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promise → help → treaty
“Only the people who put their handprints on that treaty can undo that relationship,” says Murray, now retired from the assembly.
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Murray → put → assembly
“That is an agreement we made in good faith with the state.
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we → make → state
They can repeal the legislation but they can’t repeal the reason why we did it.”
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we → repeal → it
Victoria’s treaty, the first of its kind reached between First Peoples and the Crown in Australia, has gained an oversized prominence in this state election.
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treaty → reach → election
According to the last Census, only 1 per cent of people living in Victoria identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.
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cent → accord → Victoria
According to Victoria’s Parliamentary Budget Office, dismantling the entire statutory framework associated with treaty would save the state’s budget $247.8 million over the four years of the next government.
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dismantling → accord → government
The Coalition over the same time frame has pledged to spend $5 billion fixing potholes.
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Coalition → pledge → potholes
In Jess Wilson’s seat of Kew, the opposition leader is being buffeted from both sides of a fierce treaty debate.
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leader → buffet → debate
Teal challenger Sophie Torney and Common Threads, a First Peoples’ activist group, are highlighting the tension they see between Wilson’s pledge to abolish treaty and the progressive sensitivities of traditional, small-l Liberal voters in her electorate.
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they → highlight → electorate
One Nation’s Victorian leader Warren Pickering is targeting the social media accounts of Kew voters with ads questioning whether Wilson can be trusted to get rid of treaty – an issue that feeds into Pauline Hanson’s 30-year-old grievance about special treatment for Aboriginal people.
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that → target → people
Last weekend, TWK Research, a Melbourne-based research company used by political pollsters, was cold-calling voters in Kew, quizzing them about their voting intentions and attitudes towards treaty.
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Research → base → treaty
The sequence of leading questions suggests whoever commissioned the poll is worried about treaty being a drag on Wilson’s vote.
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treaty → lead → vote
The Liberal Party’s campaign headquarters did not confirm or deny knowledge of the survey.
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headquarters → confirm → survey
Amid this noisy, if localised political spat, few people have stopped to consider what the promise to scrap treaty means.
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what → localise → means
Although treaty is new to Australia, it is well established in other common law countries, most notably New Zealand.
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it → establish → countries
The Māori experience is that, while governments can make and unmake laws designed to give legal force to treaty agreements, they cannot undo the agreements themselves.
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they → make → agreements
In Victoria, a government can repeal the Statewide Treaty Act that provides statutory authority and public funding for Gellung Warl, the principal architecture of treaty, but it cannot unilaterally unmake the agreement from which the legislation derives.
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legislation → repeal → which
Kelvin Davis, a former deputy leader of the New Zealand Labour Party, served as the minister for Māori Crown relations under the Jacinda Ardern government.
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Davis → serve → government
He belongs to the Ngāpuhi tribe whose traditional lands include Waitangi, the North Island town where, in 1840, Māori chiefs entered into a treaty with the British government.
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chiefs → belong → government
Nearly two centuries on, the legal effect of that treaty is still being fiercely contested ahead of next month’s New Zealand election.
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effect → contest → election
Davis says laws are always subject to change but Victoria’s treaty, like the Treaty of Waitangi, stands on its own mana, a Māori term for spiritual authority or power.
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treaty → say → authority
“Any parliament around the world has the right to make laws that they see fit and to repeal laws,” Davis tells The Age.
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Davis → have → Age
“So they’ve got the right to repeal the law, the Statewide Treaty Act.
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they → get → law
But that doesn’t mean that the treaty just disappears.
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treaty → mean → ?
“My advice to Victorians is ignore the treaty at your peril.
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advice → ignore → peril
As happened in New Zealand, governments throughout the decades after treaty was signed tried to hide it, push it into under the carpet, never to be heard from again.
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treaty → happen → carpet
Māori did not forget.
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Māori → forget → ?
We used white man’s processes to make sure that it reclaimed its status, and it is now costing New Zealand government billions to rectify all the broken commitments and promises.
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it → use → commitments
“They’ve got all these commitments in the Victorian treaty.
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They → get → treaty
They’re going to want those commitments to be fulfilled and they’ll just keep pushing.
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they → go → ?
They will say: ‘This is our treaty, it is signed and if you renege, we’re going to sue you.’
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we → say → you
“I hope that’s what they say and do.”
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they → hope → what
The Victorian Treaty Authority was established before the last state election as an independent body to oversee treaty negotiations.
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Authority → establish → negotiations
Its chair Jidah Clark says that here, like New Zealand, treaty reaches beyond its enabling legislation.
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treaty → say → legislation
“The treaty itself is much more than a piece of legislation,” he explains.
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he → explain → legislation
…and 51 more, not listed.
The Aporia
