As a Gunditjmara woman from western Victoria, Jill Gallagher has a message to send to Australians: “Treaties are nothing to fear. We are not after anyone's backyard. We just want the rightful recognition and acknowledgment and reparations for what we lost.”
Ms. Gallagher also says migrant communities “gravitated to Aboriginal communities, more so than the general populations, because we all have something in common.”
As the commissioner of the , Gallagher's role is not to negotiate treaties but work with the state to prepare for one. That includes by deciding on a negotiation framework or ‘ground rules’ for the process, setting up a self-determination fund to support Aboriginal communities in preparation for negotiations and acting as a treaty authority or 'independent umpire' in the process.
What is the First People’s Assembly?
In the in July 2016, Aboriginal representatives were asked what self-determination meant to them. According to Ms Gallagher, “true self-determination for us as Aboriginal people is to have the ability to negotiate treaties with government.”
She explained that calling for treaties “is not a new call" and that the First People's Assembly is a way towards such a call being heeded.
"Our people have demanded treaties for many years. We have been colonised 230 years.”
What has changed now, she says is “that we had a state government that just didn’t dismiss the idea of having treaties.”
Yet, the remaining “dilemma” within the Aboriginal community was to see how to proceed with treaty negotiations.
The struggles and hardships that Aboriginal people have been through are a barrier to negotiations.
“The authorities for the past 230 years have tried to disconnect us from our culture, disconnect us from our language, our country, our land where we belong,” she says.
So, since 2016, Ms Gallagher has talked to Aboriginal people in Victoria who decided that they want to have a First People’s Assembly elected by them, not one appointed by the government.
The assembly will consist of 33 Aboriginal traditional owners from Victoria, with 12 seats reserved for existing traditional owner entities and the rest elected by Aboriginal people in a democratic process on July 8.
Will a treaty be effective?
The call for a treaty has been a longstanding one from Aboriginal people, but as Ms Gallagher says, it has been an uphill battle to have the prospect seriously considered by state governments.
"We just haven't had a government brave enough to put them [a treaty] on the table,” says Ms Gallagher.
She believes treaties are about “true recognition that we are the first people of this country”.
“We didn't cede our sovereignty," she says. "We didn't sign a treaty to say hey you white fellows come in and take our land, and try to take our culture off us – we didn't ask for that."
The contents and conditions of a future treaty or treaties are yet unknown, but in the it is stated that a future treaty “can help heal the wounds of the past, provide recognition for historic wrongs, address ongoing injustices, support reconciliation and promote the fundamental human rights of Aboriginal peoples, including the right to self-determination.”
According to Ms Gallagher any treaty should be about entitlement, truth-telling, economic growth and being culturally strong in their own country.
“It is about having our own cultural footprint on the landscape of Victoria. We've got to start being visible on our landscape.”
That 2018 act to advance the prospects of treaty commits to working with Aboriginal Victorians to negotiate on terms that will help “tangibly improve their lives, and the lives of future generations.”
