Daniel James

In terms of the treaty process, Victoria is years and years ahead of what's happening in other states and territories.

We've seen attacks on treaty processes and truth-telling processes across the country, probably most brutally in Queensland, in which there was a truth-telling process that was established but was torn down, I think, on the second day of the Christopher Lee government in Queensland being in power.

The Albanese government spent a tremendous amount of political capital in its first term on the referendum.

They haven't been wanting to go near Aboriginal affairs in a truth-telling or treaty sense since then.

But I do note that the Minister for Indigenous Australians, Melindiri McCarthy, has been in Victoria this week, and she is making more and more solid sort of pronouncements around a national truth-telling process.

which is encouraging because there is a void at the national level.

It's a case of Victoria going out on its own and trying to improve outcomes for people here.

But what we've done by going through that process is showing to the rest of the country that this can be done.

And it can be done in a way that is inclusive and in a way that is looking more to the future now than to the past.

We have, through the truth-telling process here, reckoned with our past.

We have now got our eyes firmly set on the future and that is what treaty is about.

And that is something that can be replicated at the national level if the government chooses to do so.

Yeah, the difference here is that the Treaty Legislation Bill has been introduced into the Parliament.

It will be passed with the Parliament.

The Nationals and Liberals here make up a very small minority in terms of oppositions when it comes to the numbers within the Parliament here.

So it will pass with the support of Greens and other minority groups.

And so then it will have over a year to run before the next election, in which case it has the opportunity to...

enshrine itself in some of the systems here to raise its own awareness through the community.

But over the next 12 months and a bit, it's going to be really hard to put the toothpaste back into the tube once this is out there.

From my understanding, the opposition here says they still oppose the process, but they haven't made a commitment or made any noises about whether they would tear it down if they got into government.