Daniel James

deal with these particular issues in a mature and forensic, but also incredibly nuanced way.

And so the response from sections of the media was entirely predictable, trying to conflate it with things like the referendum, which is a completely different thing.

This is it.

This is what's happening.

And if people want to conflate that with the referendum result for political purposes, then we'll wave to them as we go over the hill and down the road.

Because I think that people conflate the referendum result with actual political mileage and gain to be had at the expense of First Nations people.

It's only with blackfellas that we're asked to have referendums, to put it to the vote.

Well, this thing has survived two state elections, which was a key platform for the...

Andrew's Labor government and did have bipartisan support from the national and liberal parties before they chickened out of it and saw an opportunity after the referendum to try and gain some sort of political capital out of it.

But I think the last referendum we had in Victoria was around daylight saving.

So that's the kind of referendums we have at the state level here in Victoria.

Why would we have a referendum on this?

And anyone saying that the government is planning to have a referendum to enshrine this in the constitution of the state is just either mistaken or they are lying for political gain or for clickbait.

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.