Daniel James

Yeah, if there's any concern about whether the First Peoples Assembly and Aboriginal people in Victoria will now rest on our laurels that we now have this treaty process, I'm here to ease your concerns around that.

The weight of our own history, the weight of the people who have fought for things like this and that we've lost along the way, the weight of their memory,

is something that will push us forward far more than any sort of immediate political dynamic in this state.

I was actually surprised by how much I was actually moved by this.

It was something that I intellectually was prepared for, something that I'd had a little bit of a role in bringing to life in a very, very, very small way.

But it wasn't until a couple of hours after the whole thing was introduced into the Parliament that the gravity of what has happened here kind of really hit me for the first time.

And what the Treaty now does is recognise that everyone that lives in this place that we call Victoria now should have their own relationship with the land and the customs here.

Sure, our involvement, Aboriginal people's relationship with the land and its waterways and its skies is unique, but there's now an opportunity now for every person that is fortunate enough to live in this place to develop their own relationship with the land and the waters at the invitation of First Nations people.

And if you want to look at that in sort of practical ways, there are whole communities in Victoria and particularly in Melbourne now that, from my point of view, I kind of see that are caught between worlds, that they don't belong to one part of society.

They're trying to find their way towards acceptance and find a place of belonging in this community.

Well, without being too grandiose about it, treaty is one pathway for people to find themselves in this state and the place they live that has been looked after for millennia by First Nations people.

And that can be done together with First Nations people.

Thanks, Ruby.

I'm Daniel James.

7am, we'll be back tomorrow with an episode about Daniel Duggan, the former US Marine pilot turned Australian citizen, now facing extradition to the United States over allegations he helped train Chinese military pilots.

We unpack how Duggan ended up at the centre of a case that now stretches from Tasmania to South Africa, China and Washington.

I'm Daniel James, and you're listening to 7am.

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