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Chapter 1: What does Victoria's treaty bill aim to achieve for Indigenous Australians?
This nation-leading bill and the treaty process as a whole shows what we can achieve when we listen to First Peoples and work together for better outcomes.
When Victorian Premier Jacinta Allen introduced Australia's first ever treaty to Parliament, she said it would pave the way for a formal apology, the introduction of Aboriginal truth-telling into the school curriculum and offer a better future for Indigenous Australians in the state.
It honours and affirms the special connection the First Peoples have to country, this place now known as Victoria, which we all call home. It reckons with the wrongs of the past and sets a new course, guided by truth to a better future.
The treaty is the culmination of almost a decade of work, establishing the first people's assembly who led the negotiations and delivers on voice, treaty and truth, the three pillars of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, making Victoria the first state in the country to achieve this. Now, that treaty is in its next phase.
This week, we'll have the results of the election of who will sit on the First People's Assembly. And tomorrow, the process of setting up the delegation that will actually decide what treaty looks like in the real world begins. I'm Daniel James, and you're listening to 7am.
Today, we're bringing you a two-part episode from last year, where Ruby Jones speaks with co-chairs of the First People's Assembly, Nagara Murray and Rupert Burke, on what they hope Victoria's Treaty will deliver and how its success will be measured.
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Chapter 2: How has the First Peoples’ Assembly contributed to the treaty process?
It's Sunday, April 26. This episode first aired in September 2025.
Nagara, Ruben, thank you so much for joining me. To begin with, would you mind just introducing yourselves?
Yeah. Hello, Nagara, Murray, Wambawamba, Yorta Yorta, Dja Dja Wurrung, and Dilaroa woman, and elected co-chair of the First People's Assembly.
And I'm Ruben Burke, proud Greenwich Mara man, and also one of the co-chairs of the First People's Assembly of Victoria.
Well, welcome to 7am. Thank you so much for coming on the show. The first treaty with the first peoples of this country has just become a reality.
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Chapter 3: What emotions were felt during the introduction of the statewide treaty bill?
It's been a long road to get here. So to begin with, tell me how you're both feeling.
Yeah, I'm feeling good. Historic day for all of us with the introduction of the Statewide Treaty Bill in the Parliament. It was a day of emotions and pride and reflection. Treaty will be a source of pride for all Victorians, representative of a proudly diverse and multicultural state which values its history and all of its people. Because this is not about taking anything away from anyone.
It's about practical changes to do things better together. I am proud to support this next step in treaty. I am proud that together we are improving people's lives and giving everyone a better future.
Chapter 4: What key decisions were made regarding the treaty negotiations?
I commend the bill to the House. We're just really excited to be in this position in Victoria and it's been a lot of hard work over the last six years in particular, but nearly a decade of preparatory work. And yeah, we're in a really strong position as we work towards the very first treaty of this country.
Yeah, as Nagara said, it's been a very long journey to get us here, across six years of travelling around the whole state, talking with all of our community in every corner of the state, and now to get to this point where it's about to become a reality, to now then think forward to, let's get the action done, let's start getting things done.
Rather than having to talk about treaty, now we can actually activate it.
And obviously, I want to talk more about what it all means. But you both mentioned it's been a long road to get here over the last decade. So can you just tell me about some of the kind of key points in the negotiations between the Assembly and the Victorian government?
The first part of the negotiations when we started as the assembly was really to work out what treaty would look like actually here in this state, because there's lots of different models you can go down for treaty making. And very early on, we made, I think, a really important decision, an agreement with the state that we'd tackle this as a hybrid model.
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Chapter 5: What practical changes does the treaty seek to implement?
So we're looking at both statewide treaties, which is the first part of which has gone into the legislation as part of the bill. And then there's also traditional owner treaties that are happening in parallel. And so that was, I think, a really key first part of this process to say, we're going to have both. And that drew from different models across the globe.
And then as we started talking more about the first statewide treaty to say that what we wanted to do is set things up for success and for future conversations.
that if we're going to have further negotiations and further conversations, we need to have a really strong democratically elected traditional owner-led body that can intersect with government in really powerful ways so we can advocate for better outcomes and then also progress future treaty making.
So tell me then, I guess, about the practicalities of that. What is the purpose of the treaty? What does it look like?
For us, the treaty will really be about the relationships and the resetting of those relationships between First Peoples and the state.
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Chapter 6: How will the treaty impact education and truth-telling in Victoria?
As Ruben said, there'll be many treaties. We've got the hybrid approach of the statewide treaty covers all the statewide matters and addresses the our affairs within health and housing, education and justice, sports. There'll be a number of treaties in the next iteration of the statewide treaty.
And then the traditional owner treaties will relate to the business of those traditional owners on their country and their aspirations within their own context. But this is the first modern treaty In over 20 years, we've looked internationally to all the different examples of treaty making in other countries with Indigenous peoples, and it is the first treaty.
We can only do so much in this one, and then we'll pass the baton to the next iteration of the Assembly, but it encapsulates all our aspirations. all our demands and asks that we've been fighting for for a long time and putting them into practice.
And there's a lot of tangible outcomes that will happen through the first statewide treaty, but that structural reform is really what we're seeking around how we will govern into the future when it comes to Aboriginal affairs.
Chapter 7: What structural reforms are planned for the First People's Assembly?
And just tell me a bit more about that structural reform, the new iteration of the First People's Assembly. What does it look like?
Yeah, so this is the transformation of the Assembly as it is now into this future body. And it sits within this space we refer to as Gullung Law. And that's the kind of overarching landscape of treaty making. So within Gullung Law will still be the First People's Assembly of Victoria as the democratically elected body.
And that's the body that will be able to talk directly to parliament, to address parliament once a year, to meet with cabinet, to meet with ministers, to have relationships with departments about how when government's developing policies that might affect First Peoples, how they intersect and engage with the expertise of First Peoples.
Also within that space of Galangwal will be the Nyingma Nyenyawara, which is the accountability mechanism. And this is something that's very clearly drawn from the work of the Productivity Commission last year. They did a big review on closing the gap and what needed to be changed to actually see some closing of those gaps.
Chapter 8: How will the success of the treaty be measured in the future?
And a key thing they identified was there's not a First Peoples-led body that's actually monitoring the government to see how are they performing and giving them recommendations about what to improve. And so that's what we're creating through Nyingma Nyenyawara. Another component of the galangwal will be the ongoing truth-telling through Nyonya Yuruk Talcuna.
And so that will ensure that the powerful work that happened through the truth-telling process here in Victoria, through Yuruk, will be able to be continued. And there's an ongoing role for place-based truth-telling and to ensure that all Victorians can better understand the history of First Peoples from a First Peoples perspective.
And so, as you mentioned there, baked into Galangal is this access to government. So there's this power to make representations to cabinet, to ministers, to various departments, to both houses of parliament. So tell me how you imagine that access being used, what's going to be advocated for?
Yeah. So really at this stage, it's about a process and the types of things we want to advocate for is that's the next conversation to talk with our community. It's not just going to be whoever the coaches are deciding that this is what they want to talk about.
There are really strong processes in the legislation and in our own internal processes to make sure we're hearing directly from all parts of the state about what's important and feeding that in. And we do have the powerful work of your book of four years of our people coming and giving evidence and to show what also needs to change.
So that'll be a really key roadmap of the type of things we're going to be advocating for and the future body can advocate for when we do have that greater access to government.
And there is a proviso that nothing in the agreement limits the authority of the parliament to make laws and conduct its business. So do you feel like there is enough of a guarantee there that the government of the day will listen?
Look, I've heard far too much about the concept of parliamentary sovereignty in the last couple of years. I never really need to. But we're very mindful that parliament has its role to do. And that's rightfully so, given that they're chosen by all the people of the state.
So we just want to make sure that when there is a role for government to have decisions that impact First Peoples, that they're actually hearing from First Peoples about that. We want to make sure we have really strong relationships.
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