There's concern upcoming treaty negotiations in Victoria have been cited as a reason behind delays to action on closing the gap targets and other initiatives.
That's according to First Peoples' Assembly co-chair Rueben Berg, who said a treaty would not "magically" solve issues facing the Aboriginal community and it should not prevent governments delivering on strategies they had already commit to.
Mr Berg and fellow co-chair Ngarra Murray detailed how they see the arrangement working at a Yoorrook Justice Commission hearing on Tuesday focusing on health, education, housing and economic life.
"When we talk to members of our community, we often hear them saying we've had conversations with government and we're told that because of treaty these certain initiatives can't progress," Mr Berg said.
"It's not our expectation that the government holds off on critical things, critical things connected to closing the gap, critical things connected to a variety of different areas, that they should not be just deferring to treaty as a way of the way of delaying on those things."
The idea is not to have just one single treaty at a statewide levels, he said, but ongoing progressive treaties with negotiations set to begin later in 2024.
The assembly leader said it was important to understand treaty would not be a "panacea that just solves everything magically" when it came to issues in education, health, child protection and corrections, but described it as a tool to implement recommendations.
"Treaty, I think, is going to enabled us to have a powerful tool and powerful tools to actually leverage greater control of these matters," Mr Berg said.
"So that we can actually listen to our experts in the community and enact those things that our community experts are saying, without needing the permission of government to enact those initiatives."
He hopes a treaty will start to achieve outcomes within the next 18 months to two years and there will need to be a "mindset shift" within government over control of decision making.
Much of the hearing focused on education, with Ms Murray calling on all schools to embed cultural safety programs for Aboriginal students across the state similar to a program operating at the school her children attend in inner Melbourne.
She also shared her grandmother's experience of being forced to lift up her shirt before going to school and then being turned away in northern Victoria.
"They lined up all the black kids and they lifted up their shirts to check the colour of their skin on their backs, and they said she was too black," Ms Murray said.
Discriminatory practices have affected how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people interact with the Western education system, Mr Berg explained.
"Colonisation has had, and continues to have, a significant impact on First Peoples' education," he said.
"Until recently, education was used as a tool for forced assimilation and cultural genocide.
"Children were forcibly removed from their homes and despite the promise of education, were often trained in farm work or domestic service and used as a source of cheap labour, amongst other abusive practices."
Yoorrook is creating an official public record on the impact of colonisation on Aboriginal people in Victoria and will recommend actions to address historical and ongoing injustices.
