Victorian Liberals’ moderate credentials looking shaky as commitment to treaty wavers

Some Victorian Liberals have questioned why the issue of treaty needed to be aired at all, with sources saying leader John Pesutto is having to contend with ‘unnecessary hurdles’. Photograph: Diego Fedele/AAP

It was not even 18 months ago that the Victorian Coalition was seeking to dispel the “myth” that only the Labor party supported a treaty with the state’s First Nations people.

“This side of the house, both the Liberal and the National parties, are committed to working with the Indigenous community on treaty,” the Nationals leader, Peter Walsh, told parliament last year when he spoke in support of a bill establishing a Treaty Authority.