Victoria’s former treaty advancement commissioner, Jill Gallagher, has called for tertiary education and interest-free housing loans for First Nations people to be provided by an independent self-determination fund to alleviate the economic disadvantages of “250 years of racism”.
An independent fund is seen as a cornerstone of the state’s treaty architecture, and the call by Gallagher comes after Victoria’s parliament last week passed a landmark bill to create the nation’s first treaty authority body.
The body will act as an independent umpire to oversee treaty negotiations and resolve disputes between First Nations groups and the state government.
Negotiations are now under way between the government and the First People’s Assembly – the body elected to develop the treaty framework – to establish the final parts of the state’s treaty architecture.
This consists of the treaty framework – to determine the ground rules for negotiations – and an independent self-determination fund to financially support traditional owner groups to enter into negotiations with the government. It will also aim to provide Indigenous Victorians with an independent financial resource.
Gallagher, a Gunditjmara woman who led the commission tasked with establishing the First People’s Assembly between 2017 and 2019, said free tertiary education for Indigenous Victorians and interest-free housing loans could also be provided via the self-determination fund.
“If I was negotiating, this is what I would ask for,” she said.
“It shouldn’t just be about recognition, it should be around how we build up individual families that have faced 250 years of racism.”
She said tackling Indigenous economic disadvantage, at a time when one in six Indigenous Victorians requires homelessness assistance, would provide Aboriginal families with “pride and hope.”
“Not many Aboriginal people are in the market and that needs to change,” Gallagher said.
“There [also] has to be a leg up for Aboriginal people to access tertiary education.”
In a speech delivered to a summit hosted by Aboriginal Housing Victoria last week, the co-chair of the First People’s Assembly, Marcus Stewart, said treaties could provide structural change to support the growth of the Indigenous community housing sector, while removing “legal and policy barriers” to housing independence.
Andrew Norton, an Australian National University higher education expert, estimated the cost of providing free higher education to Indigenous students in Victoria to be $14m a year, based on 2020 enrolment numbers and current student contribution costs.
Geraldine Atkinson, co-chair of the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria said failing to meet community aspirations of the fund would “not only jeopardise Victoria’s national leadership on Treaty, it would also put the entire process at risk.”
Victoria’s treaty process draws on models used in Canada and New Zealand.
In 2019, the Canadian government announced it would abolish loans to finance treaty negotiations and move to non-repayable funding. The decision was designed to relieve Indigenous groups crippled by million of dollars of debt.
The Department of Premier and Cabinet said the self-determination fund would provide Aboriginal Victorians with a “financial resource to achieve equal standing in treaty negotiations and to build capacity, wealth and prosperity within their communities.”
The first Victorian treaties could be signed next year. There will probably be a state-wide treaty as well as treaties between traditional owner groups and the government.
Victoria is the only jurisdiction in Australia to have enacted the treaty and truth-telling components of the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart – with the federal government committing to act on both.
State opposition Aboriginal affairs spokesperson, Peter Walsh, said the Coalition would work with the First Peoples’ Assembly to determine funding if it formed government after the November election.
The May state budget included $151m over four years to support elements of the state’s treaty process.
Last year the Queensland state government committed $300m for its Path to Treaty Fund.
