Governance, native title and the formation of Indigenous Treaty in Victoria, Australia

Abstract

Phase One has recently been completed in the consultations towards the formation of a Treaty between the Victoria Government and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Treaty processes and their negotiation are highly significant in the Australian context as the only Commonwealth nation not to have developed a contract between the state and Indigenous people of this kind. The most ambitious aspiration for these processes is that they could reconstitute the relationship between Indigenous people and the state in such a way as to reconfigure their underlying power dynamics. Though optimism has run high, a number of recent developments suggest the limitations of this process in achieving such outcomes. In interpreting these limitations, we refer to the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth), particularly under Indigenous Land Use Agreement provisions to understand how Treaty may replicate pre-existing processes of recognition. In particular, we discuss the recently-held elections for positions to the First People’s Assembly of Victoria, the representational body responsible for negotiating Treaty.

About the presenters

Cameo Dalley is a Research Fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation. She has published on topics including welfare policy, native title and the pastoral industry in Northern Australia. She is Director of the Women in Native Title Anthropology project funded by the Attorney General’s Department.

Yin Paradies is Alfred Deakin Professor and Chair of Race Relations at Deakin University. He conducts interdisciplinary research on the health, social and economic effects of racism as well as anti-racism theory, policy and practice, including scholarship on Indigenous identity, health and knowledges.

Dr Dalley and Prof Paradies are collaborating on the project ‘Beyond Recognition: Postcolonial Relationality Across Difference’, funded by an ARC Discovery Indigenous grant.