OPINION: Only a Treaty will end the war against First Nations people

Treaty sets the baseline; truth and Treaty will acknowledge our Sovereignty and strengthen our Voice, writes Senator Lidia Thorpe.

Every day is Invasion Day, until we have a Treaty in this country, writes Greens Senator for Victoria Lidia Thorpe. Source: AAP / Diego Fedele

Every day is Invasion Day until we have a Treaty in this country.

When the British invaded these lands, we never sat down to negotiate what peaceful coexistence looks like.

The violence that started with colonisation continues through deaths in custody, incarceration, child removal and desecration of Country.

Only a Treaty will end the war against First Nations people.

We demand a peace Treaty because First Nations people are Sovereign people. The law in this country needs to reflect the fact that our Sovereignty was never ceded.

Before colonisation, there were over 500 Sovereign nations on these lands. Each with its own laws, languages, and customs. We benefit from the oldest knowledge paradigms on Earth.

It’s time to change the nation, as well as change how we celebrate that national identity.

If we want to heal this country, we need to tell the truth about who we are and where we’re coming from.

Treaty as a baseline

The Greens are fighting for the establishment of national Truth and Treaty Commissions in this term of Parliament.

A national Truth and Justice Commission will create a shared understanding of our past and how it shapes our present. This evidence would inform Treaty negotiations.

Treaty is a self-determined, grassroots agreement-making process between First Nations people and the Government about how we can live together as equals. It sets the terms for us to negotiate with the Government moving forward.

That’s why Treaty is important, it sets the baseline.

The Prime Minister has said that Labor’s Voice to Parliament will be “subservient” to the Parliament.

Senator Thorpe says The Greens will continue to "keep pushing Labor to go further and faster for Blak justice." Source: NITV / NITV

Labor’s proposal for a constitutional amendment that was released at the Garma Festival last year is as follows:

There shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to Parliament and the Executive Government on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.

The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to the composition, functions, powers and procedures of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.

This means that the Parliament will get to decide whose Voice gets heard while retaining the right to ignore whatever they say. The Voice does not have any legally binding authority to make decisions.

Truth and Treaty are tools to deliver real power to First Nations people in this country. Decision-making power around our own affairs.

Power that has been denied to us since colonisation.

The path to Blak justice

Truth and Treaty will acknowledge our Sovereignty and strengthen our Voice.

This is why the policy The Greens took to the last election was Truth. Treaty. Voice. This reflects the consensus of our First Nations Network, the Blak Greens. 

While we hold the balance of power in the Senate, The Greens are not in Government, so Adam Bandt and I have been leading negotiations with Labor to figure out the best path forwards with regard to the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

We’re pushing Labor to make First Peoples Sovereignty the foundation for all First Nations legislation, especially when it comes to constitutional reform.

We want First Nations people to be acknowledged as the Sovereign people of these lands and we never will cede that Sovereignty.

As Phoebe McIlwraith writes: “My Sovereignty predates the creation of the English language, it does not come from a crown or a throne, but the sea and soil.”

We’ve maintained this Country for thousands of generations, which makes us Sovereign to these lands, waters and sky.

Given Labor’s push for a constitutionally enshrined advisory body, we tested how committed they are to act on the advice First Nations people give them by demanding the implementation of the remaining recommendations from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and the Bringing them Home report.

Senator Lidia Thorpe during a smoking ceremony at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy at Parliament House in 2020 prior to her being sworn in. Credit: Sam Mooy/Getty Images

We have the solutions to end deaths in custody and child removals. We’ve had the solutions for decades. We just need a Government with the ambition to listen to the advice our Elders gave them through these commissions.

We’ve secured a funding commitment to real-time reporting of deaths in custody. Transparency is critical in our fight for justice, but access to basic human rights will prevent First Nations people from going to prison in the first place.

We’ve also secured an investment in real power for First Nations people: funding for national Truth and Treaty processes in the last budget.

We will keep pushing Labor to go further and faster for Blak justice.

We know there’s broad community support for change – we could use this moment and momentum to make a tangible difference in the lives of First Nations people.

This Invasion Day, remember that Yorta Yorta man William Cooper called for January 26 to be acknowledged as a Day of Mourning in 1937. Remember what we’re grieving. Fight alongside us to heal this country.

White Australia has a Blak future.

Lidia Thorpe is a Senator for Victoria, a proud Gunnai Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung woman, lifelong activist and fighter for human rights, social justice and the environment. Senator Thorpe is the portfolio holder and Greens Federal spokesperson for First Nations, Justice, and Sport.