First Nations Voice to Parliament

The Hon. S.L. GAME (14:48): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before directing a question to the Deputy Premier, in his capacity as Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, regarding the First Nations Voice to Parliament.

Leave granted.

The Hon. S.L. GAME: On 13 November, South Australian First Nations Voice to Parliament Presiding Member Danni Smith delivered the Voice's 2025 address to both houses of parliament. In response, the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs told The Advertiser his government remained 'committed to the full implementation of the Uluru Statement' and committed to a Treaty and the truth-telling process. My questions to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs are:

1. After over 64 per cent of the South Australian state voted no in the Australian Indigenous Voice referendum in 2023, does the South Australian government believe everyday South Australians welcome their First Nations Voice to Parliament and the promise of a Treaty and truth-telling in the future?

2. Can the government explain how its commitment to a Treaty and truth-telling will do anything other than create more division, as we saw with the Voice?

3. Given that most dictionaries describe a treaty as 'an international agreement in written form between two or more sovereign states', on what grounds can this government pursue a Treaty within the boundaries of South Australia?

4. If the government is intent on truth-telling, can it outline which untruths are currently being told?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Deputy Premier, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector, Special Minister of State) (14:49): I thank the honourable member for her question. In relation to the commitment that the South Australian government has to Treaty and truth-telling, I am happy to reaffirm that we are solid in that commitment. We went to the 2022 election and, I think as I have told this chamber before, our very first policy in opposition was a commitment to the tenets of the Uluru Statement in a state-based version, if we won the election. In 2019, we made that commitment and we were elected in 2022.

The tenets were Voice, Truth and Treaty. We went about implementing that first element, the Voice element. We conducted the most comprehensive consultation that has ever been conducted by a South Australian government with Aboriginal South Australians, communities and leaders, and came up with a model that was consulted on for that second round of consultation by our Commissioner for First Nations Voice and, as a consequence, legislation was put into parliament.

That legislation passed the parliament and elections were held for that First Nations body, and we all saw—and we have seen twice—representatives of that First Nations body, Aboriginal South Australians, addressing a joint sitting of these chambers of parliament. That was a very, very proud moment for me last year, as it was this year, having Aboriginal leaders here on the floor of parliament expressing their views, their concerns and what they would like to see happen and what government should be doing.

In terms of the other elements of the Uluru Statement I am happy to reaffirm, as I have a number of times and as I will do anytime anyone asks me, that we are committed to the other two tenets: Truth and Treaty. In relation to the constitutional vote, where for the 39^th time out of 45 questions Australians did not decide to change the federal constitution, nothing in those questions was about Truth and Treaty. I think it is deliberately conflating the two issues, which I think is disappointing, and I suspect if the honourable member reflects she may be disappointed in herself for trying to conflate those two issues.

In relation to Treaty, this is not something that is new to Australia, nor even new to South Australia. In 2016, the former government, of which I was the Aboriginal affairs minister under Premier Jay Weatherill, started a process in terms of discussing Treaty with Aboriginal nations. We had consultations then and overwhelmingly the view from Aboriginal communities, leaders and individuals was for agreements between various Aboriginal nations and the government.

In relation to nations, what we call the nation of Australia has been here a couple of hundred years but there are hundreds of Aboriginal nations right across this country that have been around for tens of thousands of years. We are committed, as we were then, to reaching agreements. We will be restarting that process and I very much look forward to it.