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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-11-13 Daily Xml
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First Nations Voice to Parliament

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI (Leader of the Opposition) (14:26): My question is again to the Deputy Premier, in his capacity as Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, regarding the First Nations Voice to Parliament. Given the Labor government has committed to progressing the Uluru Statement in full, including Voice, Truth and Treaty, can the minister outline what the projected costs of doing so will be, and will it form part of the Mid-Year Budget Review?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Deputy Premier, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector, Special Minister of State) (14:27): I thank the honourable member for her question very much. If I remember correctly, it was about NAIDOC week of 2019, so around July 2019, the then Labor opposition first committed to an implementation of a state-based response to the Uluru Statement. I think it was May 2017 when the Uluru Statement was handed down from the 250 delegates who met in Uluru to form the tenets of the components of Voice, Truth and Treaty.

Having made that commitment and having been elected in 2022, we undertook significant consultation, both with people who had been involved in the dialogues and the process in relation to the Uluru Statement from the Heart, and also many of those who had been involved in the thinking and the writing afterwards, we determined that the first logical step was the Voice component of the three tenets of the Uluru Statement—that is what we concentrated on, obviously, as many members would be aware.

We appointed a Commissioner for First Nations Voice, Commissioner Dale Agius. Consultation was conducted around South Australia in relation to different possible models for a First Nations Voice. After that, draft legislation was put forward and a second round of consultation was engaged in, with a model that included various elected bodies. After that second round of consultation, the legislation then passed.

We have six Local First Nations Voices, each with representation that includes two presiding members. Those presiding members of each of the six form the 12-person first statewide First Nations Voice. We have had representatives from many of the Local Voices here today in parliament as one of the presiding members, Danni Smith, addressed a joint sitting of parliament. We have started discussions and consultations, both with the Voice and outside the Voice, about those next steps, the elements of Truth and Treaty. We don't have a fixed view of how that will look. Going to the second part—will there be something in the Mid-Year Budget Review—given we don't have fixed views about how they will look, we don't have an indicated budget for that. Obviously, as that develops, we will do that.

We also have started internal work looking not just around Australia but at other jurisdictions where there are truth-telling or treaty developments. North America (Canada and the US), and New Zealand are examples of that. Before the 2018 state election, we had started on our treaty processes. We had had engagements with the Narungga, the Ngarrindjeri and Adnyamathanha, amongst other nations in relation to looking at what a Treaty might look like.

We, before the 2018 election, signed an agreement on the way to Treaty, the Buthera Agreement, with the Narungga nations. Of course, with the change of government that process ceased. Since that time, the landscape has changed significantly. There has been work done previously in the Northern Territory and Queensland in relation to Treaty. There are discussions underway in New South Wales and I think, as I understand it, in Tasmania, and in Western Australia there is the Noongar South West Native Title Settlement. I think many people who look at these things see that is all but named as a treaty settlement.

We don't have a fixed view of how that looks. We have started discussions with the Voice about how that might look. The Voice has put a view, as was reiterated today at the joint sitting, about their view that the next step ought to be an establishment of a commission that would then do that work in terms of consultation about the Truth and Treaty elements and we are certainly open to that and looking at it.

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