This moment did not arrive out of nowhere. It carries the weight of a line that stretches back more than sixty thousand years across the lands and waters we now call Victoria. A line of footsteps, stories, and sovereignty that refuses to be broken. As the treaty preamble itself declares, “This land was never empty, never ceded, never erased.”
That span of time is hard to grasp, yet if you are of this place, you feel it pulse through you; carried in the land, the language, and the stories that endure. That line held footsteps, stories and sovereignty until it was ruptured less than two centuries ago when colonisation swept through this Country, taking land, lives, and attempting to take culture itself. Yet through it all there was survival and resistance, and the ceaseless insistence that one day this state, and this nation, would face the truth and reckon with what it had done.
This week, we arrived at that moment and it is so much more than a headline. Victoria has tabled a treaty, the first in the nation’s history. It is not merely a political milestone. It is a cultural and moral reckoning. For the first time, the state has bound itself to a document that recognises the truth of colonisation and commits, in plain words and enduring structures, to do better. It is not a gift bestowed by the state. It is a commitment made between equals.
The path to treaty did not begin in parliament this week. It runs through the resistance of ancestors who held fast to land, to language, to kinship. It runs through the survival of communities who endured massacres, forced removals, and the suffocating control of missions and reserves. It runs through the voices of those who marched, petitioned, went to court, and sat at negotiating tables insisting they be heard. So many didn’t make it to see this day, but they are with us still.
In the 19th century, Elders pleaded for land rights that were denied. In the 20th century, generations fought for recognition in the census, for equal wages, better healthcare, better education, for the return of children stolen by the state. In the 21st century, the consequences of those denials still shape our lives and as a result Aboriginal people remain over‑represented in prisons, our children are taken from families at record high rates, and health, education and housing outcomes lag far behind the rest of the state.
Those struggles also found new expression in the Uluru Statement from the Heart, in the Voice referendum, and here in Victoria, in the work of the Yoorrook Justice Commission; the first and only truth‑telling process of its kind in this country. It happened here, in our time.
Yoorrook made clear that the past is not past. The massacres, the child removals, the denial of culture and sovereignty were not distant tragedies but living conditions whose echoes still reverberate through families today. Treaty is the doorway Yoorrook has unlatched, the passage from truth spoken to truth lived. It is how words of pain and survival are turned into action and change.
What makes this moment extraordinary is that treaty is not only words on paper. It carries both poetry and power. Its preamble is alive with truth: “The place we now call Victoria holds the oldest living cultures on Earth — a truth that belongs to all Victorians.” These are not ornamental words, but a binding truth: this land was never empty, never ceded, never erased.
From that foundation, treaty builds the architecture of a renewed relationship. It creates Gellung Warl, meaning “tip of the spear” in Wemba Wemba language, a permanent body representing First Peoples, with decision-making power and the authority to negotiate further treaties. Within Gellung Warl, treaty establishes two powerful arms: Nginma Ngainga Wara, meaning “the voice that holds to account,” an accountability body to monitor government action and dismantle institutional racism, and Nyerna Yoorrook Telkuna, meaning “to keep speaking truth” in Wemba Wemba language, a permanent truth-telling mechanism to continue gathering testimony and building the public record. Together, they ensure that truth and accountability are not one-off gestures but enduring commitments.
What is written in the pages of the Treaty, also reaches into daily life. It plants truth-telling as a seed in the school curriculum, so that every Victorian child grows up learning not only the familiar stories of Gallipoli, Ned Kelly and Federation, but also the deeper stories of invasion, resistance, and survival that give this place its pulse. It seeks no new heroes only the realisation that simply escorting a grandchild through a school gate can be a monumental act.
It creates a First Peoples’ Infrastructure Fund to strengthen community-controlled organisations and transfers cultural programs and events, from the Aboriginal Honour Roll to NAIDOC Week funding, into the hands of First Peoples themselves. It enshrines the use of traditional place names, placing language back on the maps instead of the rusty signs that adorn the boundary lines of towns with Aboriginal place names. It places ancient languages into the oral traditions of all who live here.
These are not symbolic acts. They are structural. They represent power, resources, and authority being shifted, at last, into First Peoples’ hands at the dtetriment of no-one.
It is impossible to mark this moment without recalling the ugliness we have seen in recent times. Only months ago, at the Shrine of Remembrance, as Bunurong Elder Uncle Mark Brown delivered a Welcome to Country, his words were drowned out by boos from neo-Nazis, emboldened by years of dog-whistling and division. That spectacle of hate was a reminder of how far this nation still has to travel, and of how easily bigotry can find a stage.
But this week stands as the answer to that hate. Where those voices shout “we don’t need to be welcomed to our own country,” treaty says, we all belong here, but belonging comes with reckoning. Where bigotry seeks to erase, treaty commits to remember. Where neo-Nazis want to drag us backwards into fear and exclusion, treaty pulls us forward into honesty, inclusion, and shared justice. One humanity.
This is what makes the moment so profound. At the very time some attempt to sow division, First Peoples have shown the leadership required to heal it. Where others shout down ceremony, we build institutions. Where others revel in ignorance, we embed truth in schools and discourse. Where others cling to fear, we together offer hope.
If Australia is searching for answers to the question of how to improve outcomes for First Peoples, those answers are already here, woven into this treaty itself. They are carried through our voices and leadership, but they are also offered as an open, generous path for all Victorians to walk together. There is no ‘commercial in confidence’ here , t is all there in black and white, a living, breathing document for everyone to see themselves in, to contribute to, and to help shape.
It’s not an olive branch, it’s a bridge.
This treaty is not the end of the story but the beginning of a new era, a foundation strong enough to carry more weight, more truth and more justice as the years unfold, and a moment to pause and recognise the extraordinary step taken.
How important this moment proves to be will be determined by what happens next. It may prove to be the turning point for the nation as a whole, it might not, but either way treaty is happening in Victoria.
As a state we face many challenges, but among the most urgent is the rising tide of violence carried out by young people against their peers. It seems to me there are sections of the community caught between worlds, struggling to find acceptance anywhere, with no safe harbour to turn to. Treaty offers an opportunity for everyone to find connection and love for this place.
It is yours as much as it is ours, and perhaps finding this place will help those stranded in the shade of someone else's world, find themselves. First Nations people have shown the way on this, and stand ready to help in a mutually beneficial way. It’s not hyperbole.
So many times, so often we have been told to “get over it.”, like what happened here is like getting over a bout of the flu. That what is in the past is best left in the past, as though what has happened is of no consequence.
This is us getting over it.
This treaty illuminates the way ahead. Not through denial or silence, but through listening, respect and self‑determination. It shows that moving forward means facing history rather than burying it, celebrating culture rather than erasing it, embracing one another rather than excluding.
If embraced, it is the same spirit that can instruct us through the challenges of today. From youth violence, to care for land and water, to social disconnection; by offering every Victorian a sense of belonging, a place to stand, and a future to claim.
A new line, a new path. Born in the old world but belonging to the new..
Thanks Daniel. Such a great overview.