Jacinta Price points out red flags in treaty discussions after media banned from private forum in Victoria

Patrick Stavely I 9 September 2024 I Sky News I 2 min read

A 'Talking Treaty' panel discussion event, which was publicly-funded, was held by The First People's Assembly in Victoria on Sunday with media banned from entering.

Senator Price said the secrecy and lack of transparency was the "first red flag" about how the treaty process is being undertaken nationwide.

WATCH VIDEO HERE

She also took aim at the First People's Assembly, accusing it of not being a legitimate representative body of Indigenous Australians as it only had a 10 per cent voter turnout to elect its members.

"It's really deeply concerning stuff. And especially when you've got a body that's claiming to be a representative body with such a low voter turnout. You know, it's like what's under way in South Australia at the moment with their legislated Voice, again, 10% voter turnout. Where's that going to go to?" she told Sky News host Peta Credlin.

Credlin suggested despite the low attendance at the forum, positive feedback reported from the event would be enough for it to be put through state parliament.

"Don't let the media in, be able to say as they will after that meeting, 'everyone was in support of it', push it through the Parliament. You'll get it through the Victorian Parliament," she said.

"And then the Prime Minister will be compelled, once there's a number of states with the treaty, to say, 'well if all the states have got a treaty, we really need one at a national level'".

"He won't put that to a referendum. And all of a sudden we'll be where we voted. We didn't want to go this time last year."

The shadow minister for Indigenous Australians agreed, claiming the Albanese government was waiting for states to conduct their own treaty processes before being established at a federal level.

"You can't suggest, that with these sort of shady closed door events, and this inability to provide transparency, that this is actually going to be a true, democratic process, that heads toward legislation in this legislation process," she said.

"But, you know, we all know that Mr Albanese is sitting in the background waiting for all these states to conduct their treaty processes and then ram it on through, and Australians should be very concerned. This is going to affect every single one of us.

"But we know that there's governance issues, accountability issues with many organisations. Why would we want to extend that further through this process?"

Despite pledging his commitment to the Uluru Statement from the Heart following his election victory in 2022, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was recently coy about discussing treaty and truth-telling?

During an interview with ABC's Insiders on the sidelines of the Garma Festival, Mr Albanese appeared to backflip on his government's commitment to establishing a Makarrata Commission.

The Prime Minister's lack of noise on the Uluru Statement led Credlin at the time to declare it a "con", claiming Mr Albanese could not be trusted "when it comes to voice, treaty and truth".

Author: Patrick Stavely