Waitangi 2026: Australia signs first treaty with indigenous people – how Māori helped

“It’s been an incredible journey to get to where we are. We come from a strong history of activism and fighting for rights and justice as the First Peoples of the land in Victoria,” she tells the Herald.

Murray (Wamba Wamba, Yorta Yorta, Dja Dja Wurrung and Dhudhuroa) is co-chair of the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria.

Australia’s first ever treaty has been signed between First Peoples of Victoria and the state Government. Photo / Leroy Miller: First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria

“It’s really exciting. I think of my own kids and the future they will now inherit.”

Perhaps one of the most emotional moments of the treaty journey was watching Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan complete for the first time a cultural assent – an Aboriginal practice finalising a deed by making a painted handprint on a kangaroo skin.

New Zealand examples helped form Victoria’s treaty. A group of Māori consultants from Te Amokura Consultants, including former Labour deputy leader and minister Kelvin Davis, were enlisted to support Murray’s team in forming and negotiating their treaty.

Former Labour deputy leader Kelvin Davis reading his valedictory speech before exiting Parliament in 2024. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Davis took Murray and a delegation on a tour around New Zealand, visiting significant sites, Māori immersion schools and iwi such as Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, who have built billion-dollar asset empires, to get an idea of what’s possible with a formal commitment with the state.

But she also got a glimpse of the chasms in the relationship between Māori and the Government when she visited Waitangi: protestors chanted and held flags representing Māori sovereignty as Parliamentarians walked onto the marae (ake, ake, ake!).

Australia’s first treaty has been signed between First Peoples of Victoria and the state Government. Photo / Leroy Miller: First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria

Spectators heckled when Government ministers spoke about the Treaty (“Honour the Treaty or you are trespassed!”) and activists marched 200km to the Treaty grounds protesting Government policy.

“After all these years, we’re still fighting to address the rights of our children and grandchildren,” hīkoi organiser Rueben Taipari said.

The Victorian treaty places obligations on the state government, including requirements to speak with the First Peoples Assembly of Victoria (representing the state’s 38 traditional owner groups) before making rules, laws or forming policies affecting them.

The hīkoi Mana Mokopuna arrives at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds. Photo / Jason Dorday

A new Outcomes and Justice Commission (called Nginma Ngainga Wara) will hold the Government accountable through public hearings, and the Victorian school curriculum will have a greater focus on the country’s history and the value of a treaty.

Education and understanding Australia’s past was the key to a more unified future, Murray said. For the first time, Australia’s injustices against First Peoples were investigated in a landmark, four-year inquiry by the Truth-Telling Yoorrook Justice Commission.

It found the inequities faced by First Peoples in Victoria today stemmed directly from colonisation. This included overrepresentation in the justice and child protection systems and inequitable outcomes in health, housing, employment, education, economic and political life.

Australia’s first treaty has been signed between First Peoples of Victoria and the state Government. Photo / Leroy Miller: First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria

“Following invasion, successive colonial and Victorian governments have enacted laws, adopted policies and engaged in practices that dispossessed and removed First Peoples from their lands and waters and denied equitable access to social services and resources,” the commission said.

The taking of land and resources was violent, the commission continued, as First Peoples were displaced and massacred by European settlers in the pursuit of land and waters.

Despite this, the First Peoples of Victoria demonstrated “remarkable resilience” in maintaining their identity and their connections with each other and their land.

“For time immemorial, Victorian First Peoples have practised their lore and law, cared for their communities, families and children, and nurtured Country through their spiritual, cultural, material and economic connections to land, water and resources.

“First Peoples have demonstrated that with secure access to their lands, waters and resources, they are better able to provide for the social, economic and cultural needs of their community than government or industry.”

Assembly Co-chair and Wamba Wamba, Yorta Yorta, Dja Dja Wurrung and Dhudhuroa woman Ngarra Murray. Photo / Leroy Miller: First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria

In a formal apology – prompted by the treaty negotiations – Allan said the treaty marked a “new era” and the commission’s inquiry allowed for a “shared future built in full view of the past with knowledge that many of us did not know about the true extent of this harm”.

“Now that we have a statewide treaty — a negotiated agreement between equals — we can begin to say what should have been said long ago,” Allan said, adding:

For the laws, the policies and the decisions of this Parliament and those that came before it — laws that took land, removed children, broke families and tried to erase culture — we say sorry.

For the tears shed in the dark, for the silence that shadowed their years, and for the childhood taken, never to return — for the Stolen Generations — we say sorry.

For the violence committed under the banner of the State, and the colony that came before it, and for the neglect that allowed it to continue without consequence — we say sorry.

For the wealth built on lands and waters taken without consent, while First Peoples were locked out of the prosperity it created — we say sorry.

For the silencing of language, and the erasure of words that carried knowledge older than the state itself — we say sorry.

For the forced removal of families to missions and reserves, where culture was controlled, movement restricted and identity denied — we say sorry.

For the policies that stripped First Peoples of the right to move freely, to marry without permission, to work for fair wages, or to live with dignity on their own land — we say sorry.

For the laws and policies which removed First Peoples from their lands and allowed the sale of sacred sites without consent — we say sorry.

For the laws that filled institutions disproportionately with First Peoples and made this seem ordinary – we say sorry.

Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism.