Ed’s
A Letter from the Editor
Anthony Kilner
Indigenous Recognition It’s always an interesting month here at Supernal HQ. This month I met a lovely indigenous lady by the name of Carissa Watts. Carissa features in our main story about music, culture and indigenous education and our discussion was simply amazing. Carissa is a proud woman and proud of her heritage as a Yorta Yorta, Dja Dja Wurrung woman living on the Mornington Peninsula in Boonwurrung Country. I also put feelers out for other indigenous people to have a voice about Treaty and other topics. We received a link to a very straight to the point discussion paper written by Dr Wayne Atkinson, Yorta Yorta Elder and Senior Fellow, School of Social and Political Science, University of Melbourne about Victorian Treaty.
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Supernal Magazine
Letter
This paper called Treaty Now is an eye-opener in explaining the whole treaty process in detail. At the end of the document there is an extensive bibliography and links section, which will help facilitate any reader wanting to delve in and research the understanding of the treaty process and why it’s so important to do so. The quoted paragraphs below offer an insight into how this Treaty process was started. I would ask that if you are keen, follow the link supplied by Dr Atkinson. Victoria’s Treaty legislation arose out of a community forum hosted by the Office of Aboriginal Affairs (AAV) in Melbourne in 2016. It was at this meeting that some 500 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people unanimously voted against constitutional recognition and the Recognise campaign, arguing instead for a Treaty and Self Determination. Some including myself argued for ‘Self Determination’ to be the basis on which the Treaty could be formalised. Another question was whether the Treaty proposal was ‘putting the cart before the horse’ with Self Determination being a fundamental precursor to the process (Wahlquist, 2016; Atkinson, 2018, 2019). It was from the community forum that the Victorian Aboriginal Affairs Minister and Victorian government committed themselves to develop a statewide Treaty process. An Aboriginal Treaty Interim Working Group (Working Group) comprised of representatives from: Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Council, Federation of the Traditional Owner Corporations, and the Koori Youth
