After seven years, millions of dollars and thousands of kilometres of travel, the Northern Territory Government has officially ended the process of forging a treaty in the NT. Source: ABC News.
Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro said the new Country Liberal Party Government was no longer pursuing plans for a treaty with Aboriginal people, which Territory Labor began in 2018.
“We’ve never supported a treaty, so that’s all been dismantled under our Government,” she said in an interview with Stateline NT.
“Our focus is on local government reform — we’ve always been clear about that.”
In a further statement, Aboriginal Affairs Minister Steve Edgington confirmed that the former treaty commissioner Tony McAvoy’s treaty recommendations would be shelved.
“There is no funding allocated and there are no plans for the recommendations from the former treaty commissioner’s report to be implemented,” Mr Edgington said.
While exactly how much funding was spent on the treaty process over the past seven years remains unclear, the costs of setting up a treaty commission and treaty office cost millions.
“Under the former Labor government, territory taxpayers forked out $5.3 million for the Treaty Commission/Treaty Office between 2018-19 and 2023-24,” Mr Edgington said.
Consultations alone cost around $4 million, and included thousands of kilometres of travel by staff of the former Treaty Commission to various Aboriginal communities across the NT.
Opposition Leader Selena Uibo, a former treaty minister under the former Labor government, said the abandonment of treaty ignored 30 years of advocacy in the NT.
“It’s extremely disappointing, but unfortunately not a surprise, that the CLP Government has completely scrapped any commitment to Territorians around a treaty process,” she said.
“I know that, particularly in parts of my electorate of Arnhem, that treaty is a constant conversation … and now we have the CLP Government who has closed up all ears, all mind, all heart, about what treaty could look like in the territory.”
Arnhem Land independent politician Yiŋiya Guyula, a long-term advocate for treaty in the NT and Yolŋu traditional owner, described the CLP’s decision as “saddening” and “ignorant”.
FULL STORY
NT CLP government ‘dismantles’ treaty plans, ending seven-year process (By Matt Garrick, ABC News)
