Inquiries Amendment (Yoorrook Justice Commission Records and Other Matters) Bill 2024

18th of February 2025, 4:09 pm
Parliament of Victoria | Legislative Council

David ETTERSHANK (Western Metropolitan):

Legalise Cannabis Victoria supports this bill. The bill is seeking minor amendments to the Inquiries Act 2014 and the Public Records Act 1973 to enable the Yoorrook Justice Commission to make orders to close or restrict access to certain records once the commission delivers its final report and wraps up. It is very simple. When a royal commission ceases to exist, all of its records are transferred to the Department of Premier and Cabinet unless the Premier, by instrument, determines that they are to be transferred to another public office. Legislation already exists to protect the personal or private information of records of evidence provided to a commission. The Minister for Government Services has the power to declare records to be closed, and under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 certain documents that may disclose someone’s personal affairs can also be exempted from public access. These protections apply to evidence given to Yoorrook by non-Aboriginal witnesses. The only difference with Aboriginal witnesses is that rather than the minister having powers to close records, it gives the commission that power. It enables the author to retain full access to their records and provides for further instructions on the author’s death. This is a minor and fairly straightforward change, and it was a necessary condition for many of the Aboriginal people who gave evidence to be able to come forward and share their truths at the Yoorrook Justice Commission hearings.

I cannot see what the issue is. I reviewed the contributions from the opposition in the other place, and anyone would think that this minor change is going to cleave the state asunder. They say it is divisive and discriminatory – that it is one law for us and another law for them. What palaver. The bill is not talking about creating two laws. It is a small change within one law. There is nothing controversial in saying that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have had a very different experience of living in this country to non-Indigenous people.

I do not need to catalogue the injustices and disadvantages that our First Peoples have experienced. One need only look at the evidence gathered at the Yoorrook hearings, not to mention the host of other royal commissions, inquiries, coroners findings, statistics and the evidence of our own eyes to appreciate the many harms our First People have suffered since European settlement and the specific ongoing traumas associated with colonisation that non-Indigenous people have never had to experience.

Historically, there have been many barriers to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people being able to tell their stories. This is a fact. The protections afforded by these amendments are a recognition of that fact. Aboriginal Victorians appearing before Yoorrook have rightly sought certain protections in order to tell their stories. In the past they have not been afforded these safeguards. Their stories have been misused or misrepresented or, all too often, simply disregarded. And the laws and customs of our First Peoples have not been considered much in the creation of the laws that govern this state.

I believe that this bill is a very small way that we can begin to redress that imbalance. As I mentioned, I spent a bit of time familiarising myself with the opposition’s contributions to this bill, and at best, their indignation about the division that this bill creates is I think a laughable notion, suggesting that it discriminates against and disadvantages non-Indigenous Victorians. Such an assertion is disingenuous at best.

Interestingly, though, I also did a bit of digging in Hansard on the introduction of the treaty process and the First Peoples’ Assembly. Those opposite opposed advancing the treaty process with Aboriginal Victorians back in 2018. They were very nervous about the whole idea, but in due course the opposition noticed that the state had not collapsed as a result of the First Peoples’ Assembly, an independent body operating within the Parliament. Certainly a few years down the track they were far more on board and expressed their support of the idea. I can even quote the honourable member for Northern Victoria, Ms Lovell, who stated:

The Liberals and The Nationals have publicly committed to working with Aboriginal Victorians to advance the treaty process in a way that supports self-determination and reconciliation while strengthening community and connection to country.

It was admirable, wasn’t it, to say that? I guess the question that then arises is: what could have possibly happened to now give the opposition the jitters and make them walk back from that commitment made only three years ago? The cynic in me believes that it perhaps has something to do with the results of the referendum, when their federal leadership successfully turned a 69 per cent approval of an amendment to the constitution to establish an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice in the federal Parliament to a resounding no vote. Methinks the state opposition may have come to some realisation that stoking division and pandering to bigotry could be a vote winner – the old ‘Divide and rule.’ We have had a royal commission to investigate historical and ongoing injustices experienced by First Peoples in Victoria. We have had a First Peoples’ Assembly in operation for nine years now. We have been in the process of negotiating a treaty with our First Peoples since 2016. The state is still standing.

The arguments being advanced against this bill are, I fear, no more than fearmongering. Many non-Indigenous people submitted their views to the commission and requested that their submissions be private, and their wishes must be respected. A royal commission made up of Aboriginal people has been investigating systemic injustices against their people and has asked First Nations people to contribute to truth-telling, and it has asked for this small change in order to facilitate that truth-telling process. So what is the big deal? This is a small but important change and should be supported for the sake of those witnesses who bravely came forward and shared their experiences. Legalise Cannabis Victoria supports the bill and commends it to the house.

[Council divided on the bill]

[Bill passed 21-14]