Image: A location has been announced for the first official Victorian Treaty meeting. (AAP)
Victoria's Aboriginal community is bracing for the potential repeal of Australia's first treaty if the Coalition wins office at the state election on November 28.
The Liberal-National opposition led by Jess Wilson has promised to introduce legislation to repeal the treaty within 100 days.
Polls have them on track to defeat Labor after three consecutive terms in office.
Former Treaty Advancement Commissioner Aunty Jill Gallagher said moves to abolish the agreement are motivated by political point scoring.
“If treaty does get repealed, all Australians should be ashamed,” the proud Gunditjmara woman told NITV.
“My personal message to Jess Wilson is: do you want to be the first politician in the world, the first government in the world, if you're successful, to repeal a treaty? Do you want to be known for that?”
The Statewide Treaty Act passed Victoria’s parliament in October 2025 after years of advocacy and negotiations with the state’s First Nations peoples
Before the treaty, Victoria had a truth telling process through the Yoorrook Justice Commission, and a democratically elected Indigenous representative body through the First People’s Assembly.
When the treaty act passed, it established a permanent, representative body known as Gellung Warl, which is Gunaikurnai for ‘tip of the spear’.
Gellung Warl is made up of three parts:
The statewide treaty also created a framework for Traditional Owners to enter into local treaties with the state government regarding their Country.
Representatives of Gellung Warl declined NITV's request for an interview.
Aunty Jill said it would be "devastating" to see the treaty framework overturned within 12 months of being put in place, arguing it offers empowerment, accountability and a fresh approach.
“Hope is a powerful medicine,” she said.
“If Jess Wilson's plan is to set up another Aboriginal advisory committee, it's not going to work.”
“Gellung Warl has some standing in parliament ... and that comes back to that accountability.”
Eddie Synot, a Wamba Wamba man and Former Senior Engagement Officer in the Uluru Dialogue, agreed Gellung Warl should be given the time and resources it needs to drive change.
“What we do know from Victoria and from across the country is that the status quo approach to Indigenous affairs doesn't work and we need to do things differently,” said the public lawyer, researcher and lecturer at Griffith University.
“I do believe, given the time and the space and the resources, having that First Nation representative voice there, having the other infrastructure around it to be able to enter into the individual treaties for these separate nations, will make a material difference.”
Mr Synot said that, despite some attempts to build in safeguards, state-based treaties are inherently vulnerable to being abolished when there's a change of government.
“In Victoria, it will require numbers in both the upper and the lower house, but really, it is as simple as passing legislation through parliament and removing it,” he said.
The surge in support for One Nation has turned Victoria’s election into a three-cornered race, meaning there’s less precedent to predict the final outcome, but it will be a tough fight for Labor.
The ageing government recently ousted its leader in the face of criticism over perceived failures to clamp down on alleged corruption in public infrastructure projects, and ballooning state debt.
The opposition has framed its pledge to scrap the treaty around cost, based on modelling by the Parliamentary Budget Office that found it would save almost a billion dollars over ten years.
"Victorians expect money invested in Aboriginal Victorians to deliver real outcomes,” said Shadow Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Melina Bath, back in May.
“Treaty is not how we do that and its extraordinary cost to taxpayers simply cannot be justified."
Melina Bath did not respond to requests for an interview on the Coalition's policies.
Advocates argue there are also costs to pursuing a new process after years of consultation and work, with Eddie Synot suggesting “turning the relationship on its head yet again” will damage trust.
“[Uluru Dialogue] Co-Chair Auntie Pat Anderson spoke about this a lot during the referendum where after each election or after each policy started when something changes, everyone packs their bags up again and flies off to Canberra and has to go through the process again of briefing and being told what the agenda is and nothing in reality changes on the ground for our communities,” he said.
“I don't think the Victorian Aboriginal community is going to be quiet about that either.”
The Aboriginal community has been organising to try and protect Victoria’s treaty, including a campaign from the Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation, where Aunty Jill is the CEO.
“I'm picking up that it's just lack of understanding,” she said.
Under the banner Together for Treaty, advocacy organisation Common Threads has also been running a doorknocking campaign, and launched a petition to opposition leader Jess Wilson which has attracted more than 10,000 signatures.
Common Threads CEO Larissa Baldwin-Roberts said more than 10,000 people are involved in the campaign, with 3,000 Victorians trained to have conversations, as Together for Treaty targets leafy liberal-held seats, including Jess Wilson’s own.
She says polling by Common Thread contradicts the idea that abolishing treaty is a vote winner, and the Together for Treaty campaign is prepared to gear up and continue beyond the November 28 election.
"People are very opposed to governments just coming in and ripping up things that are working because people see that as wastage," the proud Widjabul Wiabal/Bundjalung woman said.
"So to have an opposition that's running on a platform of getting rid of waste and then to do the things that Australians perceive as wastage is not going to help Jess Wilson in her hundred days."
Senator for Victoria Lidia Thorpe said while treaty appears to be “on its last leg”, abolishing it would be “another kick in the teeth” for mob, despite having criticised elements of the model pursued in Victoria.
“It seemed like a bit of a Labor show … which ultimately has been the demise because the Libs don't want to touch it,” she said.
The Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurring woman was involved in early aspects of the treaty as a state Greens MP, but subsequently expressed concern that not all Aboriginal groups within Victoria were fully represented.
However, she said there had been progress towards greater inclusion, and urged mob in Victoria to continue conversations at the grassroots level, among nations and clans, adding her criticisms of the process were not directed at the Aboriginal people who have been involved in developing treaty.
She said if treaty is repealed, Aboriginal Victorians need to return to grassroots action.
“Take it to the streets. We still want land rights. We still want to assert our rights as first peoples in this country. We want to end deaths in custody, child removal, suicide, destruction of Country, destruction of water, and we need to be organised to do that.”
