Voice Treaty Truth

2026 Reflections

ANTaR Qld upholds the goal of full recognition, genuine self-determination, co-existent sovereignty, justice and human rights for Australia’s First Peoples. We continue to work to give life to these goals and to deepen understanding of them, including our own understanding and we believe that a country that truly embraces First Peoples and their rich history will be freer, more humane, more mature, more resilient and stronger for it.

The Uluru Statement and its call for Voice, Treaty and Truth offers a powerful and moving articulation of these goals. There will be different ways of working to give life to them.

Closure of the Truth Telling and Healing Inquiry

The State Government closed the Truth Telling and Healing Inquiry as one of its first acts upon achieving office in 2024. The Inquiry ceased upon the repeal of the Path to Treaty Act 2023 on 29 November 2024. Documents are stored at the Queensland State Archives.

Closure of the Inquiry, and of the Path to Treaty, generated deep grief across many First Nations communities as well as among many other Queenslanders who were hoping for a genuine, more accurate grasp of our actual history and a path to healing for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and relations among us all.

The loss of the Inquiry and the Path to Treaty does not mean there is nothing to be done. It has only highlighted the vital importance of ongoing work within the community arena and in support of human rights mechanisms and alternative efforts by First Nations communities and groups to establish or strengthen self-determining community governance.  The national sphere also remains fundamental.

Truth Telling

Truth-telling – or more importantly for most of us, truth-listening – is fundamental to what we do. See  https://antar.org.au/blog/truth-listening-readying-australia-for-truth/

ANTaR Qld tries to share information and understanding of our shared history in Queensland, of the current circumstances and structural violence faced by First Nations peoples and of what it means to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples who have never ceded sovereignty.

We also seek to celebrate the richness and depth of First Nations’ knowledge and culture and their more than 60 thousand years of care for this land and for each other.

ANTaR Qld holds events supporting truth-telling and greater understanding of our shared history. For example, a panel of Elders talking about the meaning and effect, and their experience, of the Boundary Streets around the city, will be held at the Museum of Brisbane later this year.

We are working with the Australian Catholic University to help the effort of inspiring young student teachers to embed Indigenous perspectives into their teaching when they are out in the classroom. While embedding Indigenous perspectives has been Federal Government policy for many years, many teachers still feel not confident enough (and too over-loaded) to undertake this fundamentally important task. This is a long-term effort to help build confidence and inspiration.

We also support truth-telling events put on around the Greater Brisbane area, such as the monthly events at Mitchelton Library. See our coming events calendar for information.

FAMILY HISTORY!

Are you interested in exploring your family history and contextualising it within First Nations history? This is work that non-Indigenous people can and need to do without relying on First Peoples to do all the heavy lifting on Truth-telling.

ANTaR Qld (and Queensland Historical Society) member Julie Conway has thrown herself into researching her own family history. With all of that history based in Queensland from the 1860s, Julie feels this is a pressing need, especially after the State’s Voice referendum result and the closure of the Qld Truth Telling Inquiry.

Julie wants to connect with others interested in contextualising their family histories within First People’s histories. Please contact Julie via office@antarqld.org.au

Brooching the Subject: craftivism in support for the Uluru Statement from the Heart

Julie is also a craftivist! Art and craft can be a non-confrontational, gentle way of talking together – one that encourages curiousity and exchange rather than fixed opinions.

Current day craftivists such as Betty Greer and Sarah Corbett highlight its value as a gentle form of protest which can invite dialogue while also taking care of and empowering activists themselves. They suggest making things by hand enhances healing and wellbeing and reminds people of their power.

My current craftivist project- Brooching the Subject – began during the Yes 23 campaign, when gifting hand embroidered felt brooches of Uluru for family and friends was initially a way of letting my network know I was active in the campaign. It just snowballed from there. People who saw the brooches wanted more for people they knew. I stitched along with SA Embroiderers Guild members for their World Embroidery Day public event which led to discussions with members of the Guild as well as passersby.

Compared to my experience doorknocking, this was a much better way of engaging – getting alongside and talking quietly with people. Kristie Parker, now co-chair of Reconciliation Australia, also demonstrated the potential of craftivism as part of her own campaign communication, creating a tiktok about receiving her Uluru brooch.

After the referendum result, I have been repurposing Yes badges to help ‘brooch the subject’ of the entirety of the Uluru Statement from the Heart: Voice, Truth Telling and Treaty. I am happy to support others making their own Uluru brooches either in a workshop situation or by sharing my instructions, so they can ‘brooch the subject’ in their own networks. In 2025, I helped Toowoomba First Nations Allies (TFNA) with two workshops which were really enjoyable as well as a fundraiser for a local youth project.  Contact: Julie Conway via office@antarqld.org.au

Support the Truth Telling and Healing Inquiry [November 2024]

ANTaR Qld and other community groups are writing letters in support of the Truth Telling Inquiry to members of the Queensland Parliament and to candidates for the coming election.

We are also encouraging everyone to contact their friends and acquaintances to send their own individual letters to their local MPs and candidates.

If you are looking for ideas for your letter, here is a copy of the letter we are about to post:

Letter to MPs and Candidates
We are writing as Queensland groups calling on you to ensure that the Truth-Telling and Healing Inquiry can continue for its full term.

After 200 years, First Nations (Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander) people from Queensland are finally able to have their stories formally listened to, witnessed, shared, recognised and validated. They will have the chance to speak about their family’s experiences of colonization and the truth of our shared history.

The Truth-telling and Healing Inquiry has commenced, under legislation passed in 2023 with bipartisan support, taking evidence from people across the State.

Despite multi-party support in 2023, however, the Liberal National Party has stated that it plans to eliminate the Inquiry if it wins government at the state election on 26 October.

This is incredibly disappointing for First Nations’ peoples and for all those in Queensland who understand the importance of knowing our history. We have a rich history that is at times very difficult. Better understanding of our history, in all its aspects, provides a much stronger basis for good government policy and actions in the present and in the future. We cannot move forward together when we don’t know why many things are the way they are.

As the inquiry chair, Mr Joshua Creamer, made clear, the inquiry is not about division, but about bringing people together. The point of coming to terms with our shared history is not to divide us but to move away from destructive cycles of violence and trauma and to live well together. “For generations of people, there’s been a desire to do things differently,” he said. “It would have a significant impact on the community to not let this process occur.”

Mr David Crisafulli has called for Queensland victims of crime to be a priority, not an afterthought. Queensland’s Police Commissioner, Mr Steve Gollschewski, pointed out at a recent Inquiry hearing that in the past police “took actions that we would not tolerate in any shape or form in current society”. We know the importance of recognising the pain, hurt and loss of victims of crime or great injustice, whether that crime or injustice is recent or happened in the often not so distant past. We need to extend this recognition to those First Nations’ members of the community who suffered under previous governments and state-supported institutions.

Truth-telling is a fundamental path to healing and justice for First Nations’ peoples and to moving towards a more unified Queensland community, confident in our own history, present and future. Rejection of the Voice should not be taken to mean that we as Queenslanders do not want and need to know more of our own history.

We call on all Parliamentarians to respect our history and help to heal the pain and injustice born by so many First Nations’ people. In particular, we call on all Parliamentarians to support the fundamentally important work of the Truth-Telling and Healing Inquiry by enabling it to continue fully.

Yours sincerely

………..

Letter to Candidates in PDF